more in my work series (part…3?)

May 8th, 2007

NOTE: This post is an old post from MySpace copy/pasted into this one to add content. It is raw and unedited for content or formatting. Love it.

So I’m too lazy to look back and see what I had called these posts before, but essentially, they are my totally unqualified opinions about how work culture needs to change. Maybe I’ll look later and change the title of this post to match the others.

Probably not.

I read an article over the course of a few days at the gym in Business Week. (personal note…those sit down bikes are AWESOME for readers). The article is about Best Buy and their implementation of a clockless workplace. They call it ROWE, which is a cutesy acronym for “Results Only Work Environment”. If you want some context, you can read the article here, and find out more about ROWE here.

Anyhew, the point of ROWE…actually a creation of Best Buy employees…is that you measure a worker’s value based solely upon the work they do; not how often they are at the office. So, as long as he or she is getting the work done that needs to be done, they can work from Timbuktu or from their bed.

It’s counter-culture. It’s unpopular with The Man.

I love it.

I’ve worked in a military environment and in a completely free and open environment similar to ROWE as a telecommuter. Both have pros and cons and of course there are different applications for each method, but I tend to believe that most places should fall in the precarious balance that is smack dab in the middle of those two workplace philosophies.

Well, reading the article inspired me to write a few more bullet points in my ever increasing wealth of Anti-1930’s Workplace Theory.

1. Who says Work and Personal Life should be separate?

Don’t let this scare you. I’m all about people wearing different hats or compartmentalizing parts of their lives; I get that and I do it myself. It’s definitely important. However, who’s to say that these worlds shouldn’t be intertwined somewhat?

For example, I get all of my email in one place; with my email program on my Mac. I’m currently working in about 5 different professional roles and I also have personal email like everyone else. All comes to one inbox. My email client (OS X Mail…don’t even get me started on Macs) allows me, if I so choose, the flexibility of showing only one or multiple accounts at a time in my inbox, so if I want to focus entirely on one role that I fill, I can. Or, I can view it all at once all…helter skelter-like, and just deal with things as they come.

This is a practical example, but actually I think it’s pretty pathetic at illustrating my point. Maybe it would better be served by how this might work in relationships. Why can’t I be friends with the people I work with? And why can’t we do things out of the work context together? Or what about walking in my day to day life; can I not get ideas or learn new things that might help me in my work?

As it applies to an open office environment like ROWE, I believe that having as many personal, non-work interactions as possible with your co-workers will actually improve the team dynamic even more than if you were together 48 hours a week in the same office in an all-work context.

Besides…I’ve always been a HUGE proponent of doing a job that you are passionate about. Meaning that you don’t really have a problem with defining yourself as “A Data Entry Clerk” because that’s what makes you happy. You fit in data entry when you can because you love doing it.

Of course there is always a balance to pursue, people. I mean, if we’re going to work like this, I think we would have to be more deliberate to make sure that when our kids are telling us about that bug they found under the sofa that we aren’t thinking about the Potter Account. But these challenges don’t mean that a little healthy mixing of work and personal lives doesn’t work.

2. Your Work Career should be more like your College Career.

For those of you like me who wasted your time and money on college, let’s remember what it was like to live on campus; commuters and those of you smart enough to avoid college like the plague, bear with me.

Essentially, we lived in this environment where we were constantly a part of a MILLION different things at once. We were students, more than likely in a variety of subjects. Some of us worked. We had extra curricular activities, military service, girlfriends, Seinfeld…it was a lot to juggle. Yet somehow, we managed to do all of this and still have a social life. How is this possible?

We dealt with tasks and projects as they needed to be completed. We compartmentalized in the moment. If I was meeting with my classmates about a video project, that was all I was thinking about for that time. Then, I would go to soccer practice and suddenly, I was all athlete. And all of these things fit together like a puzzle; not in 8 hour increments. We were able to fit things together in ways that made sense to us; not according to a formula that had been in place for a hundred years.

