Results Oriented Work Environment
Best Buy figured out that if employees can just focus on the result of their work, time isn’t necessarily the essence. Time is reporting Best Buy’s shift of focus on how much work is done rather than how much time employees spend at work.
Results-oriented work schedule could actually benefit all parties in question. Employees are happy because they have a flexible schedule; no more panics when something comes up at home — telecommute is always an option. Employers are happy because the moral is up and they actually get more results with the same 40-hour weeks per employee. Vendors feel good because they no longer have to deal with disgruntled or shoddy contracts handled by in-a-hurry-to-get-home-by-5PM employees.
The freedom, employees say, is changing their lives. They don’t know if they work fewer hours–they’ve stopped counting–but they are more productive. That’s welcome news for a company that hopes its employees will give it a competitive edge. Along the way, they go through a wrenching reprogramming of their attitudes toward work. What if you didn’t get credit for putting in the longest hours? As a manager, how do you establish your authority? As an employee, how do you get ahead? “It takes away everything that you felt was normal,” says [Best Buy veteran] Owens.
Stop counting the hours?! Isn’t that the ultimate goal for most companies anyway? Increase everyone’s work hours without anyone noticing. Not that everyone’s out to cheat the company, but when needed, most employees will pitch in additional time and effort to get the job done.
One manager, faced with low moral in her store, was asked to ” try flexible scheduling, trusting his team to work as it suited them.” Well, that magic little word “trust” worked wonders:
Turnover in the first three months of employment fell from 14% to zero, job satisfaction rose 10%, and their team-performance scores rose 13%.
I used to work at a place where trust was to be earned, not something to lose. Managers were micromanaging. And everyone’s presumed to cheat the company until that trust is gained. From a complete stranger-to-stranger point of view, I completely understand the approach. But when someone is hired to perform a certain task, a certain amount of trust should already be there. Otherwise, why hire anyone at all?
A little trust can go a long way.
And here’s another good one:
… as everyone started to rethink their priorities, guess what fell to the bottom of the list? “We spend a lot less time in meetings,” Tobias [a manager] says. They used to have a two-hour weekly staff meeting that often devolved into chit-chat. Now, if they don’t need to meet, they don’t.
I remember days when there were meetings to talk about good times for meetings! And sometimes we met just so that we can meet again later. And really, a lot of those meetings were about the manager’s insecurities on what was really going on. Those who were working on projects all knew what each other’s responsibilities were and held micro meetings on the fly all the time.
The change also has exposed some ugly attitudes among managers. When [Jody] Thompson proposed extending flexibility to hourly workers, the managers resisted, arguing that “there are certain people that need to be managed differently than other people. ‘Because we believe that administrative assistants need to be at their desk to ’serve’ their bosses,’” she says. That issue is not yet resolved, but Thompson says ROWE is forcing the company to confront it.
Aw man… that sounds all too familiar. But I am glad it’s being portrayed as an “ugly attitudes among managers”.
Related PostsFull Time Employment Again (Almost) Done with Java Programming Class How Search Engines Are Related SVN Mania Where Are the Sex Offenders?
July 19th, 2005 at 1:50 pm
I work at a Best Buy store, and have to say– if only this would trickle down to where I am at… that would be interesting. In the article they said they planned to roll out ROWE (Best Buy is absolutely in love with acronyms) to the entire company, I wonder if that means the retail stores as well.
July 19th, 2005 at 2:40 pm
Well, the article did mention this:
I suppose this may be something a branch store has to elect to join for now. Like the article said, it’s the managers who are resisting the change. Maybe it’ll come to your branch as soon as the HQ figures out what to do with a rollout that includes 100,000 people… Is that number right? That’s a heck lot of people.
July 20th, 2005 at 12:42 am
I am thouroughly convinced that the old way of management doen’t work. I like in Jermey Rifkin’s book “the European Dream” how he points to the change in old hierarchical structures to a more networked cross-platform approach.
A good example is with Gore associates (they make Gore-tex products). They’ve flattened their structure to accomodate creativity. A nice description of their structure can be found in the book “the Tipping Point” by Malcom Gladwell.
The less management, the better. Even as a freelancer I get over-managed by agencies (I became a freelancer to avoid that stuff, dammit!).
It’s nice to hear that Best Buy is wisening up.
October 4th, 2005 at 10:31 am
How can other companies implement this? It sounds ideal for a working parent.
October 4th, 2005 at 12:03 pm
Indeed. I think it’s just a matter of sitting down with the management and working out a detailed plan of actions and stick to them. “Results” can be a very subjective term for non-sales positions. But then again, there’s always a way to determine it otherwise there wouldn’t be any performance reviews to determine raises and bonuses.
September 27th, 2006 at 4:08 am
I’ve been in a similar environment before and one issue we could not resolve with the ROWE-type process was how to handle or replace the ‘value & synergy of face-to-face time’.
For example, communicating face-to-face was generally more effective (than phone and e-mails) given nuances, body language, etc.
Another example, it was more efficient for day-to-day operations. If some issue came up and you could just grab a couple people and solve the issue right away (when everyone is in the office) versus calling, trying to confrence call, playing message tag, endless e-mail trails, etc. which can take hours or days.
I’d be curious to know if the ROWE teams have tackled these issues and what you’ve come up with?
January 25th, 2008 at 8:47 pm
Mr Chu made the statement that ” their work was regulated by federal law”, I am not sure how that would affect ROWE in the work place. Those associated with each store unit would have organize their work shifts to comply with company policy, as well as governance compliance but where the Federal mandate issue applies, is for me a an unanswered question.
Let me interject that in creative work environments ROWE is a self satisfying process that brings very positive results. Also, as for our operation, if someone has gone through the HR process then the issue of trust has been determined.
July 23rd, 2008 at 8:48 pm
As a secretary type I can assure you that ROWE needs to be implemented with care by uber-competent management. If it is not, employees will take advantage and those of us who are relegated to “serving” everyone will have to pick up the slack. My current manager has set up the laid back standards for the work environment, however he has never:
Presented ROWE as the new management style to all of his employees
Set a consistant standard of production
Removed employees who produce very little
Made himself consistantly available for communication; neither face-to-face nor via phone and email
Forged a relationship of mutual trust and respect with his employees (he “zones out” whenever a female speaks and is afraid to communicate with older employees!)
The result is a mess. His insecurities are keeping him from fully implementing the system making himself look simply lazy and our team (of contractors no less) look baaaaad!!! Eventhough he seems to want to change our work culture to ROWE, if we really followed it, he would have to be one of the first to go.