Flex-Time vs. ROWE: Part 2

Where career advice pros and job seekers connect

Posted by Cynthia Ferrie on June 20, 2008 at 10:30am

The creative types, and that means ANYONE who has to use their creativity to complete their jobs, could be all week trying to figure out how to angle a product line or find a target market – only to come up with a great solution while sitting in the park sipping a coffee on a Saturday afternoon. Continued from Part 1.

Granted, we can’t very well elaborate much on the solution until we get back to a computer or other device where we can figure out all the particulars. But ideas don’t get much spark without inspiration, and how much inspiration can you get in your office where you spend 35 to 40 hours a week? The internet provides us with access to a world of knowledge, but you’ll seldom find something you never knew you were looking for.

In case you haven’t picked up on my vibe yet, I am totally in favour of the Results-Oriented Work Environment (ROWE), the artist in me has trouble keeping my opinions to myself. I realized last summer how fulfilling it was to embrace the day and complete my work-related tasks as my schedule would permit that day. As it turns out, I probably put in more hours doing my job that way than the 35 I put in each week at the office these days, but I liked it. I feel it was because I wasn’t constrained by time, but rather motivated by my expectations of the projects I was completing.

Unfortunately, the ROWE is not a generally accepted work environment. My circumstances last summer actually required that I complete my tasks by putting in time at various points and durations over the course of a day. Those circumstances have changed and are now conformed to what we call “normal”, and as a result, so is my workweek.

The 35 to 40 hour workweek is a structure that has governed the way we work for so long that not many people really know (or believe) that productivity has little to do with how much time is punched by an e... . It is only in recent years that flex-time has been used to accommodate parents of young children and their hectic schedules, but again, they are constrained by time.

I think I can best illustrate it for the non-believers this way – if you are restricted to work over an 8 hour period for 5 days each week, most people would restrict their thoughts during this period to work-related things like deadlines, workload, and duties. Only a fraction of that time is used to worry about other aspects of your life, otherwise you are conditioned to feel you are not doing your job. When you leave that work environment, your brain switches gears and you start thinking about all the thoughts you repressed during the day, leaving a very small window for work-related thinking.

This means when your employees leave work, they are shutting out the potential to be inspired by something that they would connect to their work-related lives. Basically because they’ve used 8 hours of their day for work already. Why would they use their limited spare time for recreation and quality time with loved ones to think about work if they still have to show up at 9 am the next day and work for another 7 or 8 hours?

Chances are they won’t. Getting rid of time restrictions means getting rid of barriers we put up in our minds to channel our thoughts in a general direction. Removing these barriers means we would be able to think freely and apply timely thoughts and inspiration to all aspects of our lives, not just what was in the schedule.

Employers need to start thinking of the ROWE as part of their own solution instead of just satisfaction for their employees. Tim Ferriss blogs about Best Buy's ROWE solution here, for those of you who need proof it is not just some sort of utopia. The idea is to allow for more balanced lifestyles while maintaining or improving on current productivity - not to dish out the same amount of money in wages for less work.

Tags: employment, ferriss, hiring, productivity, rowe, tim

Comment by Chris Russell on June 20, 2008 at 11:20am: well said, I think ideas like ROWE are the FUTURE of work. I personally dont have set hours. I work every day of the week, sometimes for 10 minutes, sometimes for 10 hours. Its all about what you do and how productive you are.

Comment by Lucilla Feliciano on June 25, 2008 at 8:05pm: I listened in on a teleseminar yesterday with Cali Ressler and Jody Thompson authors of " Why Work Sucks and How to Fix it" and found out what ROWE was. They said something to the effect that once a common sense idea is though of as innovative, companies need to just implement the concept. It is not a direct quote. Paying people on what they actually do, then how much time they are in or out of the office is pure common sense. But does this concept work in all types of work environments? I worked in two call centers that were very different from one another. At one job I had to right down the time I went to the bathroom. At the other no one came looking for me unless they were going to order pizza and wanted to know if I was chipping in for lunch.

Comment by Cynthia Ferrie on June 26, 2008 at 9:44am: I believe much of the potential for ROWE is in the hands of employers. After decades of structured business hours and "corporate culture", most environments will not see where an ROWE will prove useful. In my own opinion, I believe there are some positions which require an employee's presence based on a time schedule. These might include retail sales positions that you might find in a clothing store, but I don't necessarily think that if no customer is in the store that they should have to bore themselves with re-organizing clothing racks all day when they could be provided the freedom to do research, check e-mail, or co-ordinate household needs after work-related tasks have been taken care of. In a call center, things are quite different. Your requirements change, and the number of people you contact or that contact you will vary depending on each client's unique circumstances. But that doesn't mean that an ROWE solution cannot be found... something of that nature might require a walk-in employment contract, where you would go to work and log your tasks for the time you spend there. Certain people might be on a back-up list and called into work should they end up short-handed. Now there's a concept that would be hard to handle...

Comment by Cynthia Ferrie on June 26, 2008 at 9:51am: A point I should have highlighted before - for an ROWE to be implemented effectively, employers need to base the requirements of their employees on the goals stated in their business plan, while taking into consideration irregular cash flow and other things that would affect operations. Employees need some protection for when productivity would perceivably exceed the workload - like in the summertime when many businesses slow down.