Comments on: Why Work Sucks And How To Fix It

By: Accomplish More: Work At Your Peak Times Of Day | myBlog

Accomplish More: Work At Your Peak Times Of Day | myBlog — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 14:55:59 +0000

[...] be in the office during core hours: your boss is unlikely to completely adopt the philosophy of a Results-Only Work Environment. So if you’re someone whose brain-power peaks between 4pm and 11pm, your best option might be to [...]

By: Hunter Nuttall

Hunter Nuttall — Sat, 06 Dec 2008 08:08:39 +0000

@ TheAndySan, I don’t think I could be totally satisfied working for anyone else either!

By: TheAndySan

TheAndySan — Sat, 06 Dec 2008 01:13:22 +0000

@ Hunter Nuttall - It's all good. I'm beginning to make some money online, and I plan on making what I do online my future main sources of income. I don't think that I'd be totally satisfied working for anyone else but myself to be honest. TheAndySan´s last blog post..Blog Surveys - Stuck In A Cubicle With My Friend Death

By: ROWE Vs. TOWE

ROWE Vs. TOWE — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 01:44:27 +0000

[...] a real email from a real vice president, at a company that clearly does not support a Results-Only Work Environment (ROWE). “Hey [...]

By: Hunter Nuttall

Hunter Nuttall — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 22:03:14 +0000

@ Marelisa, that’s too bad that Jay left. And that’s the problem with good jobs: they always change sooner or later.

@ Evelyn, I know someone who got in trouble for leaving at 10 PM without permission! The problem wasn’t that she left at 10 PM, but that she didn’t ask.

@ Vincent, it’s definitely good in theory, but as Brip Blap mentioned, there seem to be some issues with it.

By: Vincent

Vincent — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 08:06:14 +0000

Hi Hunter, I believe the work place will definitely be a better place if it is results oriented instead of staying glued to the work desk for 9 - 5. It seems like a win-win situation to me, the work get done and the employees are happy. Cheers Vincent Personal Development Blogger Vincent´s last blog post..15 Ways To Deal With Stress

By: Evelyn Lim

Evelyn Lim — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 03:25:14 +0000

I like the idea of a ROWE. Unfortunately, most companies do put a value to time on the chair. You basically can’t leave or if you do, feel guilty about leaving the office at 6 or 7pm because your boss is still in.

Evelyn Lim´s last blog post..My Vision Board Tops Amazon�s Bestseller List?

By: Marelisa

Marelisa — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 01:49:00 +0000

Hi Hunter: I worked for the Panama Canal Commission and my boss was a lawyer from Iowa named Jay Sieleman. Since I produced results Jay basically let me do whatever I wanted. For example, the workday started at 7:15 a.m., but I'm a night person and would usually stroll in around 9:30 a.m. However, I would stay late and would come in during the weekends when there was a complicated case that needed more attention. We had a great working relationship because he would set clear goals and I would meet and exceed those goals within the established time limit. If that meant that sometimes I ate lunch at my desk while other times I took a two hour lunch, he didn't care. Things unfortunately changed when the canal was transferred to the Republic of Panama and Jay left, but that's another story, for another time. Marelisa´s last blog post..Outliers - 10,000 Hours for Success

By: Hunter Nuttall

Hunter Nuttall — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 23:19:26 +0000

@ Amanda, yup, that sounds like ROWE to me. I’m sure that instituting ROWE in a traditional workplace is really tough. Just getting people to be willing to try seems like a huge challenge. I’ll probably get the book, and find out how they do it.

@ TheAndySan, I tried Googling it, but ROWE kept matching on T. Rowe Price and Rowe, MA and such. My guess is that it would be really hard to find one. Maybe it will be easy in 50 years, but this just isn’t a popular concept today. But consider Online Business School to create your own income streams without a job.

@ Ali, I agree, it’s really frustrating for everyone to be paid the same, regardless of results. Thanks for taking some time away from your results-based business to comment! I guess when your time is yours, you’re more careful about how you spend it, right?

@ Kathy, it’s great that you’re so big on the results-only concept! I’m very glad to see that it works for the employer (or homeschooler) as well as the employee (or student).

@ Betsy, I guess you’re practically an “insider” then. From what I know about it so far, it seems like a good idea, but like you said, there has to be a buy-in from the top down. It must be really hard to get that!

@ Maria, LOL at “most job performance instruments suck major eggs.” OK, so we need another metric besides time to measure performance. Let’s say you make widgets for 40 hours a week, and then they switch to ROWE, and you’re judged by how many widgets you make instead of how long it takes to make them. Now how do you know how many widgets you need to produce to “get the job done?” What if it takes you (and everyone else) 80 hours a week to make as many widgets as they want?

@ Dot, I wonder if that company eventually realized they would have been better off giving you a good raise than hiring two people to replace you! That’s a good question about ROWE floaters, but I don’t know the answer. This is related to Steve’s (Brip Blap’s) comment.

@ Steve C, I think quality is assumed with the ROWE model. The criteria for determining whether the job is done should include quality. And yes, hourly billing probably makes sense for a lawyer. They don’t have downtime during which they surf the net, and their hourly rate reflects their performance.

@ Steve (Brip Blap), good points about overpaid employees. I’m sure most people wouldn’t want ROWE if it meant only billing 2 hours a day. But if it were 4 hours, that might be a good tradeoff for some people. People might need to line up multiple gigs to have enough work. And yes, health insurance is a problem.

@ Chris, these are good examples of performance metrics. I’m not sure how to apply that to some jobs though, such as software development.

By: Chris Edgar

Chris Edgar — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 20:40:14 +0000

The idea of results-based criteria for our quality of work seems easiest to adopt in the context of selling products, but commissioned salespeople seem like a good model in the context of service professionals. And it seems like the commission model is being increasingly adapted to fields, like law, where it would have been unthinkable a decade ago. More and more lawyers who handle M&A transactions, for example, are being paid based on the value of the deal (or perhaps a blended rate based on deal value and an hourly fee).