What Is a Results-Only Work Environment?

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  rajeev_k109/30/08 Report as spam
  1

  RE: What Is a Results-Only Work Environment?

  I see a lot of plus points & benefits of ROWE as far as the Individual remains sincere & focused on his work ( whether its his personal or official work). The employee who works 8 to 5 tend to keep their personal work for weekend which in turn eatup up their relaxation time. Adopting ROWE one can easily manage both the works & manages to show increase in his performace as he is not being hounded by his personal or household work.

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  Jenevea09/30/08 Report as spam
  2

  RE: What Is a Results-Only Work Environment?

  I think it is absolutely brilliant. I was happy when flextime surfaced but this is even better. I hate office jobs and hate that i have to put in so many hours when i can get the job done in much less, and in more comfortable settings. I hate sitting in the same chair for eight hours and having to ask permission to use the restrooom. I am a grown adult, and capable of being entirely autonomic! So I love ROWE. When I finally achieve my goal and am successful in creating my very own publishing company, I will implement ROWE wherever possible!!

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  SBork09/30/08 Report as spam
  3

  RE: What Is a Results-Only Work Environment?

  Not a new concept just a new name. Many small
  businesses have used this successfully for years. At
  another events management company we own we allow
  our manager to take time off and golf--as long as the
  events are covered and arranged properly. However,
  Best Buy? My many experiences there tend me to
  believe they already do what they want, yet there is
  certainly no accountability or productivity. My
  business partner recently went to 3 different BB stores
  and after having the same experience at all, we went
  on line and bought from Toshiba (the same product
  that BB had on the floor). Implement it on the sales
  floor of a BB, run it for a year and then tell your story.

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  kls52509/30/08 Report as spam
  4

  RE: What Is a Results-Only Work Environment?

  As a lot of people are aware, this is not a new concept. The best job that I ever had as a tech was ROWE oriented.
  While working at Sun Microsystems there was only one rule: respect project deadlines. As as long as those deadlines were satisfactorily met, employees could literally come to work anytime, day or night. Although it won't work in every situation, where it does work, it's the ideal working environment.

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  Allyg0309/30/08 Report as spam
  5

  RE: What Is a Results-Only Work Environment?

  Love the idea - don't have the displine however anything that can rid of the presentism idea of management and start rewarding on results would be welcome.

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  CPRey09/30/08 Report as spam
  6

  RE: What Is a Results-Only Work Environment?

  People interested in how this sort of workforce policy could impact cost related to employee health and disability should check out the blog and research at www.hhcfoundation.org. In short, people in this sort of performance-oriented work environment that literally rewards people for being healthy enough to be productive cost less in terms of health and disability and workers' compensation. It is an excellent web site with wonderful research insights

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  bnet4eliz09/30/08 Report as spam
  7

  RE: What Is a Results-Only Work Environment?

  Unrelated to ROWE, I do understand that BestBuy penalizes their customers by charging a very high restocking fee. They've already lost my business because of this. No amount of sophisticated management technique can substitute for keeping customers happy. I'd rather shop somewhere else.

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  mnzx@...09/30/08 Report as spam
  8

  RE: What Is a Results-Only Work Environment?

  In fact, this is what high performance teams have always done - stepped up, made the sacrifices necessary during crunch time and allowed some down time to re-energize. It has great potential to foster a collective feeling of pitching in and being a part of the business and its results. Never happen where I currently work...

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  irelandmc09/30/08 Report as spam
  9

  RE: What Is a Results-Only Work Environment?

  The real key here is that it forces managers to be very explicit about what each person and each position has the authority/accountability for. Even without the unlimited vacation time, if you get your A&A in order, you'll have happier, more productive employees.

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  Pollie109/30/08 Report as spam
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  RE: What Is a Results-Only Work Environment?

  The main difficulty with ROWE is the very real
  fact that the first casualties should be those
  managers/supervisors who gained their positions
  via office politics and "chemistry" with the
  boss. It will need strong, results oriented
  senior managers who need to fire "a friend" to
  achieve productivity results. Experience tells
  me that this is a rarity. ROWE is not new, but
  it requires senior managers with "hard heads
  and soft hearts". Many are the reverse.....

