Wake up daily to our latest coverage of business done better, directly in your inbox.
Get your weekly dose of analysis on rising corporate activism.
The best of solutions journalism in the sustainability space, published monthly.
Select Newsletter
By signing up you agree to our privacy policy. You can opt out anytime.
Productivity or Innovation?
Yahoo’s leaked memo to employees eliminating the option to work at home has stirred a great deal of controversy. It appears to move counter to corporate trends around flex working (Vodafone is a good example) and against research showing greater productivity for companies allowing for such flexibility.
So, what’s the deal Marissa?
Perhaps, Marissa, Yahoo’s new CEO, isn’t worried so much about productivity. To keep Yahoo afloat and competitive, what she needs is big ideas, better products and services and potentially a new and disruptive business model. What she needs is innovation.
And it seems that productivity and innovation may not always go hand-in-hand. A New York Times article this week discusses the trade-off; working from home tends to increase productivity, but doesn’t generate innovation. People get a lot done when they are in an environment without distractions like impromptu meetings and co-workers chatting. However, innovation tends to thrive on interaction; exposure to varying viewpoints, experiences, and environments.
As part of an industry that revolves around problem solving and creativity, interaction is critical at Saatchi & Saatchi S. Our most creative, innovative ideas tend to spring from brainstorms, conversations in the kitchen, or over lunch with a co-worker at the nearby Slow Club. Yet, it’s not the being-in-the-office part that provides inspiration --it’s often our interactions outside our walls that we then bring into those meetings. For us, it’s attending conferences like Sustainable Brands, hosting I-Minds where we invite big thinkers in for a conversation, or visiting Recology, San Francisco’s waste management company to better understand how to manage and reduce waste.
If innovation is the goal, sitting in your cube or office may not get you there. It often takes ideas and examples from the outside to get folks to think differently on the inside. So, the ideal approach to work flex policies is likely not so absolute as work at home or don’t. Depending on your needs – productivity or innovation – you may want a combination of both. Or even a third option --work from somewhere else. Go learn about something or someone else and then come back and talk about it. Hmmm…I wonder what that memo would look like.
