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Not to pile-on to the Anti- Marissa Mayer bandwagon, but how could someone rise to the CEO position without learning to trust her directs enough to delegate less-than-critical work to them. For instance, here is the Mayer-era hiring process:

  • "Mayer requires teams of at least four people to interview every single new candidate.
  • Then each interviewer fills out a series of forms.
  • Then HR compiles each form into one master form.
  • This form then goes to Mayer's office, "to sit from between six weeks to two months before she gets around to approving it. This is not [the] wait [time] for the whole process, which takes longer, naturally, it's just the Mayer-approval wait."
  • Then there is more waiting.

Our source says the whole process "adds layers of bureaucracy and bulls---, which is something [Mayer] is supposedly streamlining." 

 

She must review every new hire at a multi-national with over 14 thousand employees. People are waiting for 2 months post-interview to hear back! Seriously, that's insane!

 

http://www.sfgate.com/technology/businessinsider/article/Marissa-Mayer-L...

mattpalmer's picture

I'm starting to feel really bad for Marissa Mayer.  She's not doing anything that other CEOs have done at one time or another, but because she's a very successful *woman*, her every move is being scrutinised and commented upon to a far, far greater degree than is ordinary.  Personally, I give her a big thumbs up for having the guts to more-or-less ignore everyone else and make the tough calls.  Yahoo is, by all accounts, a bit of a mess, and since none of her predecessors did their jobs to clean it up, she's got to do it.  Kudos to her for stepping up and making things happen.

I'm going to lead the call: leave Marissa Mayer the hell alone for a while.  Let her do her job without a peanut gallery.

duplicate_account_MarkAus's picture

I'm with Matt - desperate times call for desperate measures.  It isn't hard to imagine a world without Yahoo in the near future.  

She's trying to raise the quality of people in the organisation and that's smart.  OK, you can argue the execution might be flawed, but If Yahoo becomes a strong "employer of choice" then people will be more than happy to wait two months to hear about working there.  

If the selection process is transparent to a candidate, I don't know any quality job seeker who would object to a rigorous and time consuming interview process.  

Regarding work from home arrangements - Read this and tell me she didn't make the correct decision:

http://www.businessinsider.com/how-marissa-mayer-figured-out-work-at-home-yahoos-were-slacking-off-2013-3

Male CEOs ban work from home deals all the time and get zero publicity because of it (In fact, there was an article in the Boston Globe about this a couple days ago).   She's getting a beat up.

I'd even go one step further - is it much of a stretch to believe that this stuff leaking out of Yahoo proves that people inside the organisation are resisting change and out to bring her down?   They've got real problems with their people -- and the very measures she's taking heat over are trying to fix that.

acao162's picture

I am so tired of reading headlines about what she's doing to "destroy" Yahoo.  My take - the company is in trouble.  She's making huge moves to fix the problems.  That is why the Board hired her, right?  It wasn't to enjoy a cushy "We're Yahoo! and nothing is wrong with us" la-la land, it was to make Yahoo! great again.  Or, as I like to think of it, put the ! back in the name.

Work-at-home requires massive engagement from the employee and manager.  It wasn't working.  So, it got banned.  Think about that, the managers and the employees weren't doing their jobs - wonder why she wants to look at every hire?  Clearly, their selection process is broken. I would guess that once Yahoo managers start hiring better, she'll back off & not be involved in every hire.  We all know one bad hire can poison a team. 

I think she is being dealt a rotten hand by the media.  I for one can't wait to see what she does with Yahoo, if only to prove all the critics wrong.  I also hope there is a book at the end of this.  I'm thinking all the lines of "Who Says Elephants Can't Dance" - one of my favorites.  I'd love to know the ins and outs of how she brought Yahoo back!

newicz's picture

I'm actually with you all in being opposed to the Anti-Mayer media angle. I thought her move to end work at home was a bold, necessary shift to improve productivity and cohesion within Yahoo -- not to mention get rid of the slackers. I did not intend to be critical on the whole, just on this one issue. (That's my fault, as communication is what the listener, or in this case reader, does.)

And, yes, I am aware that Larry Page personally reviews all new hires at Google (which is, perhaps, from where she borrowed the idea). But I don't think anyone will argue that Yahoo is in the same caliber as Google, in the valley. People will line up for miles to work for Google. While diametrically, there has been quite the exodus of talent from Yahoo the last few years.

In my opinion, hiring only great talent and properly utilizing your existing talent is the way forward. But great talent is not going to sit around for 2 months to work for a now second-tier firm. You can't fight like Clubber Lang when you're actually Rocky Balboa. Personally reviewing all new hires at the top could work fine if done on a shorter time frame, but Yahoo isn't a heavyweight anymore. I hope Mayer can right the ship, as I think she is a very capable leader and a positive role model for women in business.