Getting The Job Done
I read an interesting article in Canadian Business Magazine a few weeks ago. The article was called, “The end of clock-punching?”, and was written about a new concept in employee performance management called results-only work environments.
The concept behind ROWE is that employees will no longer be responsible for showing up to work at a certain time, or to attend particular meetings, or even show up to the office at all. As long as they are meeting goals and achieving results in their job, they’re considered to be working.
Results Only Work Environment
I have to say that I’m all for this type of work flexibility. When it comes down to it, getting the job done is all that matters.
How many times have you heard a colleague complain (or brag) about the number of hours they logged into their job or HR and payroll software? Yet you see them socializing during work hours, and they don’t produce quality results.
You shouldn’t have to feel guilty about leaving the office on time, or even early, if you are a high achiever in your workplace.
I’m a big believer in quality over quantity. If I can produce the same results in a 25-30 hour work week as someone who claims to be putting in a 70 hour work week, aren’t I the more efficient employee and the greater asset to the organization? Efficient, as a definition, means to achieve maximum productivity with minimum wasted effort or expense.
The article goes on to explain that the idea of less oversight leading to greater productivity is not an easy sell to managers accustomed to working in a more regimented way.
I can also see an issue of fairness amongst all employees if not every single employee was able to work in the flexible results-only work environment. For example, your customer service personnel would obviously need to be working during your normal business hours and not sleeping until noon and working past closing time.
Overall, I think the ROWE concept is a good one for an organization looking to create a culture or boost morale. As long as non-performers (slackers) were held accountable for their results, and the goals and objectives were truly achievable and measurable, this sounds like a great working environment.
Should I let my boss know that I’m sleeping in until noon tomorrow? 🙂
Great post . Lot of companies are already moving in this direction . Ofcourse it can not be done in certain industries.
The concept of flextime was news in the 70’s – having a core time period of say 4 hours when workers would all be in the workplace and having a flexible start and end to the workday. This was supposed to ease traffic congestion (no more rush hours) and assist with child care and other personal arrangements especially for women entering the workforce. Also, working from home, at least part of the time, was on the table as well as part-time job sharing. For some reason these ideas never really caught on except on a very small scale. I think it was because “big business” just doesn’t like change and is very slow to accept new ideas even it they make sense. It will be interesting to see if times have changed enough to implement ROWE.
Never heard of ROWE, sounds great though!