Maternity Leave Is Bullh Mayer Summary

The article Marissa Mayer’s Two-Week Maternity Leave Is Bullsh*t by Samantha Allen shows how there can be a constant conflict within organizations when dealing with the communication of change. This article shows how the CEO of Yahoo Marissa Mayer decides to communicate her decision of not taking the full maternity leave after the birth of her children. Some employees had negative reactions to Mayer’s decision, and did not agree with her personal choices. Mayer’s decision has shown how the Yahoo organization has a direct relationship to its environment. The decision to not complete the full maternity that was offered to Mayer shows how choices within an organization can impact the environment. When looking at the impact of Mayer’s decision by using the environmental scanning process it’s possible to see these effects. Shockley-Zalabak defines environmental scanning as “The acquisition and use of information about an organizations external environment” (Shockley-Zalabak, 2015, p. 355). Mayer’s choice to not take the maternity leave not only impacted both the internal, and external environment by raising concerns of women’s rights in a male dominated workplace. Allen reported that “Data from the National Center for Health Statistics
Mayer showed strategic crisis communication when she waited to be asked about her decision from a blog. Mayer stated “I plan to approach the pregnancy and delivery as I did with my son three years ago, taking limited time away and working throughout”. This strategic crisis communication helped to inform the public that she has taken this action before, and strived to help the public understand her point of view. This point of view would be taken into consideration if I were a strategic communication consultant for the Yahoo