雅虎“坐班”新政：大胆有余，沟通不足

    去年夏天，已有6个月身孕的玛丽莎•梅耶尔接任了雅虎（Yahoo）首席执行官一职，令世界为之一震。

    随后，她因为在这个昏昏欲睡的科技巨头内部发起了文化大革命而成为焦点。比如，免费提供智能手机的福利，再比如她所谓的PB&J计划，来唤醒创新。

    如今，梅耶尔因为要求员工在办公室工作、而不是在家工作的决定登上了《纽约时报》（New York Times）（版面显要位置，不含糊）的头版。我们不禁要问：这位美 国最年轻的财富500强公司首席执行官和最知名的职场母亲开始走下坡路了吗？

    尽管社交媒体上各种评论满天飞【一则Tweet上说是“回归石器时代”，而《每日野兽》（Daily Beast）总编缇娜•布朗在Twitter上则表态：“为玛丽莎•梅耶尔加油 ……只要奏效，就不怕复古”】。然而，我的观点是：就其极端的措施和严格的实施标准而言，新的人事政策令人吃惊。我对梅耶尔的整个谷歌（Google）职业生涯都十分了解， 并与她就任雅虎首席执行官后所接受的第一次采访中进行过交谈。

    主要问题在于如何与员工沟通实施这个新的规定。由梅耶尔聘任、负责监管业务发展、并购和人事的执行副总裁杰基•雷瑟斯向员工发送了一份事先准备好的电子邮件 。然而，这封邮件遭到了全体员工的谴责，因此也难逃泄漏的命运。如果梅耶尔能公开地、更加委婉地宣布这项政策——即面对面的合作能激励创新，而且创新正是雅虎最为需要 的救星——她就不会引发这场轩然大波。

    梅耶尔和雷瑟尔都不愿谈及人事政策或由此引发的争议。要说他们表过态，可能也只会通过实践来表达，即，新的规定并不像雷瑟尔邮件中所说的那样严厉。雅虎经理 们目前已经开始为不适用“坐班”规定的特殊情况奔走呼号。梅耶尔经常把她5个月大的儿子莫卡利斯特带到办公室，她可能会对这些特例网开一面，但同时也会对它们格外慎重。 雅虎员工们禁不住要想：她怎么划分两者之间的界限？

    例如，雅虎新闻部的记者们和博客作者们又该如何对待？因为他们大部分的时间都花在了路上。如果梅耶尔要求他们在公司办公，那么梅耶尔就会被冠以短视的罪名。 而且如果她禁止雅虎“收购过来的员工”——即小型创业公司的员工，梅耶尔购买这些公司主要是为了升级内部工程人才——随意选择上班地点，那么可能会引发被收购公司的反 感。

    毫无疑问，雅虎的新政策与梅耶尔的长期管理哲学是吻合的。她一直在努力拉近员工之间的距离——例如在家中为不同级别的谷歌工作人员开舞会，她带领年轻的谷歌 产品经理赴世界各地旅行，以及她每周在雅虎召开的FYI会议。我听说，37岁的梅耶尔常常都是周五全体人员集会最后离开的人。

    你可以把雅虎极具争议的新人事政策当作是一次大胆的举动，并展现了女老板惊人的强硬态度——而这位女掌门人在上任之后使公司的股价上升了30多个百分点。

    她将仔细审视这一宏大人事的实验过程——而且，我们希望，她在一年之后能对外公布结果，以便美国公司能学习这一案例。

    与此同时，我们不禁注意到，梅耶尔和曾是梅耶尔谷歌同事的Facebook首席运营官雪莉•桑德伯格都在大张旗鼓地呼吁拉近人们在现实中的距离。为了宣传她即将在3月 份面世的新书《向前一步》（Lean In），桑德伯格号召全球女性形成“互依”团体，探讨自己的职业。

    很明显，对于硅谷这两位最有权力的女性来说，光有虚拟世界是不够的。（财富中文网）

    Marissa Mayer made a global splash last summer for landing the Yahoo (YHOO) CEO job while six months pregnant.

    Then she grabbed the spotlight for starting a cultural revolution at the dozing tech giant—using perks like free smartphones and her so-called PB&J initiative to un-stick innovation.

    Today, with Mayer making the front page of the New York Times (above the fold, no less) for her decision to require employees to work in the office rather than at home, we wonder: Has America's youngest Fortune 500 CEO and most famous working mom jumped the shark?

    While opinions fly every which way across social media ("Back to the stone age" went one Tweet, while Daily Beast editor-in-chief Tina Brown Tweeted "Cheers for Marissa Mayer…not afraid to be retro when it works"), here's my perspective, knowing Mayer through her Google (GOOG) career and talking with her for her first interview as Yahoo's CEO: The new HR policy is shocking in its extreme measure and harsh delivery.

    The main problem is how the new rule got communicated. EVP Jackie Reses, a Mayer recruit who oversees business development and M&A as well as HR, issued a cut-and-dry email to employees that inevitably leaked and got skewered en masse. Had Mayer announced the policy publicly and more elegantly—noting that in-person collaboration spurs innovation, which is the fix that Yahoo needs most—she could have avoided the brouhaha.

    Neither Mayer nor Reses are willing to talk about the HR policy or the controversy it has ignited. If they did, they might reveal that in practice, the new rule is not as Draconian as Reses' email implies. Yahoo managers are already starting to advocate for exceptions to the no-work-at-home dictum. Mayer, who often brings her five-month-old son Macallister to her office, will likely grant exceptions and be very particular about them. Yahoo employees wonder: Where will she draw the line?

    For instance, what happens to Yahoo News reporters and bloggers, who spend the bulk of their time working on the road? Mayer would be short- sighted to require them to work on campus. And if she prohibits Yahoo's "acqui-hires"—employees at tiny startups that Mayer has bought mainly to upgrade the in-house engineering talent—from working wherever they want, those buyouts might sour.

    No doubt, Yahoo's new policy jibes with Mayer's longtime management philosophy. She has always strived to bring employees together—at parties at her home for Googlers at every level, for trips around the world that she led for young Google product managers, and for her weekly FYI meetings at Yahoo. I hear that Mayer, 37, tends to be the last to leave these Friday all-hands gatherings.

    You can chalk Yahoo's controversial new HR policy up to a bold move by a boss who is surprising people with her toughness—and has lifted the company's stock more than 30% since she arrived.

    Knowing Mayer, she will carefully measure the progress of this grand HR experiment--and, we hope, report the results publicly in a year so corporate America can learn from the Yahoo case study.

    Meanwhile, we can't help but notice the irony in both Mayer and Facebook (FB) COO Sheryl Sandberg, who was once her colleague at Google, waging campaigns for people to come together physically. To promote Lean In, her book that hits the market in March, Sandberg calls for women across the universe to convene "Lean In" circles and talk about their careers.

    Obviously, for the two Most Powerful Women in Silicon Valley, virtual is not good enough.