patgund: (Gears)
patgund ([personal profile] patgund) wrote2006-12-07 03:38 pm

What an *INTERESTING* idea.....

Article on Yahoo Business on Best Buy and their ROWE approach to work. Very interesting and cool workplace idea.

Smashing the Clock - No schedules. No mandatory meetings. Inside Best Buy's radical reshaping of the workplace

"One afternoon last year, Chap Achen, who oversees online orders at Best Buy Co., shut down his computer, stood up from his desk, and announced that he was leaving for the day. It was around 2 p.m., and most of Achen's staff were slumped over their keyboards, deep in a post-lunch, LCD-lit trance. "See you tomorrow," said Achen. "I'm going to a matinee."

Under normal circumstances, an early-afternoon departure would have been totally un-Achen. After all, this was a 37-year-old corporate comer whose wife laughs in his face when he utters the words "work-life balance." But at Best Buy's Minneapolis headquarters, similar incidents of strangeness were breaking out all over the ultramodern campus. In employee relations, Steve Hance had suddenly started going hunting on workdays, a Remington 12-gauge in one hand, a Verizon LG in the other. In the retail training department, e-learning specialist Mark Wells was spending his days bombing around the country following rocker Dave Matthews. Single mother Kelly McDevitt, an online promotions manager, started leaving at 2:30 p.m. to pick up her 11-year-old son Calvin from school. Scott Jauman, a Six Sigma black belt, began spending a third of his time at his Northwoods cabin.

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."

[identity profile] dragonessfaire.livejournal.com 2006-12-08 02:16 am (UTC)(link)
My new job is quite like this- today, I left at 9am. Went and applied for my passport, had my eyebrows done, bought cat food... But I will bust out the laptop tonight and work from my couch while Joel watches a movie. I love that my boss is so flexible. That my company provides me with tools to do my job from anywhere. It makes me want to work harder for them. I want to stay at this company that values it's employees as well as it's customers.

[identity profile] henglaar.livejournal.com 2006-12-08 06:22 am (UTC)(link)
It might have saved my job a little longer, being able to come in "late" and make up the lost time. Of course, that's ordinary flex-time, which we didn't have, either.

Still, for a maintenance tech, there's no substitute for being in the lab to do the work. Although my illness might not have had as much stress to deal with in such a situation . . .
jkusters: John's Face (Default)

[personal profile] jkusters 2006-12-08 06:55 am (UTC)(link)
Best Buy, as the originator of the concept, is probably doing it right. But I can so easily see how many of the companies I have worked for in the past would just miss the point, and simply expect the kind of "output" that would normally be produced by a standard 80 hour work week.

JOhn.