msnbc.msn.com
While reading it (from my cube, going on three hours waiting for my IDE to finish installing so I can actually work), I kept thinking back to how work and collaboration played out in college.
Students are allotted full autonomy in when, where, and how they work on tasks, provided that they're completed in an appropriate amount of time. Furthermore, most institutions provide diverse environments in which to work.
Some students will choose to work from their room, some will sequester themselves in the library, others will prefer the student union. A handful will walk down to the local coffee shop or park.
Often, the chosen spaces provide a much more conducive environment for informal collaboration, and it gives ad hoc groups the ability to dynamically form and find a space to work together (right now the 20 people on my team are scattered throughout a group of 180 other folks, across 9 rows of cubicles; I don't see half of them for weeks on end). When your work is dependent on another person's presence, you mutually agree on a time and space to meet. You know, a good, productive kind of meeting.
I wonder why more corporations don't follow academia's lead in allowing this sort of autonomy? What tasks require a static, personal, physical desk, these days?
I'd give anything just to have a laptop and be able to work from a table near a window. After a late night, I'd love to be able to take a quick midday nap to boost my mental acuity for the afternoon. Instead, I'm chained to my cube, regardless of my performance.
The employer is paying you. Underperformance is a quick way to be shown the door.
I believe that would be sufficient motivation.
Anyway students' time management is just as bad.
He takes over his father's manufacturing company in Brazil... Then he proceeds to implement a lot of radical (for the time) ideas - from abolishing fixed work hours to letting employees setting their own salaries.
Not only is Semco one of the most top "to work for" companies in Brazil, the changes allows Semco to make it through some pretty bad times in the Brazilian economy.
"I was always looking to see if people were here. I should have been looking at what they were getting done."
"decades-old business dogma that equates physical presence with productivity."
Holy crap finally someone with the balls to come out and say it like it is. I find it shocking that it took until 2008 to figure this out.
The other less obvious lesson in this article is, the only way to get a really good and inovative idea implemented at a large company is to not tell anyone about it until it is already successful. Then they can't deny it's benefits.
I find it really strange when I ask to work from home for some extended period (like 3 days!) and my superiors ask me to not mention it to the other employees (whoops, here I am, mentioning it... well they don't read HN). I guess the corporation would not like people to get wind of the fact that they don't actually need to be there. The appearance of loyalty and coherence are important to some people, I guess.
Bah.
This is what I've been doing, more out of necessity than anything else, Office space would cost more than what I'm paying people, and it's much easier to find people in my price range if I don't mind that they live a few timezones away.
The reason employers fear this idea is they fear that their employees might just slack off.
The cure for that is meaningful profit sharing. When the company's success IS your success, people get very motivated, and that motivation does not drive them to say "I'd better sit here surfing the web until I am the last person in the office". It drives them to cut out the dead time in their day with work, and when they cannot work, to do something they enjoy.
Where 'profit sharing' works, it tends to be called something else: a commission, for example. Works pretty well with sales staff. Equity is also a good motivator if there's a reasonable chance it will be worth something. What's important is being able to connect individual effort with reward. Otherwise, it's not much better than a lottery.
If the success of the company is not influenced at all by your efforts, then that must be pretty depressing. Maybe a good sign that you would be happier somewhere else...
the balance is letting employees plan their work day as they see fit, as long as they are delivering on target.