Concept of ROWE a Results Oriented Work Environment

ROWE

Results-Oriented Work Environment

Is the concept of ROWE (a results-oriented work environment) really feasible in a global marketplace? Is it a threat to teamwork or is it the reality of a 24/7 world with guild barriers between work and private life?

The results-oriented work environment (ROWE) model has gained a significant amount of attention in recent years and many companies have tried to implement it at different levels. The primary tenet of the ROWE model focuses on the fact that employees should be paid for results as opposed to the number of hours worked. This strategy can empower employees to design their own schedules and be responsible for their own performances. This also frees the responsibilities of the management team so that they can focus more of their time on value creating activities as opposed to having to micro-manage employees' schedules and daily activities. The employees also can be highly motivated by this model and leverage their empowerment to meet organizational goals. However, this approach remains highly controversial and has been subject to much criticism. This analysis will look at some of the arguments made for and against the ROWE model.

Rowe Builds Leadership

The argument has been made that leaders can be more effective if they delegate more responsibilities to their employees. This assertion rests on the premise that employees are able to set their own schedules, prioritize their own activities, and be responsible for their own performances.

"What ROWE does is make an organization more employee driven than management driven. A manager isn't in charge of assigning goals and making sure employees show up every day at 8 a.m. Instead, the manager is there to help a team develop results, track those results and clear barriers to performance. Each ROWE team is expected to work together to develop an agreement that lays out what results each employee in the group is expected to accomplish and what days or times each person will be in the office -- agreements are flexible and can change as employees or caseloads change (Kerrigan, 2012)."

The idea is to empower the employee which in turn also empowers the management to focus on high level organizational goals. If a manager does not have to spend time micro-managing activities but can delegate these to the employees instead, then they will have more time to focus on the important organizational needs.

However, not all people agree that delegation is the right strategy for leaders. In fact, Best Buy was one of the pioneers in the adoption of ROWE and has since abandoned this strategy. "This program was based on the premise that the right leadership style is always delegation," wrote the CEO Hubert Joly (Bhasin, 2013). "It operated on the assumption that if an employee's objectives were agreed to, the manager should always delegate to the employee how those objectives were met." In some cases the right leadership model will require that the leader takes full responsibility for their employees and focuses on coaching and motivating rather than simply delegating.

ROWE's Application

It has been argued that the ROWE method isn't as limited to what you might think in terms of its potential applications. For example, many positions require an employee to be physically present at certain times such as to open the doors to a retail operation. The employee would then have to have a schedule to know when to actually be at work. However, there is generally still some of the employee's time that could be used flexibly and the ROWE could be applied to that. Furthermore, a team could be designated to decide who would open the store and when so the individual employees would have more flexibility in scheduling their own schedules. This takes the results-first approach and lets the employees collaborate to decide the details and responsibilities.

However, many people feel that this is the wrong approach and it simply doesn't work. It is argued that people are more collaborative and innovative when they are together and working as a team. Thus a physical presence is required and it is necessary to schedule in the top-down fashion that everyone has grown accustomed to. The companies that initially implemented ROWE systems, such as Yahoo and Best Buy, have now done away with the ROWE systems and require employees to be on site. They feel the traditional approaches to work are more appropriate especially since both companies experienced a downturn.

ROWE Empowers Employees

The argument is made that the ROWE system empowers employees to make many of their own decisions. This in turn significantly increases employee satisfaction and reduces turnover. Employees can also design their own schedules that mirror the peaks and valleys of the business cycles and can reduce overall absenteeism. The empowered employee is more motivated based upon their own freedom in making this decisions and this will result in better overall performances which in turn result in better organizational performances.

However, many argue against these points and site the fact that there is often a diminished productivity when employees are given more flexibility. Telecommuting and other "flexplace" arrangements, for example, can be disastrous (or at the very least a productivity drain) if used by employees who are unwilling or unable to put in a full day of work amid the non-work temptations (television, pleasure reading, housecleaning, etc.) of a home setting (Enyclopedia of Business, N.d.). Not all employees have the ability to be self-disciplined enough to make a ROWE system work and many are liable to take advantage of the power they are given.

ROWE Empowers Managers

Another argument for the ROWE system is that it can free up a significant amount of a managers time and empower them to focus on a more relevant set of goals. Under a ROWE system a manager will not have to worry about keeping track of scheduling and providing leaves of absence to employees. This will in turn free up their time so that they can focus more on organizational results instead of daily requirements. There will also be more time to coach and develop employees and teams instead of micro-managing their daily activities.