Goodbye, time clock (and old fashioned managers, too)
Electronics retail giant Best Buy has attracted a lot of attention in the past few months (recent Business 2.0 article here) with its Rowe initiative. Rowe stands for “Results-only Work Environment”. What does it mean? No more time clock! To date, Best Buy is the only major corporation implementing an initiative which offers employees the freedom to choose their own work schedule. Sounds ingenious, doesn’t it?
For years, I’ve long viewed traditional employment as modern day slavery. The only difference is that today’s slave is paid for their work. Plus, traditional jobs are boring, uninspiring and daunting. This is one reason why I long avoided a permanent job, and secondly, I’ve been an “entrepreneur at heart” for most of my life.
Rowe is attractive in that you can have a sense of freedom and independence unlike any other job before its existence. I’ve been reading articles about Rowe over the past few months and I think this will be the single most important innovation in American business history.
Why, you ask?
Well, by encouraging our workforce to be “freedom thinkers and doers”, we instantly realize a workforce that’s more productive, loyal, happier and fulfilled in their careers. Employees today are practically “owned” by their managers — or better yet, their “bosses” (a word I feel should be banned from all work environments). Rowe is the closest thing to being self-employed, but instead, you’ll have a steady paycheck coupled with an unbeatable way of life.
All corporations must act to enact Rowe. This will dramatically impact our culture and way of life. We cannot afford to let this initiative go unnoticed — it will do wonders for our ability to better compete in the global marketplace.
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“Contingencies contain reasons which rules can never specify.” - B.F. Skinner
That is what makes ROWE so elegant, when set up correctly it allows the employees to figure out how to maximise their pay and in doing so the company gets the maximum results.
If you want to understand more about why the ROWE concept works as well as it does I recommend the book called The Sin of Wages by Willian Abernathy.
Bill is the world leading expert in the concept of pay for performance. He is a behavioural psychologist who has the last 30 years running his own company implementing these systems. In the process he has gathered over 18,000 data points on this topic.
Recently he has sold is practice to Aubrey Daniels International and taken up teaching what he has learned at Southeastern Louisiana University. We hope he has a steady stream of grad students who will help spread his message.