Who needs 9 to 5?
December 16th, 2006 RachelAt dinner recently, we got to talking about Best Buy’s radical restructuring of the workday. Restructuring? Sorry, I meant turning it into play-dough.
At most companies, going AWOL during daylight hours would be grounds for a pink slip. Not at Best Buy. The nation’s leading electronics retailer has embarked on a radical–if risky–experiment to transform a culture once known for killer hours and herd-riding bosses. The endeavor, called ROWE, for “results-only work environment,” seeks to demolish decades-old business dogma that equates physical presence with productivity. The goal at Best Buy is to judge performance on output instead of hours.
You have to read the whole article to fully understand the whole background leading up to this decision, and certainly this wouldn’t work for every company. There’s also the undeniable fact that sometimes, regardless of your needs/desires/other commitments, work will sometimes get in the way. Need to take a call with London? First thing in the morning, before you’d generally be at the office, may be the only (or most considerate) option.
But at the same time, I can think of at least a few people where this kind of anti-structure could have a tremendous impact on how efficiently their time was spent. Some people just work better in the wee hours of the morning. Other people are straight 9-5ers, who put their all into those eight hours and then turn it all off when they get home. And for mothers I can’t think of a better way to alleviate the scheduling conflicts that may only come up at the odd 8:30am dropoff, 3:00pm pickup times. If you could get 5 hours of solid office time complete while the kiddies are in class, and another three after dinner while they’re doing homework…?
All of a sudden the dream of being a woman who “has it all” seems a little more possible and a lot more manageable.
This isn’t to say such a scheme wouldn’t have it’s drawbacks. At the table was the one side of ‘Really, would you want people on your team who you wouldn’t feel comfortable allowing this kind of flexibility?’…on the other side was ‘How on earth do you measure results outside of things like ‘Sold x number of widgets this week…’?’
The truth, I think, lies somewhere in between. For some people, that flexibility and added responsibility to manage your time because no one else is going to do that for you would probably mean just sticking to the regular old 9-5 schedule, expect for maybe the odd dentist appointment. Others would probably yelp ‘Woohoo!!’ then realize a month in that they’ve accomplished nothing but are really caught up on current movies.
But as a whole? I think this kind of structure has promise. We’ll see what Best Buy is saying in a couple of years.