3. A job is a partnership between employee and employer.

Guess what. The serf system is dead. Has been for, well, a few centuries. Ever since then, we’ve been moving from one “work” system to the next that positioned the boss above the subordinate…the employer above the employee. We moved from slavery to world war to depression to another war. Each of these situations (even the despicable atrocity that was slavery) created a culture where it was a privilege to work or your responsibility to work and the Great Employer provided you, the lowly employee the wonderful experience of working for him.

Certainly there needs to be rank and authority in the workplace, but a major rethinking of how that looks and works is in order, in my humble opinion. Operating under the assumption that my employer has some sort of personal value greater than my own is ridiculous.

I choose, and I believe you should too, to operate under the assumption that my job is a partnership of sorts with my employer. Even more sacred than the relationship that I may have as a contractor with my clients, if I enter into an employment arrangement with an employer, I am agreeing to provide him/her with my services…in exchange for compensation. This compensation comes in many forms, but is agreed upon up front during the hiring process. As such, so should what is expected of me.

Using that philosophy, I am essentially freed from any responsibility other than that which I took on. Yes, in many cases today, those responsibilities include being at a certain place at a certain time each day.

And please don’t think that I’m suggesting that courtesy and respect have no place in the work, um, place. I do owe my boss respect. But he owes respect to me as well. We are in a partnership, and a smart employer will give me ownership of some kind in his business to reflect the value of that partnership.

4. Employees value being VALUED more than money or job security.

I can almost hear you now. “If someone offered me seven figures to shovel elephant dung and do my bosses dirty laundry…I’d do it.” This may well be true. But what if you had to shovel elephant dung and do your bosses dirty laundry, PLUS he pays for any school you’d like to attend, gives you full health benefits for you and your family for nothing, gives you a small but meaningful percentage of the profits to your elephant dung shoveling enterprise, and to top it all off, thanked you each day for your hard work with a smile.

Oh, and instead of 7 figures, you get a more realistic salary closer to $30K.

Don’t answer that question without putting some real thought to it, and I believe that you’ll agree that you could shovel elephant dung under those circumstances; even though the total value of your compensation package.. would be far less than 7 figures.

I’m not suggesting that we should work at a job we hate because the benefits are so good. But what I am suggesting is that the key to getting the best people to work for you isn’t necessarily offering the biggest salary or even the most monetarily costly benefits package. It’s making employees feel valued.

What makes people feel valued? Well, treating them with respect for one thing. And the more creative the perk, the more valued someone may feel. Celebrating their birthday with a paid day off. Providing access to an exclusive art collection at work. Maybe something as simple as having snacks and soda available for free.

To me, there’s very few things that make an employee feel valued like profit sharing or some other form of ownership. Even if at the end of the year, the employee’s actual dividend is relatively small, you’d be surprised the effect this will have on morale.

5. The Job Market should function more like other markets in capitalism.

I have friends who believe that we have a right to have a job and perhaps some of you feel this way as well, but I disagree. In our society, which I happen to like, I don’t have a right to a job anymore than an employer has an obligation to hire me.

Capitalism, with all of its pitfalls, functions with checks and balances built in. If someone wants me to buy their product or use their service, they have to offer superior quality at a better price than the competition. With proper anti-trust laws to protect from big business and proper incentives for small business, we actually have a remarkable system in place here.

I believe that the employer/employee relationship should function much the same way. If employers want the best people…they should offer the best job and work environment along with competitive compensation. Likewise, if I want a shot at these jobs, I need to be the best at what I do. I need to rise above my own competition.

If either I or my employer ever feel that the other is not living up to our expectations, we should end the relationship; without stigma or consequence. Nobody would fault me for starting to shop at Target instead of Walmart, right?

And now I’ve rambled enough. Time to get back to work…in my bedroom…on a Saturday afternoon.

Filed under: work

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