We Have Evolved Beyond 9-to-5
Ask yourself a simple question: Is work someplace you go or something you do?
Prior to the Industrial Age, workers in skilled trades would create a product or offer a service, then bill their customer for it. The system was straightforward, efficient and fair. During the Industrial Age, primarily because of the advent of Henry Ford’s assembly line, the system changed significantly. Instead of being paid for a completed product or service workers were paid for attending work. “Time is money” became a truism. Most workers, both skilled and unskilled, followed a predictable work routine–come in to work every day at a certain time, punch a clock, work the line for eight hours, then punch out and go home. Well, the Industrial Age is long gone. It’s time for us to rethink the way Western, post-industrial data workers are compensated for their labor.
Enter ROWE: a “Results-Only Work Environment.” Employee performance is not judged on punctuality, adherence to a schedule or the number of hours spent in the office. Rather, an employee’s performance is judged on their output. This means that you can actually make a doctor’s appointment in the middle of the day, pick your kids up from school, or catch a matinée on a Wednesday because a traditional nine-to-five clock does not govern your day. Your day is governed by your productivity—so as long as you get your work done on time and it’s done well; it’s entirely possible to discuss a weekly sales report over a phone call at the beach. According to CultureRx, ROWE allows “talent [to] show up energized, disciplined, fluid, flexible, and focused–always ready to deliver the results necessary to drive your business.”
ROWE is all about results. Not time spent, just the results. When you are working you are actually working, not just keeping a seat warm for a paycheck. It’s a win-win situation for both the company (who pays the same money for more effective labor) and the employee (who has the freedom to determine what he or she does with each day). The basic principles are this:
- Work is not someplace you go, it’s something you do.
- You are paid to create a product or perform a service. The time required to do it is up to you. The company will not waste money on inefficient labor.
- There are no schedules. As long as the work gets done, scheduling is irrelevant.
- Hourly employees track their own hours and determine for themselves when to work.
- Salaried employees do not count hours at all.
The Pew Research Center asserts that American corporations are struggling to keep pace with a new generation of young professionals (Generation Y) entering the workforce. Gen Y has very different attitudes and desires than employees of the past, valuing flexibility, freedom and frequent change in work and personal life. Gen Y craves stimulation and a collaborative environment that will encourage their creativity. These needs and wants of Gen Y clash against the traditional corporate environment but work very well within ROWE. Over time the segment of the workforce that has never worked during the Industrial Age (anyone born after 1970) will increase and likely transform Western corporate culture into something that reflects the needs of modern workers.
ROWE is more than a concept. It’s a working reality for hundreds of Best Buy employees. This is entirely new work culture that has been put into effect for over a year now and the results speak for themselves. “[Best Buy's] average voluntary turnover has fallen drastically, while productivity is up an average 35% in departments that have switched to ROWE” (Business Week, December 11, 2006).
Of course, some businesses could never implement ROWE in their organization. If an employee’s physical presence during business hours is an essential part of the service then ROWE will not work there. So all of you that work at call centers, retail, food service, manufacturing will probably never see ROWE adoption at your workplace. However, if it’s at all possible for you to perform your job out of the office it may be worth taking a look at ROWE. The fact that ROWE has met with such a high degree of success will (hopefully) pique interest in firms willing to try some “out-of-the-box” thinking to create a more productive, profitable and satisfying workplace.
Read more about ROWE at The New York Times, Time Magazine, Business Week, Entrepreneur, CNN Money and CultureRx.
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