Yahoo! boss Marissa Mayer under fire for building personal nursery next to her office - before telling employees they can NOT work from home

Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer built a nursery in her office so she could bring her baby to work, which has angered some stay-at-home employees following her demand that all remote workers report back to the office.

The former Google Inc. executive took the demanding top job at Yahoo! when she was five months pregnant and stirred up controversy when she took only two weeks of maternity leave after giving birth last fall.



But at her own expense, Mayer built a nursery adjacent to her office to be closer to her son.

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Career move: On July 16, 2012, Mayer was appointed President and CEO of Yahoo, which is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, near San Jose

Girl next door: Mayer exudes glamor and sophistication, pictured left with husband Zachary Bogue at a 2011 event. She welcomed her first child in September 2012, months after coming to Yahoo!

'I wonder what would happen if my wife brought our kids and nanny to work and set em up in the cube next door?' the husband of one remote-working Yahoo employee asked in an interview with AllThingsD 's Kara Swisher.

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Many employees are upset because they don't have the money or clout to build their own nurseries at work. And many assume Mayer has a whole team of people, from nannies to cooks and cleaners, helping her raise her son - after all, she does have a $5 million penthouse atop the Four Seasons hotel in San Francisco in addition to her $5.2 million 5-bedroom home in Palo Alto.



But Mayer has demanded that all remote employees report to office facilities by June 1.



'Speed and quality are often sacrificed when we work from home,' read the memo to employees announcing the change. 'We need to be one Yahoo!, and that starts with physically being together.'

The move will only impact a small percentage of the company's workforce, primarily customer service representatives or staffers who work in cities where Yahoo does not have an office.



The order is described as harsh since it requires employees to 'either comply without exception or presumably quit.'



'Many such staffers who wrote me today are angry, because they felt they were initially hired with the assumption that they could work more flexibly. Not so, as it turns out,' Swisher wrote in a blog posting about the change expected to impact several hundred workers.



Yahoo! declined to comment for this story, saying it won't discuss personnel matters.



The office: Yahoo headquarters are located in Sunnyvale, California near San Jose (pictured). The company employs 11,500 people in over 20 countries across the globe

One Yahoo! employee said she worries that Mayer's actions could set a damaging standard for working mothers across all industries.



'When a working mother is standing behind this, you know we are a long way from a culture that will honor the thankless sacrifices that women too often make,' a Yahoo! staffer told Swisher.



Some former Yahoo! employees agree with Mayer's new policy, however, arguing that some stay-at-home workers were trying to 'milk' the system.

'I agree with what she did,' a former online editor at Yahoo! told Huffington Post on the condition of anonymity. 'Many workers were milking the company... There was a ton of flexibility, and I remember several times going to ask my manager a question -- and he was nowhere to be found.'

Another former Yahoo! employee recalled a similar situation at the Internet company in an interview with Business Insider.

'For what it’s worth, I support the "no working from home" rule,' a former online engineer told the news site. 'There’s a ton of abuse of that at Yahoo... people slacking off like crazy, not being available, spending a lot of time on non-Yahoo projects.'



The company headquarters is located in Sunnyvale, California, near San Jose. The public corporation employs 11,500 people in more than 20 countries across the globe.

The 37-year-old Silicon Valley whiz kid was appointed the head of Yahoo in July 2012.



She was brought to the internet giant to re-energize the tech company founded by Jerry Yang and David Filo in 1995.



Team spirit: Marissa Mayer has some fun dressing as the internet firm's Y! logo in December. She is posing with Yahoo co-founder David Filo

Though Yahoo!, which stands for Yet Another Hierarchical Officious Oracle, is one of the most visited websites on the Internet, it had started to lose its way as a company before she was brought on the team.



The upbeat blonde was seen as a breath of fresh air and morale booster.



She instituted free lunches at the company headquarters and started giving out smartphones to employees.

'I want Yahoo to be the absolute best place to work, to have a fantastic culture. We're working really hard right now to remind people about all the opportunities that are there,' she said shortly after she was hired at a Fortune magazine event in November.

With all the hype over her hiring, it came as a bit of a shock when she revealed that she was pregnant the day she was appointed head of Yahoo.



Marissa Mayer, appearing at a Glamour Magazine event, has caused a storm since heading Yahoo

Much in the vein of Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg, Mayer has unabashedly said that her job is not her number one priority in life.



She boldly revealed that her most significant concerns were 'God, family, and Yahoo! - in that order.'

Given that she has stated she personally prioritizes her faith and family before her job, some see it as hypocritical that she has pulled the plug on flexible working arrangements which provides work-life balance for many.



Tech companies are noted for offering creative work arrangements and were pioneers in offering the option for staff to check in remotely.



Richard Branson, head of Virgin Group, said the move by Yahoo! undermined the trust that staff would get their work done wherever, without supervision, as working is no longer 9-5.

'This seems a backwards step in an age when remote working is easier and more effective than ever,' Branson wrote in a blog on the Virgin website.

'If you provide the right technology to keep in touch, maintain regular communication and get the right balance between remote and office working, people will be motivated to work responsibly, quickly and with high quality.'



Britain's BT Group, one of the first UK companies to adopt teleworking, said about 69,000 of its 89,000 staff were equipped to work flexibly of which about 9,400 are home workers.

The company said this led to benefits like accommodation savings, increased productivity and reduced sick absence, adding 99 per cent of women returned to BT after maternity leave.

'Our flexible working policies can also achieve a better balance between work and family commitments, which can be especially important for those with young families or caring responsibilities,' a BT spokesman said.



Now some wonder if Yahoo! has learned a lesson and that the work from home option was too good to be true.



It remains to be seen if other tech firms will similarly yank the flexible work arrangement, which may leave many employees in the lurch who have grown accustomed to that lifestyle.



VIDEO Mayer's priorities: God, family THEN Yahoo!