.Rowe
Best Buy was one of the first companies to adopt a "results-only work environment" (ROWE), which is a program that goes beyond work–life balance and allows employees to decide when and where they want to work. By giving workers autonomy, they could be held accountable for achieving targets. Success would mean promotions; failure might mean termination. Best Buy scrapped the program in 2013, and CEO Hubert Joly called it "flawed from a leadership standpoint."96
Joly felt that the program had given employees too much independence and failed because it was based on the idea that delegation is always the right leadership style, instead of finding the right style of leadership for different employees. Best Buy employees complained of a divisive two-tiered system, with store-level employees sticking to strict schedules, unlike the corporate employees, who had complete freedom over their schedules.97 Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer came under fire when she cancelled Yahoo’s work-from-home program so that employees could be more collaborative and innovative by working together.
Is ROWE dead? York University professor Souha Ezzedeen indicates that policies like ROWE are not an entitlement and may not be appropriate for a business, depending on its culture and lack of supportive management system.98 A University of Toronto study on flextime found that it boosted profits for firms whose strategies were based on employee investment but harmed firms that were focused on cutting costs. The Gap credited it with raising productivity by 22 percent among program participants. To have ROWE work successfully in your organization, it requires setting the right conditions:99
Management support: Managers are there as "result coaches" to shape expectations, set consequences for unmet goals, and hold employees accountable.
Maintaining camaraderie: The loss of the social aspect can be really challenging for ROWE, so managers need to make people still feel like part of a team.
Employee education: All employees must buy in to the concept that it is none of their business where and when a colleague works, so that people do not feel like slackers when not at their desks.
Workflow tools: Invest in good project management and scheduling software for planning communication and meetings.
Patience: It takes time for managers to adapt, employees to buy in, and work processes to evolve.
Discussion Questions
What is the rationale behind ROWE?
What are the advantages and disadvantages of ROWE?