ROWE has been taking a bit of a hit lately in the media. Companies like Best Buy and Yahoo have made bold moves to end their work at home options for employees. I have seen some people respond that ROWE did not work out like it was supposed to. As my friend Greg Kyte would say, I call BS.
I don’t think Best Buy or Yahoo! were ROWE at all. Because ROWE works. What fails is leadership.
For some reason, people think working away from an office is the same thing as ROWE. It’s not though. In fact, Jody Thompson and Cali Ressler have been trying to help us understand for a while that flexibility is the new F word. Just because you are not forced to be in an office from 8 to 5 Monday through Friday does not mean your are working in a ROWE. There may have been a lot of people both in an out of the offices of Best Buy and Yahoo not achieving results. Maybe they didn’t even know what results they were supposed to achieve! That’s a leadership problem. Let’s not blame ROWE. Read more