Making flex-time mandatory

Late last year Best Buy introduced 100% flex time at its headquarters in Minneapolis. The ROWE program, or Results Oriented Work Environment allowed employees to come in and leave when they wanted, as long as the job got done. The focus is on the work done, and not the time spent doing it.

Sounds neat?

The program boosted Best Buy productivity by 35% in departments that adopted ROWE. Turn-over is down and morale is up. All 4000 headquarter employees at Best Buy will be on ROWE by the end of 2007. The company wants to follow-up by expanding the initiative to its retail outlets.





Another interesting fact about ROWE from the article Smashing the Clock in Business Week:

It wasn't imposed from the top down. It began as a covert guerrilla action that spread virally and eventually became a revolution. So secret was the operation that Chief Executive Brad Anderson only learned the details two years after it began transforming his company.

Well as it turns out, ROWE may not just be an interesting gimmick or a "feel good" proposition for companies.

Fast Company's latest blog posting suggests that flex time may be what's needed to effectively do business in a global economy with clients scattered across time zones.

It's a resource and time management tool for coordinating global clients and teams so that work is done across time zones without burning people out. Too many people are working their traditional "8-to-6" schedule in addition to doing global work after-hours. Something has got to give, and greater flexibility is the solution.

Increasingly, I find business leaders are recognizing that you can't ask people to work "8-to-6" and then get on calls with Asia from 11pm-3am without rethinking if the standard "8-to-6, in-the-office" model of work even applies anymore. It doesn't.

It's not about empowerment or morale anymore. It's not simply a nice showcase of your company's creativity and freedom. Flex-time or work-from-home is becoming standard. If your company doesn't find a way to deal with it, your employees will solve the problem themselves, like they did at Best Buy.

What's Phase 2?

You know... how are you going to use your knowledge, skills, to ultimately market and grow your organization? You know the execution phase...



We all know what Phase 3 is.. but in order to get there, the key is to make sure everyone knows what Phase 2 is..

Showdown in the Valley

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has never been one to shy away from trouble.

As time moves forward, and Google Docs starts to pick up steam, the head-to-head rivalry between Google and Microsoft is becoming a rivalry to reckon with. Earlier today at the Web 2.0 summit Ballmer took his second jab at Google by comparing them to a toddler trying to play against older kids.

Click here to read "Google Just a Toddler?" from The Globe and Mail.

This, coming just months after calling Google a "one-trick" pony earlier this year at a lecture at Stanford.

Careful now Mr. Ballmer, with the imminent launch of the Google-Phone, Google is poised to grow up fast... and if one day they're bigger than you... they won't soon forget the name-calling..

Can't Figure Your Company Out?

Don't worry, everyone else is doing it for you.

In a what can be considered a "mash-up" of Facebook and Wikipedia, Forbes has developed the Forbes.com Corporate Org Chart Wiki

Over time, org charts and "business networks" will be developed whether your organization likes it or not.

The implications for sales opportunities, or worse yet.. Talent retention (or poaching) become immense.

Get ahead of the curve.

The good news, in a couple of months we can all try to play Six-Degres-of-Bob-Nardelli