Marissa Mayer's approval rating drops

Tech Stuff

Marissa Mayer’s Employees May Just Not Be That Into Her

11:30 am, December 21st | by Meredith Lepore

Earlier this week we reported on Marissa Mayer making the final list for Time’s Person of the Year (Obama got it, but she made our “50 Women Of The Year” list!). Well, according to Glassdoor.com, a site where employees can review their employers and their bosses, it is a good thing Marissa’s employees at Yahoo! weren’t voting. After having a 97% approval rating in the first quarter it has now dropped to 80%. Sorry, Marissa. Your employees may not be that into you.

This seems a bit weird, considering the focus Marissa has put on improving employee morale at Yahoo! (and after Carol “F*ck Off!” Bartz, this group definitely needed it.) According to Nicolas Carlson of Business Insider, “[Mayer's] brought in standard Silicon Valley perks like free food and smartphones for all fulltime employees. She’s also planned a fairly elaborate Christmas party. A couple weekends ago, she put up 80 Yahoo execs for a retreat at the luxurious Ritz Carlton in Half Moon Bay.” What does this woman need to do to please you people? Was your last boss the genie from Aladdin?

However, Marissa has not been praised for her firing tactics. She often hires replacements for people before she fires them. She also doesn’t give great severance packages to executives that plan to quit. So that may have something to do with it. Carlson also points out that it would be hard to go above 97%. The only place to go is down.

Or maybe they don’t like her work ethic. After all, she does believe there are 130 hours in a work week if you shower strategically. “I did an all-nighter at least once a week for the first few years,” she said of her first few years at Google. She also doesn’t really believe in burnout. “Work is fun and fun is work. For me, it wasn’t a tradeoff.” Perhaps not everyone at Yahoo feels the same way.

TAGS: marissa mayer