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  jentimus09/30/08 Report as spam
  11

  RE: What Is a Results-Only Work Environment?

  I think this can work even when people are interdependent for acheiving results - just make one of the acheivables 'providing in a manner that allows others to acheive their goals.
  
  If I have to sacrifice pay to take a sick day, I'm not likely to check my email to help my co-workers. But realistically, I can be contagious and productive at the same time!
  
  In the ROWE model, I'm getting paid for my project so it's a lot more likely that I'll do what I can from home to move that goal along by helping my co-workers.
  
  I think it comes down to the level of trust between management and the managed. New employees should be monitored at work until they have demonstrated a level of accountability that justifies the faith an ROWE model requires. It's not fair to ask management to risk a goal until they have reason to expect the employee will perform when not monitored.

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  kmilessmg09/30/08 Report as spam
  12

  RE: What Is a Results-Only Work Environment?

  Programs like ROWE work where there is already strong cultural support. Best Buy's Canadian division has not adopted the approach and the article points out that their sales floor is not fertile ground for ROWE.
  Programs need to be seen to arise out of the organization's culture (as ROWE did at BB's head office) rather than appear to be drop down from on high. The key is to take your organization's existing culture of values, practice and performance, study it, then introduce specific measures to move it up a step in performance - anything short of this leads to only pockets of adoption and no widespread improvement in culture or employee engagement.

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  clawsonb@...09/30/08 Report as spam
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  RE: What Is a Results-Only Work Environment?

  It works. I work within this kind of structure. Not being a morning person who was consistant about being consistantly late at past 8-5 jobs where the time clock ruled king muddled my resume.
  I am happily resulting away for the last seven year and rewarded with a national achievement awards for accomplishments! I love my job and the freedom to excel at my own pace. It does require some measure of self dicipline to maintain a time line for projects.

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  mboeche09/30/08 Report as spam
  14

  RE: What Is a Results-Only Work Environment?

  ROWE basically extends college life to the work
  environment! You are measured by satisfactorily meeting
  deadlines (tests, papers), and are free to judge what
  efforts (class attendance, readings) are worthless and
  which are important to meet performance standards (high
  grades).
  I can see where ROWE would be controversial, because
  those who are simply used to going through the motions
  (attending every class, sitting in the front) will overexert
  themselves in their attempt to achieve results.

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  selfishy_me@...09/30/08 Report as spam
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  RE: What Is a Results-Only Work Environment?

  Doesn't Google use this work environment?

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  selfishy_me@...09/30/08 Report as spam
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  RE: What Is a Results-Only Work Environment?

  Doesn't Google use this work environment? Seems like they're doing well!

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  e1wood10/02/08 Report as spam
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  RE: What Is a Results-Only Work Environment?

  Hello Best Buy, if it works there how about in the stores? A friend of my son's asked if I would help out last Holiday season, and being in the mortgage business, I thought why not. After a few months with a set schedule, BB Corporate said you had to be available for 12 of 15 weekday shifts and 5 of 8 weekend shifts (I don't remember exactly, but it was close to those numbers)...if you wouldn't agree, you had to resign. Being twice the age of most employees, and producing 3 times the sales just didn't matter, they didn't give store managers any leeway with a wild card or two to keep producing part-time help.
  
  So tell me how that made sense? Sure, it enabled them to get rid of dead weight people, but in the end they lost folks like my self, who gave them an honest hours work for an hour of pay.
  
  What I did learn is Big Box store retail sales isn't for me...I moved right over to a small retailer doing Home theater and 2 channel Hi Fi, they have products I would actually buy to utilize the discount, and enjoy the customer base much better, they're much more trusting than the Best Buy customer who thinks you're lying to them.

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  jsihra10/05/08 Report as spam
  18

  RE: What Is a Results-Only Work Environment?

  It is excellent. By doing this we mot only give the freedom to work but also the responsibility to each of the person. It is decentralized leadership rather than centralized leadership and is definitely going to yield better results.

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  agarwal_harshu10/07/08 Report as spam
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  RE: What Is a Results-Only Work Environment?

