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I favor something more like a Results-Only Work Environment (http://gorowe.com/pages/rowe-standards http://gorowe.com/pages/rowe-standards), where the focus is

I favor something more like a Results-Only Work Environment (http://gorowe.com/pages/rowe-standards http://gorowe.com/pages/rowe-standards), where the focus is on the results and not on how many hours are worked. Too many companies (even startups) are conservatives and traditionalists in the sense of thinking that work needs to be done within certain hours and at a certain place, even when those are not drivers of the results. I'm hired to deliver certain results, not to work a number of hours. If it takes me 10 hours or 40 hours to deliver those results, that's up to me, as long as the deadlines are hit and the deliverables are high-quality. And there's no reason to be in an office, unless the office is instrumental to achieving those results. The focus on how many hours people should work is a fetish that reinforces a still-dominant 20th century office culture.

grecy 12y ago
I agree with you personally, but to play the devil's advocate a little: >If it takes me 10 hours or 40 hours to deliver those results, that's up to me, as long as the deadlines are hit and the deliverables are high-quality. If you are able to consistently deliver the required results in only 10 hours of "work", it's clear that any organization will slowly ramp up the required results more and more until you are working 40 hours a week. How would you agree on results that are "enough for the company" that won't grow endlessly when they see you're only working 10 hours a week?
- seanstickle 12y ago
  This is a cultural change that the company has to go through. They're paying me for the results. Not for the hours. Thinking that they'll "ramp up the required results more and more until you are working 40 hours a week" means that you're still thinking that you're paying for hours. Still, it's the responsibility of all employees to improve the process that they work in, just as part of the company's continuous improvement. Which means that more/better results will be delivered over time anyways. How do you agree on results that are "enough for the company" when you hire a consultant (assuming they're an intelligent consultant and don't charge by the hour).
  - tankerdude 12y ago
    The queues of things to do is always extremely long. There are 1000 tickets in your JIRA queue. They then ask you, what can you do in the 2 week (or 1 week) sprint? What do you say? Is it the 10 hour or 40 hour timeframe? That happens all the time in development, and people do a few things. They underestimate a lot or they write code that is 90%, where when bad things happen, it's ugly to clean up. So the results are what you say you can do in your week of work. And of course, they will put the pressure of "but that's easy." Yada yada. As a results oriented place, some companies pack in what you think is 80 in your 40 hour work week (a lot of companies will try to do this). So what happens then? You switch jobs? As for improving the process, most engineers don't know exactly how. They speculate and guess, hoping to hit it right. It's really up to the people driving it to affect the company culture. Doing it as an individual within an organization is quite difficult. That's what I've experienced at certain companies anyways, generally with management with less experience, tbh.
    - seanstickle 12y ago
      Let's be honest. Both a Results-Only Work Environment or a "9-5 in the office" environment try to pack as much into an employee's schedule as possible. That's not unique to ROWE. Some of the answers to your questions are: well, what do you do now, and how can that be made better? ROWE isn't magic. It's just a recognition that pretending that you're paying for hours spent in an office is nonsense, and that we should talk about the work itself rather than the things that don't have to do with the work. The old equation (fetishistically held to, even in the face of its absurdity) of TIME + PRESENCE = RESULTS typically takes the focus of the conversation, and we end up in conversations about who can work remotely, and how many hours people should put in, etc. Instead of talking about the stuff we're actually paid to deliver. As for not knowing how to improve processes, I don't mean that we should just say to them "hey, go improve things." It's a crucial management responsibility to make sure that people know how to do this sort of thing, to teach them how, and to provide ongoing coaching in doing it.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
  - 12y ago
- SonicSoul 12y ago
  this sort of give/learn/take averaged over multiple employees could redefine how much can be done in a week, or what the average rate per hour is, but in the end the time would be spent more efficiently. I believe that having a set number of hours will grow the workload to meet those hours, and that's inefficient in most cases. No studies to back this up, but I've worked in a lot of places, and the percentage of people that are actually trying to get done as much as they can [in a working day] is very low.
saraid216 12y ago
I would also point out Richard D. Wolff's arguments about forming cooperatives instead of corporations.
evincarofautumn 12y ago
Forcing someone to punch a clock is definitely misguided. But work hours are a useful proxy for effort spent, provided you have good estimation of your pace. And being in the office not only puts you in a “work” frame of mind, but also promotes serendipitous sharing with your coworkers—swapping productivity tips, planning features, explaining systems. So even in a quite results-oriented workplace, with almost total freedom over my hours, I still often choose to go into the office for about six hours a day.
- seanstickle 12y ago
  Work hours are certainly a good proxy for effort spent. But companies don't (or shouldn't) pay for effort, they pay for results. Take 2 people: one a talented auto mechanic, one is me (not mechanically talented). Give us both the task of changing all 4 tires on a car. I take 8 hours. The mechanic takes 1. (Made up numbers, but you get the idea). 8 hours reflect my effort, sure. But you want the tires changed. If the mechanic finishes in 1 hour, great. That's what you're paying for — changed tires. Not hours.
  - evincarofautumn 12y ago
    Sure, but I would be equally happy to pay either of you by the hour if you set your rates according to your respective skill levels, because the price would come out the same. Also there is an implicit expectation of reasonable competence. For example, hourly pay is quite reasonable in jobs that just need a competent body to fill a shift—i.e., where the only “result” you want is “the shift gets filled”. When I was working in a kitchen, I put in the same four-hour shift every time I went into work—prep, serve, clean. If I worked n shifts a week, I got kn dollars that week, fair and square.

