Best Buy joins Yahoo in curtailing work-from-home options

One week after Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer banned telecommuting at the company—sparking a national debate about flexible work schedules—Best Buy has curtailed its celebrated work-from-home policy, requiring employees to get their supervisor’s approval before working from home. In the past, employees had free rein to set their schedules. The new policy went into effect on Monday.

Best Buy’s flexible-schedule program, called Results Only Work Environment (ROWE), said non-store employees could work wherever they wanted, whenever they wanted, and would be judged on their results. The program earned praise when it was enacted in 2005.

From CNNMoney:

“But, like Yahoo, Best Buy has since fallen on hard times, and the company recently brought in a new CEO. The big-box retailer has struggled to compete in a market increasingly dominated by online stores like Amazon, and ROWE didn’t fit into the company’s turnaround plans.”