  I feel this kind of environment suits organizations with project based reqmnts as already mentioned in the article.
  
  what about the other orgs? Also I would agree with the point that managers do give more awards to people who spend more time in office!!

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  kclosner10/08/08 Report as spam
  20

  RE: What Is a Results-Only Work Environment?

  How do you convince your management to try this? I love the idea and feel that my results are what should make me valuable to the organization. The real catch is finding a way to get your organization to try something new.

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  Cube-root10/08/08 Report as spam
  21

  RE: What Is a Results-Only Work Environment?

  Old idea; new acronym.
  
  The Team I'm with is managed in this manner, and I believe that it works very well for us. We're a scientific research team that's tied to product development. The philosophy is: 'It's not the quantity of time you spend on a given task; it's the quality of the time you spend. When I was in management, and when I was teaching college, I stressed the importance of this philosophy to my employees & students.
  
  I put it like this: Telling me how long it took to complete a task does not impress me. In contrast, I am very impressed if you complete an 8-hour task in 6 hours - without compromising safety or the quality of the work. In my opinion, the goal is always to work smarter - not harder.

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  mktgpharma10/16/08 Report as spam
  22

  RE: What Is a Results-Only Work Environment?

  I can not take that option. In my work environment my objectives are part of the "fantasy" so from the first day of the year you know that you will not get them (so the company will save to pay your comissions)
  That means that you will have to spend more than 8 hours seated on your office waiting for your boss to go home (He always arrives late, so you will have to wait long to leave the office)
  This situation leads me to lose my energy, my motivation, and my creativity. Sooner or later I will leave this job, and somebody full of energy will take my position until he/she completes this demotivational cycle...
  
  A company with the wrong manager (even if he/she is the owner) will never be able to use its full potential.....
  
  Under these circumstances I can not ask to enjoy this ROWE option

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  gregwad10/26/08 Report as spam
  23

  RE: What Is a Results-Only Work Environment?

  The article fails to address a fundamental piece of the puzzle: how do Best Buy managers measurewhether these teams and individuals are reaching their goals? Maybe that's something the author assumes everybody knows, but I would think that a move toward a ROWE approach would necessarily require an increase in monitoring of achievement.

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  Q&TM10/27/08 Report as spam
  24

  RE: What Is a Results-Only Work Environment?

  The concept is wonderful and works in cases where management is not set in their ways. I would see it to be a huge failure and detrimental to the bottom line if this was implemented and upper management fought the process by doing things as usual. I could see this being a huge obstacle in the smallest of companies trying to implement it.

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  gypsybalan@...11/07/08 Report as spam
  25

  RE: What Is a Results-Only Work Environment?

  This is excellent.I will go for it....

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  Q4 Sales11/10/08 Report as spam
  26

  RE: What Is a Results-Only Work Environment?

  I've been working on a small project for a client of mine that does a "60 minute strategic plan" and they have a chapter in their book that i think addresses this idea. They call it the Pucker Factor. They share a story about a building materials company that created results in performance by putting a guarantee on invoices.
  
  The statement read something like this: ?If you are not satisfied for any reason, Do not Pay Us. Simply scratch out the line item, write a brief note about the problem, pay the balance and you do not need to return the product?.
  
  That seems to be to be a Results-Only approach.

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  quazer4912/05/08 Report as spam
  27

  RE: What Is a Results-Only Work Environment?

  I liked this concept and I'm in the process of implementing in our team. One of the chanllenges we are facing is the quality of work is suffering because of people trying to accomplish a lot in a short period of time so they can take time off. Procedures, guidelines, and testing are being shorten or ignored in an effort to accomplish projects/tasks in a short periof of time and be able to take 3 days weekends.

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  David Willox12/12/08 Report as spam
  28

  RE: What Is a Results-Only Work Environment?

  I see the results are reported as "Departments that use ROWE report average productivity increases of 35 percent."
  
  I take it this means that the company increased its turnover by 35% with no increase in costs. If not what does it mean?
  
  At first sight the concept seems to tick the boxes - it appears to show respect for the individual and respect for the individual is a key componenent of good leadership.
  
