Marissa Mayer, Yahoo and Work-Life Balance

Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer caused an uproar last week when she decided that all of her company’s remote employees needed to be working in the office by June. According to a source, Mayer made the decision because many of the company’s remote employees “weren’t productive.” The initial memo announcing the decision stated that “speed and quality are often sacrificed when we work from home.”

Will Mayer’s move pay off? Recent research suggests that it might not. A just-released study (PDF) from Stanford University found that workers randomly selected to work from home were 13 percent more productive.

Telecommuting has been on the rise in recent years, and not just in Silicon Valley. (Although it’s worth noting that Yahoo competitors Google and Facebook discourage remote working.) With fuel prices remaining high, the ability to work from home could be a major employee perk in many industries.

What do you think? Does your company allow employees to work from home? How has it affected productivity?