A Results-Only Work Environment
What it is and how it could work for your company.
By Jennifer Blanchard | HRTools.com Business Writer
During times of economic crisis, many companies jump to looking at areas where they can cut costs, which often results in layoffs.
Rather than jumping the gun to "save a buck," think about this:
During an economic hardship, the last thing you want to do is lose your most talented, productive employees. Because once the economy is no longer in crisis and businesses are starting to boom again, you’ll no longer have your best employees.
There are lots of flexible work options available for employers who are looking to cut costs without sacrificing their employees, such as telecommuting or flexible scheduling. These types of work-life balance options, although a great way to ease into making work environment changes, usually don't solve the real workplace problem, which is employees not having control of their schedules and lives.
There's one option out there that—albeit unconventional in many ways—could help solve this problem as well as increase employee productivity, cut costs and decrease turnover.
A Results-Only Work Environment (ROWE)
Before you can understand what a ROWE is, you need to understand what a ROWE is not. ROWE is not:
- A work-at-home program—Employees can work in the office or at home or at a coffee shop down the street or in a hotel room in Paris. As long as their work is getting done, where they work doesn't matter.
- For every company—Yes, most companies can use and benefit from a ROWE, but there are some industries, such as industrial or manufacturing, that might not be conducive.
- A solution for employers who refuse to forgo monitoring clock time—To be effective, a ROWE requires managers to be open-minded, mature and goal-oriented. Managers/employers need to give up timesheets and traditional ways of working.
A Results-Only Work Environment is a management philosophy/strategy created by two former Best Buy HR managers, Cali Ressler and Jody Thompson. According to their Web site, CultureRX, ROWE is a work environment "where your talent [employees] will show up energized, disciplined, fluid, flexible and focused—always ready to deliver the results necessary to drive your business. ROWE is a bold, cultural transformation that permeates the attitudes and operating style of an entire workplace, leveling the playing field and giving people complete autonomy—as long as the work gets done."
Simply put, in a ROWE, employees are free to do what they want, when they want, as long as their work always gets done. This means exactly what it says—if an employee wants to take a nap at noon on a Tuesday, they can; if an employee wants to go shopping for three hours on Friday morning, they can; if an employee wants to be a stay-at-home parent, they can be…as long as their work is always completed.
In a recent BNET article, What Is a Results-Only Work Environment, by Lindsay Blakely, it mentions that, "A true ROWE has unlimited paid vacation time, no schedules, no mandatory meetings and no judgments from co-workers and bosses about how employees spend their days. In other words, managers trust employees to get their work done and do not mandate—or even comment on—when, where or how it happens."
Employees control their schedules and aren’t required to be in the office if they can do their job from another location.
With ROWE, according to the CultureRX Web site:
- "There is no need for schedules
- Nobody focuses on ‘how many hours did you work?'
- Nobody feels overworked, stressed out or guilty
- Work is not a place you go, it's something you do
- People at all levels stop wasting the company's time and money
- Teamwork, morale and engagement soar
- There's no judgment on how people spend their time
ROWE is all about results. No results, no job. It's that simple."
Fortune-100 Retailer Best Buy, Inc
ROWE was put in place about 6 years ago at Best Buy's headquarters in Minneapolis, Minn., and now around 3,000 corporate employees enjoy a flexible work schedule that is truly flexible and results-based only.
And Best Buy is seeing some amazing results so far. Productivity has increased by 41 percent, while voluntary turnover (employees quitting) has decreased by almost 90 percent in some departments.
What Best Buy has found is that productivity and results are more important than what time you worked and for how long. Results are the only thing that matters, period.
For more information about ROWEs, check out:
So…Will ROWE Work For Your Company?
There are many pros and cons to a ROWE. However, the pros outweigh the cons in terms of measurable results, such as increased productivity, reducing turnover and exceeding bottom line expectations.
Here are just some of the pros and cons.
Pros:
- Flexible work hours
- Higher employee satisfaction
- Emphasis on bottom-line results only
- Truly gives employees a work-life balance
- No more measuring clock time
- Less administrative paperwork (like processing time sheets, etc)
- Find out right away which employees aren’t pulling their weight
- Less stress for employers and employees
Cons:
- Output measurement is harder for some jobs (overhead, administration)
- Management can be challenging
- Some people have a harder time working with people without face-to-face interaction
- Can be destructive for employees that don't have the self-discipline to hold themselves accountable for getting their work done
<p>During an economic hardship, the <i>last</i> thing you want to do is lose your most talented, productive employees.</p>