The pros and cons of working from home

Guests:  Raymond Fisman and Jennifer Glass

Like many technology companies, Yahoo had a corporate culture that encouraged employees to work remotely providing them with flexible work hours and less time spent commuting.  All that will come to an end in June thanks to a new requirement announced by chief executive officer Marissa Mayer that all employees must work at the Yahoo office rather than their home or even local coffee shop.   The change in policy set off a firestorm internally and across the nation particularly among men and women with children who have come to see telecommuting as a way to balance the complex and often conflicting demands of work and home.  Some employers, on the other hand, have praised Yahoo’s changes citing reduced productivity and lack of collaboration among employees who telecommute.  In this hour of Radio Times we’ll talk about the pros and cons of telecommuting, when it works and doesn’t and how workplaces are changing to accommodate it.  Our guests are two professors who study the world of work — RAYMOND FISMAN of Columbia Business School and JENNIFER GLASS of University of Texas-Austin.