grecy 12y ago

I agree with you personally, but to play the devil's advocate a little: >If it takes me 10 hours or 40 hours to deliver those results, that's up to me, as long as the deadlines are hit and the deliverables are high-quality. If you are able to consistently deliver the required results in only 10 hours of "work", it's clear that any organization will slowly ramp up the required results more and more until you are working 40 hours a week. How would you agree on results that are "enough for the company" that won't grow endlessly when they see you're only working 10 hours a week?

seanstickle 12y ago
This is a cultural change that the company has to go through. They're paying me for the results. Not for the hours. Thinking that they'll "ramp up the required results more and more until you are working 40 hours a week" means that you're still thinking that you're paying for hours. Still, it's the responsibility of all employees to improve the process that they work in, just as part of the company's continuous improvement. Which means that more/better results will be delivered over time anyways. How do you agree on results that are "enough for the company" when you hire a consultant (assuming they're an intelligent consultant and don't charge by the hour).
- tankerdude 12y ago
  The queues of things to do is always extremely long. There are 1000 tickets in your JIRA queue. They then ask you, what can you do in the 2 week (or 1 week) sprint? What do you say? Is it the 10 hour or 40 hour timeframe? That happens all the time in development, and people do a few things. They underestimate a lot or they write code that is 90%, where when bad things happen, it's ugly to clean up. So the results are what you say you can do in your week of work. And of course, they will put the pressure of "but that's easy." Yada yada. As a results oriented place, some companies pack in what you think is 80 in your 40 hour work week (a lot of companies will try to do this). So what happens then? You switch jobs? As for improving the process, most engineers don't know exactly how. They speculate and guess, hoping to hit it right. It's really up to the people driving it to affect the company culture. Doing it as an individual within an organization is quite difficult. That's what I've experienced at certain companies anyways, generally with management with less experience, tbh.
  - seanstickle 12y ago
    Let's be honest. Both a Results-Only Work Environment or a "9-5 in the office" environment try to pack as much into an employee's schedule as possible. That's not unique to ROWE. Some of the answers to your questions are: well, what do you do now, and how can that be made better? ROWE isn't magic. It's just a recognition that pretending that you're paying for hours spent in an office is nonsense, and that we should talk about the work itself rather than the things that don't have to do with the work. The old equation (fetishistically held to, even in the face of its absurdity) of TIME + PRESENCE = RESULTS typically takes the focus of the conversation, and we end up in conversations about who can work remotely, and how many hours people should put in, etc. Instead of talking about the stuff we're actually paid to deliver. As for not knowing how to improve processes, I don't mean that we should just say to them "hey, go improve things." It's a crucial management responsibility to make sure that people know how to do this sort of thing, to teach them how, and to provide ongoing coaching in doing it.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- 12y ago
SonicSoul 12y ago
this sort of give/learn/take averaged over multiple employees could redefine how much can be done in a week, or what the average rate per hour is, but in the end the time would be spent more efficiently. I believe that having a set number of hours will grow the workload to meet those hours, and that's inefficient in most cases. No studies to back this up, but I've worked in a lot of places, and the percentage of people that are actually trying to get done as much as they can [in a working day] is very low.

saraid216 12y ago

I would also point out Richard D. Wolff's arguments about forming cooperatives instead of corporations.

evincarofautumn 12y ago

Forcing someone to punch a clock is definitely misguided. But work hours are a useful proxy for effort spent, provided you have good estimation of your pace. And being in the office not only puts you in a “work” frame of mind, but also promotes serendipitous sharing with your coworkers—swapping productivity tips, planning features, explaining systems. So even in a quite results-oriented workplace, with almost total freedom over my hours, I still often choose to go into the office for about six hours a day.

seanstickle 12y ago
Work hours are certainly a good proxy for effort spent. But companies don't (or shouldn't) pay for effort, they pay for results. Take 2 people: one a talented auto mechanic, one is me (not mechanically talented). Give us both the task of changing all 4 tires on a car. I take 8 hours. The mechanic takes 1. (Made up numbers, but you get the idea). 8 hours reflect my effort, sure. But you want the tires changed. If the mechanic finishes in 1 hour, great. That's what you're paying for — changed tires. Not hours.
- evincarofautumn 12y ago
  Sure, but I would be equally happy to pay either of you by the hour if you set your rates according to your respective skill levels, because the price would come out the same. Also there is an implicit expectation of reasonable competence. For example, hourly pay is quite reasonable in jobs that just need a competent body to fill a shift—i.e., where the only “result” you want is “the shift gets filled”. When I was working in a kitchen, I put in the same four-hour shift every time I went into work—prep, serve, clean. If I worked n shifts a week, I got kn dollars that week, fair and square.