The CEO of Bank of America is a man.
The CEO of Yahoo is a woman.
That’s the only reason I can find for why the media went crazy this week over Yahoo’s top dog Marissa Mayer deciding to cut telecommuting for her employees; but barely covered Bank of America’s CEO Brian T. Moynihan doing something similar.
Yes, you didn’t hear that in the mass media this week. There actually was another company — Bank of America — that did this and made it public, and that company has way more employees than Yahoo, about 300,000, compared to Yahoo’s 11,000 or so.
I wrote about it for Families and Work Institute late last year, and I was sort of surprised back then that few reporters, beyond local media in North Carolina where the mega bank is based, gave it any ink.
This from the Winston-Salem Journal in December:
Bank of America is preparing to add more restrictions to its popular work-from-home program, meaning more employees across the company will be sent back to the office more often.
The program, known as “My Work,” had grown significantly since it was introduced in 2005 and was widely touted as a cost-saver. It also has proved popular with employees who say it saves on commuting costs and helps them balance work and family.
In addition to scaling back telecommuting, Bank of America also announced they were shuttering their child care centers. Where was all the outrage hurled at Bank of America’s CEO?
I know, people expect a female leader to get the whole work-life thing. But maybe it’s time we accepted that women won’t lead a certain way just because they’re women.
That’s probably what’s held women back from leadership.
February 26th, 2013 at 8:40 pm
but did BOA eliminate telecommuting outright (except when you need to wait for the cable guy, which is apparently the only allowable work-from-home situation now at yahoo) or just add new restrictions? It’s a matter of scale, I think.
February 26th, 2013 at 8:50 pm
From the article about BOA: “Now the bank has asked department managers to determine which job categories would better serve the bank by having workers come into the office, a bank spokeswoman said.” This is a more moderate approach — an evaluation of what works and what doesn’t. I think we all agree that not all jobs are well-suited for telecommuting, and from time to time, a company may need to re-evaluate what’s effective. But many jobs are ideal for telecommuting, which is why the complete elimination of work-at-home arrangements at Yahoo makes little sense. And issuing blanket edicts is the kind of management that makes me crazy. One person wears an inappropriate tank top to work so instead of dealing with that person directly (which makes us uncomfortable), let’s re-do the dress code to make all sleeveless tops “illegal.” One person comes late to work every day, so let’s send an e-mail to all the staff to remind them when the work say is supposed to start…etc.
February 26th, 2013 at 9:38 pm
You are right Kirsten. It’s a matter of degrees. But I would argue, even if Mayer did what BofA did, she’d still be jumped on for it.
February 26th, 2013 at 11:35 pm
I think you’ll find that there are vast culture differences between the financial sector and a Silicon Valley dotcom. Working from home is extremely ingrained in the IT sector, and I believe that it where the backlash is coming from, regardless of the gender of any executives.
February 27th, 2013 at 11:46 am
I agree with Anon. The bigger issue was that it was a Silicon Valley company making the move, not a stodgy bank. Also, Yahoo! has been such a walking disaster area for so many years that their turnaround is being watched a lot more closely than BofA’s.