The Next Generation of Virtual Work: Anywhere and Anytime (Part 1)

Here’s a deceptively tough question to answer if you have people reporting to you: Do you care more about what your team produces, or more about the hours they are in the office? Be honest. You might think it’s obvious – of COURSE you care more about the work. But how do you feel when you need to talk to someone right away and they are out on a two hour lunch?

Reverse the perspective: Do you want your boss to focus more on your great work or more on counting the hours you are in the office where they can see you? Have you ever watched the clock until you get to the “acceptable” hour to leave, even though you have long since finished your important work for the day?

Thankfully, the workplace is evolving from “9 – 5 in the office” (did anyone ever work 9 – 5?) to a more virtual approach where people can work in any location, from home, the office, or a Starbucks. The next logical phase of the evolution? Going from working anywhere to working anytime.

Best Buy is the real pioneer here, creating a program called Results Oriented Work Environment (ROWE). In their headquarters facilities workers are now free to work anytime, anywhere as long as the work gets done. No more face time, no more pointless meetings to prove you are doing something. What matters most is the results.

By any measure ROWE has been a tremendous success. Best Buy claims a 41% increase in productivity and a 91% decrease in voluntary turnover. (That productivity number is based on self-reported results by ROWE workers. If you don’t believe them, cut their number in half: a 20% improvement is still terrific.)

ROWE – Part 2

Maybe your company or even your department isn’t quite ready for as radical as Best Buy’s Results Oriented Work Environment (ROWE). After all, we’re still working our way through the Great Recession, green shoots notwithstanding, and no one wants to be perceived as slacking off. However, you can start a micro experiment in your own little group and see how it works for you.
Here are four reasons you should try:

1. You can get more and better work from your teammates. The dirty little secret of virtual work programs is that people actually work MORE when they are in control of their environment. ROWE, the next generation of virtual work, can only increase these dynamics.

2. Workers will demand it. Maybe your older workers are still watching the clock but your younger workers have different priorities. All you should really care about is this: how well they produce.

3. In these tough economic times it is a great way to reduce costs. You can reduce your costs of real estate because you’ll need less space for fewer time clock punchers. You can also reduce your costs of turnover: hiring, training, productivity ramp-up, etc., because workers will be happier.

4. It’s good for the environment. People will need to drive less in a ROWE environment, and will most likely produce fewer paper stacks of PowerPoint presentations.

Remember the feeling you had as a kid when you begged the teacher to have class outside? And she agreed? Wouldn’t it be great if your job gave you that same feeling every day?

Is What You Do Art or Science? (or Both?)

I like to think all of our jobs are a combination of art and science. The “Art” part is getting more artistic and the “Science” part is getting more scientific.

The science part is easier to explain. We are becoming more expert at mapping and improving the processes of our work, and using more sophisticated analytics to diagnose problems and identify opportunities. We squeeze out the waste, juice up the productivity, shave the costs and boost the revenues. The bar keeps getting raised and we keep figuring out ways to hurdle it.

The richer analytics, in particular, help us understand not only what has happened but also give us better insight into what will happen. We figure out how to create opportunities in emerging markets. Innovation moves from being a luxury to becoming a critical success factor for competitive advantage.

We can analyze and engineer the processes to death but we can’t manufacture the creative spark that’s at the heart of innovation. Similarly, we can’t engineer the ability to connect dots or look at famliar landscapes with fresh eyes.

Innovation, creativity, connecting dots, fresh perspective – mastery of these skills is truly an Art. They can’t be measured but they’re as critical to success.

In the olden days of the 1990’s jobs could pretty easily be divided into two camps: those requiring creative skills and those requiring technical skills. People who held those jobs were either “poets” or “toolies.” Today we’re no longer bound by those arbitrary distinctions; in fact our jobs today demand mastery of both. Depending on your skill set this notion can be liberating or intimidating, but I think it’s part of the new rules for business.

Capital One and the Future of Work

Tom Davenport, a professor at Babson college, says there are “three primary influences on knowledge worker productivity: Management, Information Technology, and Workplace. Workplace is the least understood, researched and studied.” He’s right but there are some companies that are making breakthroughs.

Capital One is one of the most innovative companies in the workplace industry and some of their best ideas are captured in a program they call “Future of Work.” They took a hard look at their workforce and they saw three key trends:

1. The workforce was becoming more distributed through alternative work and increased use of technology. At any point in time between 40% and 60% of their workspaces were empty – people were working, just not in their dedicated cubicles and offices (When I hear stats like this I am always reminded of that old adage about advertising spending: half of it is wasted, we just don’t know which half.)

2. The war for talent would drive companies to be more accommodating of their associates’ needs and their competitor’s offerings

3. People were literally running out of time. Because they were working more hours and spending more time on chores and errands, people’s free time per week was cut in half.

The folks at Cap One saw an opportunity to create a program that would meet the changing needs of their colleagues, support their improved productivity and reduce their real state costs. They called it ”Future of Work” and built it around these core components:

• Greater integration between IT, HR and Workplace and the collaboration to create new tools and programs to support Future of Work throughout the company
• New work settings including collaboration rooms, technology rooms, dedicated offices, quiet zones, lounges, and huddle and enclave rooms.Not only did Cap One workers have better tools, they had more choice about where and how to apply them.

The “Future of Work” people carefully measured changes as a result of the program implementation and found workers were more productive and more satisfied. The quality of their work improved and their company operating costs decreased.

This all sounds too good to be true but the findings are similar to those Best Buy discovered with its “Results Oriented Work Environment.” When you give people autonomy and flexibility they actually produce more and are happier, all while saving the company money. Why aren’t more companies catching on?

Capital One is one of the pioneers. Learn more about their program here…

What are the Biggest Ways Sustainability Will Change Management Thinking?

Michael S. Hopkins wrote recently in the MIT Sloan Management Review about several ways sustainability is changing the way executives think. His fascinating article is part of a larger issue devoted to these sorts of sustainability questions. Some of Hopkins’ key points:

• PRODUCTIVITY The 16% Solution – Most people can point to reduced energy costs as the way sustainability boosts productivity (lower costs with same output). The bigger factor – the hidden factor – is worker productivity. Green workplaces with better light, thermal comfort and acoustic privacy drive a reported 16% increase in worker productivity. These gains are a lot greater than the simple energy saves everyone accepts. (Note: each company has its own data for productivity increase. Some are questionable because they’re reported by the associates themselves, but cut these reported gains in half and they’re still significant.)

• STRATEGY The Better Vantage Point (Or Seeing the System and Connecting the Dots) When you’re studying saves and revenues from sustainability efforts you often have to look across silos and measure total cost vs. total benefit. (See worker productivity increase from bricks-and-mortar investments in green buildings.) You are required to see how the pieces fit together and function

• INNOVATION You Can’t Get There From Here … But You Can From Somewhere Else – One of my favorite points from the article goes back to an earlier post I made about sustainability and innovation. The author states “Sustainability challenges demand innovation that’s more iterative, more patient, requiring more diverse inputs…It creates different conversations, raises different questions.”

• ADVANTAGE First Adapters Will Win Being the first in the market means you create Brand equity that drives a truly sustainable advantage. Quick, name a hybrid car. Did you say Prius? Bet you did. Can you name five others? Didn’t think so.

Take a look at this provocative issue and read about other ways sustainability is changing management thinking.