What is ROWE and should your company adopt it?

A lot has changed in the workforce over the last few years. The traditional 9-5, in-office workday no longer makes sense for everyone in today’s world.

Employees in many industries have been arguing for the right to work remotely for several years, and employers have pushed back, arguing that working full-time in an office is the only way to get things done. The pandemic, of course, forced a lot of those businesses into a remote working model and proved those employers wrong.Rather than decreasing, as employers always claimed it would, productivity and employee morale were shown to increase at many companies. As a natural development, there’s a growing movement of people who say the way forward for a successful workforce is for companies to adopt what is called a ROWE strategy. ROWE is an acronym for Results Only Work Environment.

What is ROWE?

ROWE is a business strategy in which managers grant their employees the freedom to accomplish what needs to be done on their own time. As long as the job gets done, employees can do it whenever, and from wherever, they like. Employees in a ROWE workplace get paid for the work they do rather than the hours they put in. Proponents claim ROWE improves productivity and attracts top talent – likely because top talent can, and probably prefers to, work autonomously rather than be micromanaged. It reduces commute times and creates a culture of trust, personal responsibility, accountability, and job satisfaction.

The idea was conceived at Best Buy in 2004. At the time, it was decided that people could work from home anytime they felt like it without a reason or excuse. There were no sick days or vacation allotments -- employees could take as much time off as they wanted, whenever they wanted – and all meetings were optional.

What happened? Slate reported that:

• Employees slept almost a full hour more on nights before work days because they were less stressed about going to the office.
• People were more likely to stay home or go to a doctor when they were sick, which reduced the spread of illness around the office and improved overall health.
• People exercised more. 
• Turnover was reduced by as much as 90%.
• Productivity improved by 41%.

Who uses ROWE?

Companies that use ROWE today or have used it in the past include Gap, Toptal, Trello, Github, and Girl Scouts of America.

Best Buy, interestingly, is not on the list of companies using ROWE today. It was abandoned in 2013 when the company was facing hard times and the new CEO, Hubert Joly, opted to switch to an “all hands on deck” approach. At the time, this move attracted negative attention, while some people have noted that, since it didn’t apply to Best Buy’s retail store employees, who made up the vast majority of the company’s 168,000-person workforce at the time, it probably didn’t make much difference anyway.

Where ROWE works and where it doesn’t

A retail store is one place where ROWE is very unlikely to work, since you need a certain number of people on the floor. The same applies to food service, delivery jobs, customer service, warehouses, and manufacturing. ROWE may also be less effective in situations where employees have less experience and need more oversight.

Some areas where ROWE can be well applied is with jobs where employees are well positioned to succeed on their own time – creative and research and development roles, for example - and with leadership roles.

That being said, there are definitely some organizational requirements a business should take care of and practices that need to be put in place before ROWE can be applied successfully. ROWE requires employees who think and behave autonomously and for them to be set up with all the required tools and resources they need. These employees also need to be granted certain decision-making freedoms, so they don’t have to come to a manager every time a choice needs to be made.

 What are some pros and cons of ROWE?

Pros:

• ROWE requires less office space, potentially reducing rent and related costs.
• Employees are more likely to go to the doctor and stay home when they are sick, reducing the spread of illness and improving overall health.
• Employees report lower stress levels.
• Improved employee engagement
• Increased company loyalty
• Reduced employee turnover, which reduced recruiting and hiring costs.
• Reduced commute times
• Better work-life balance

Cons:

• ROWE requires employees and managers who are reliable and wholly ethical. Managers using ROWE have to fully trust their employees, which is not always the case.
• ROWE requires excellent time management skills and self-discipline. Not everyone has these soft skills, even if they are talented workers in other areas.
• ROWE requires a lot of training. Experienced employees with the best training are the most likely to succeed.
• Not everyone wants to be in charge of their own hours and work from home. Some people thrive on deadlines, meetings, and the structure of an office environment.
• Limited team building and social interaction opportunities

Companies can avoid these pitfalls by:

• Recruiting top talent with time-management skills and self-discipline.
• Focusing on offering the best training and onboarding experience possible.
• Setting employees up for success with the right work and communications tools, and whatever else they need.
• Coaching managers to be open and approachable and having an open door communication policy. Making it clear that people can come to management with any question or concern, no matter how big or small.
• Setting clear goals and communicating them effectively

A Results Only Work Environment won’t work for every company. It might work for a company that knows its employees well, places a high level of confidence in them, has excellent senior management and training programs in place, and maintains an open communication policy. When it works, proponents claim it can have a positive impact on productivity, employee job satisfaction, and revenue.