Work-life balance at Kodak

First: not familiar with ROWE? Well, it stands for Results-Only Work Environment (or Results Oriented Work Environment), a management strategy espoused by authors Cali Ressler and Jody Thompson in their book Why Work Sucks and How to Fix It.  The objective of this strategy is to move from measuring work done in terms of hours spent in "official" work environments, and instead to look at the outcomes - the work done, whether it was done from home, out of the country, in the car, wherever and whenever it is performed/completed.

The benefits described include:

• biosynchronous work schedules (flex- time, core hours, employees working at their peak productivity hours);
• higher employee satisfaction (and reduced absenteeism AND presenteeism)
• emphasis on the output
  

The drawbacks, of course, are that it doesn't work in every environment (the big obvious point being it's for certain white collar positions), it's hard to quantify for many workplaces, and co-workers and management are often resistant to the idea that someone is working when they can't see them sitting at a desk.

Anyway, from the article:

It's well past 9 a. m. and David Brown is stuck in traffic after dropping his children off at their school. But he's not concerned that anyone at his workplace is going to be perturbed by his tardiness; at Kodak Graphic Communications Canada Co. in Vancouver, nobody punches a clock.

"We measure people based on what they contribute, not on what hours they work," says Mr. Brown, who as commercialization manager overseeing new product innovations enjoys the same work flexibility afforded a software developer or office support staff. "It allows for a better life balance."

It's likely the next day he'll be engaged in a business-related conference call at 7 a. m. from his home so the measure of time he puts in to work is irrelevant.

"You can work your schedule around making sure you can achieve getting things done for work but also having time with the family and managing other things you need to as well," he says.

Read the rest at the link.

h/t to Wellergize development partner Wendy Woods for the find.

Source
(please note, some articles are only available for a limited time.)

Posted by: gisela on 2008-10-23 01:06:29

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