Since publishing our critical post on Yahoo! CEO Marissa Mayer’s decision to ban remote work at the struggling company, there have been lots of responses, some similarly critical and some praising the decision. Leave it to the always clever folks at NextSpace to notice and fill a need overlooked in the chaos.
The California-based NextSpace chain realized that those Yahoo! employees not taking the hint to quit their jobs might be more than a little terrified of returning to a traditional office environment. You know, with other people, and pants, and stuff. When Diana Rothschild (the brains behind NextKids, NextSpace’s newly announced coworking workspace + playspace model) saw the article about Mayer’s decree, she immediately thought “we should invite all Yahoo members to be NextSpace members”.
A few days ago, they posted this slice of brilliance:
Hello Yahoo!
We heard the news that all Yahoo! employees will have to work full time at the Yahoo! offices beginning in June. Between now and then, we’d like to invite you to work at one of our four Bay Area NextSpace locations for free. Nuthin’. Nada. Bumpkiss. On us.
Why join us at NextSpace? If you’ve been working offsite for a while, we find that people often need a bit of a refresher on what it’s like to work in an office. A few hints to get you started: wear pants, use your inside voice, and maybe keep the Nerf guns at home.
Even better, we’d like you to experience the collisions, connections, and collaborations that happen when you work at NextSpace.
“We agree with Marissa in that isolation is not conducive to working at one’s creative, innovative and productive best,” said Sara Vainer of NextSpace. “When we heard that Yahoo employees will have to return to the office full time we felt that NextSpace could help them with their transition. At NextSpace our main focus is the community, we feel the connections and collaboration opportunities are the most valuable aspects of our membership, and so we think if Yahoo employees spent some time in our spaces we could not only help them get “re-acclimated” to working in an office setting but also in building relationships and making connections.”
Well said, Sara! A great example of the agility of coworking spaces and the variety of needs they can fill. Instead of getting hung up on the debate, NextSpace sprang into action, making the health and productivity of the mobile workforce a priority. Which is kind of what coworking is all about in the first place.