Newburyport is home to a large group of well educated, over-achieving parents who are trying to find a balance between raising their families, paying the mortgage and staying sharp in their fields. Recently Marissa Mayer’s decision to put a halt to telecommuting at Yahoo sparked a fire-storm of opinions. Is it really necessary to be at the office ten hours a day? What happened to the movement for work/life balance started in the 90’s? Is starting your own business the only way to go?
Kiplingers quotes a small business report by The Guardian stating that by 2018, one third of new jobs will be generated by women-owned businesses as opposed to 16% now. Suddenly everyone is watching Shark Tank and new words like momtrepreneur are popping up all over the internet. It seems to keep the best and brightest – large firms will need to be more responsive to employees needs-especially as the economy grows stronger. Employees over thirty certainly add a gravitas and wisdom tempered by trials that free-wheeling college grads just have not reached yet.
See Related Story in the Atlantic Monthly here:
“So Marissa Mayer banned telecommuting at Yahoo, telling her employees they either had to work in the office or quit. The howls of protest went up at such a deeply anti-family policy, particularly in the proudly family-friendly (at least rhetorically) Silicon Valley. How on earth could the first pregnant CEO, with a young baby and a nursery in her office, deny her employees the ability to work with their children nearby?
I obviously understand the concerns, given that I’m writing a book on the coming work-family revolution and the steps we must all take to bring it about……”