More Thinking on ROWE

Early in the summer, while I was on vacation, I dug into the book Why Work Sucks and How to Fix It. As my review post stated, I quickly was excited by the concept, and fully agreed that Results-Only Work Environment was the way work was meant to be.

Then I returned to work.

I brought back the excitement of my reading with me, and shared the core tenets of the ROWE with a number of my coworkers, encouraging them to read Why Work Sucks as well. Unfortunately neither I nor the supervisors in my team are in a position where we can begin the ROWE transition for the whole organization, but we did talk about how we could begin to move in that direction, at least within our own team, and that was encouraging.

Shortly after I returned from my vacation, my coworker Krista began working remotely full-time. I remember discussing the idea with her and our supervisor. Looking back, I see how the traditional work environment was so ingrained in me.

You see, even though I am a young 28, and I’ve only been out of college for 4 years, as I read through Why Work Sucks, my views on work were still challenged. One might think that me, coming from a younger generation of workers, might be more naturally inclined to the ROWE, but at least for me, that wasn’t entirely the case. I found myself wondering about the possibilities for making sure my soon-to-be remote coworker got enough “face time” and that we had multiple ways to contact her.

Apparently my laziness in finishing this post has paid off. Now I can give a bit of a before and after picture all together.

Months later, my coworker been working remotely just fine. I’ve also started working remotely three days a week, and several others have started working remotely more often as well. Our team has adapted well to it, and to a more ROWE-ish environment. Obviously, remote working arrangements aren’t the same as a fully ROWE organization, but we’ve certainly moved more in the direction of ROWE than a traditional telecommuting setup. Granted, we still have corporate red-tape holding us back, but our supervisors are great about staying within the traditional corporate rules, without following them to the letter, allowing us the freedom to work the way we work best. We still have a 9 to 5 schedule, but if we need to take time to take care of something else, it’s not a big deal at all. We don’t count the minutes away and make up for them. We just do what we need to do, and make sure our work gets done.

Unfortunately, just this small change has also shown how much sludge exists. We’re not even fully ROWE, and those outside of our department are quick to blame our different working environment for issues when they come up. It’s frustrating to hear and recognize the comments, but for me it’s been a challenge to find out how we can provide the level of service we need to to offer while maintaining the flexibility to work the way we want to work.

Over the past 8 months, I’ve gone from being totally inspired by Jessica Lawrence‘s talk at SXSW, to slightly skeptical about how the ROWE could apply in my own workplace, and full circle back. I’m a believer now, and I’m seeing a glimmer of hope as my coworkers grasp on to the   freedom we all want and deserve in our work life and work to respect each other’s control over their own time. I think my idea of management has changed as well, and I’ve purposefully tried to apply the same principles as I run Conflux Group as well. I look forward to seeing my work environments evolve even further in the months to come.