  But, I would rather have a culture that inspires people to work effectively and then, if they have the opportunity, assists other members of the team or contributes to the development of the organisation.
  
  As I reflect further it is an abrogation of good leadership - having failed to get the work done in the time it could be done management then says "if there is a better way you follow it and take all the benefits". This encourages a culture where individuals only do something if it brings them direct benefits which in turn develops a resistance to change.
  
  It also raises other problems in the longer term. There are almost always some parts of the organisation where flexible working arrangements are not possible. The reaction in those departments is likely to be "you don't have enough work to keep you busy all week, you're paid on the basis of a 5 day week but you get free time off".
  
  Such a reaction is not good for effective team work throughout the organisation and if the company operates a profit sharing pay scheme the effect on morale is likely to be even worse.
  
  Finally, I said it appeared to treat the staff with respect. I actually think it is disrepectful because the message is that the only way to get these people to work effectively is to give them extra time off. Personally I have found that in organisations where people genuinely respect each other, up and down the management chain, people respond much more enthusiastically.

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  richard.clarke@...12/16/08 Report as spam
  29

  RE: What Is a Results-Only Work Environment?

  any organisation that get rids of its most under-performing employess (10%, 20%, 30%) should have a significant improvement in productivity, particularly if the remaining are concerned they will go the same way!
  
  Did ROWE return the talked about benefits to the employee or did they just and up working extra hours to avoid getting their marching orders too?

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  twanless@...12/16/08 Report as spam
  30

  RE: What Is a Results-Only Work Environment?

  While I like the concept, I wonder about the need for trust between managers and "employees". It seems to me this mirrors the work at home arguments of the 90s -- who cares how or where I do it as long as I produce the results? But as then, so might ROWE run into human nature. Just as many managers who spent time and effort clawing their way to the middle were not happy about not having a room full of people to "manage" (to validate themselves), so will many managers be resistant to ROWE because they want to command, not facilitate. It will take a generation to eliminate this industrial-style thinking that sees workers as drones instead of partners.

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  SiegeA12/17/08 Report as spam
  31

  RE: What Is a Results-Only Work Environment?

  If you can do your job in 20 hours per week instead of 40 hours, what's to keep the managers from cutting your wages or freezing raises for the rest of your career to make up for it?

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  emily.schumacher12/18/08 Report as spam
  32

  RE: What Is a Results-Only Work Environment?

  Anyone in the consulting industry has worked this way. In order to demand the high rate you deliver on schedule. My client's never looked to see when I was in the office, rather was I on or ahead of schedule and did I deliver what they needed. In many cases you worked harder and more efficiently than the employees, but I was compensated...for me more money is more motivation. Time off is fine, but more money allowed me to use my time off better.

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  ciomxk12/25/08 Report as spam
  33

  RE: What Is a Results-Only Work Environment?

  I am working in a SW testing company, the effciency of hunting SW bugs and quality of the bugs are the main indicator to evaluate a testing team. but some roles in a team just don't have direct contribution to the team's productivity but contribute other aspects such as competence enhancement to the product quality.so sometimes it is just hard to make all the work result-only.

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  ksaurabh_198301/24/09 Report as spam
  34

  RE: What Is a Results-Only Work Environment?

  ROWE can work effectively only when you have a set of clear predefined goal, a very clear execution plan and minimal dependency on other persons part of work. Otherwise it's a very frustrating experience and often leads to blame game.

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  jameslarry12302/12/09 Report as spam
  35

  RE: What Is a Results-Only Work Environment?

  Thanks for information.

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  masterweb03/19/09 Report as spam
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  RE: What Is sell to world

  rather was I on or ahead of schedule and did I deliver what they needed. In many cases you worked harder and more efficiently than the employees, but I was compensated...for me more money is more motivation. Time off is fine, but more money allowed me to use my time off better.

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  estetik10/21/09 Report as spam
  37

  RE: What Is a Results-Only Work Environment?

  It will need strong, results oriented
  senior managers who need to fire "a friend" to
  achieve productivity results. gogus kucultme estetigi