It’s no secret that Americans know how to put in the hours. “Work hard, play hard,” as the saying goes. While we’re very good at working, we might not be so good at playing. America is often named as the poster child for a workaholic culture, and many individuals are struggling to find the balance between work time and personal time.
According to a Deloitte survey, 80% of people are dissatisfied with their jobs. This is supported by a Gallup poll that reported 18% of American and Canadian employees as “actively disengaged,” meaning they are “unhappy and unproductive at work and liable to spread negativity to coworkers.” Another 54% were simply “not engaged.” Part of this issue may be linked to lacking enough time at home; some 53% of working parents with children say that it is difficult to find a balance between work responsibilities and home life.
Many social critics have pointed out that the countries with more time off, tend to maintain high productivity while attaining greater job satisfaction. The Northern European countries are usually the ones highlighted for this success, with Denmark’s generous parental leave, Belgium’s average of 16.61 hours of time off each day, and Sweden’s 0.001% of the population regularly working over 50 hours a week.
Seeing the success overseas, some American businesses are looking to rearrange or reduce work hours to improve productivity. Flextime is the hot topic in progressive management and it’s generating some mixed results.
Flextime in action
In 2005, BestBuy shifted to a “Results-Only Work Environment” (“ROWE”) in its offices. Employees were given the freedom to work whenever they wanted, as long as their projects were completed on time. Office space was used primarily for meetings and collaborative time.
Although the program is no longer in effect, it found some success during its run. Erin Kelly and Phyllis Moen, Sociology professors at the University of Minnesota, gathered data from employees before and during ROWE. They found that employees got more sleep every night, turnover rates were cut nearly in half, and participants “described both a sense of freedom and greater responsibility for actually accomplishing results.” The ROWE founders Cali Ressler and Jodi Thompson went on to open a consultancy called CultureRx to help other businesses make the switch to ROWE (GAP, Inc. and American Family Insurance are among their clients).
Early 2013 saw the demise of ROWE at BestBuy. It was also around this time that Yahoo announced the end of its flex policy as well. Both businesses said, in essence, that they needed their employees present to increase creativity and move forward as a unified company. “It’s not what’s right for Yahoo right now,” said Marissa Mayer, CEO, “…people are more productive when they’re alone, but they’re more collaborative and innovative when they’re together.”
While the methods of BestBuy and Yahoo are two of the more famous examples, the concept of flextime is not necessarily so extreme. Many businesses, like LaneTerralever, offer more moderate allowances and have seen higher retention and job satisfaction. This might take the form of letting employees set their own schedules during the workweek. Others offer more dramatic schedule arrangements, such as 10 days of work followed by 4 days off. Allowing occasional telecommuting, or working from home, is also a viable solution for many offices.
Making flextime work
Flextime might seem like the solution to all office problems, but it is necessary to remember that it, like any other potential solution, comes with its own set of complications. One of the biggest issues for businesses that offer flextime is determining who gets it, and for how long. Who has the better excuse for going home early, or requesting an adjusted schedule? CEO and Founder of Flex+Strategy Group & Work+Life Fit Inc Cali Williams Yost had some advice on this implication. “My advice is to remove the why – take the reason out of it,” she tells The New York Times, “You shouldn’t say, ‘I’m leaving at 3 p.m. to take my kid to a soccer game, because what about the person who has to take their parent to chemotherapy or the person who needs to go to marriage counseling?”
Whether through flextime or other methods, focusing on employee happiness goes a long way in improving productivity. LaneTerralever offers their employees flexible work schedules to increase employee satisfaction, and they’ve seen some positive results. Shawn Anchor writes for the Harvard Business Review: “A decade of research proves that happiness raises nearly every business and educational outcome: raising sales by 37%, productivity by 31%, and accuracy on tasks by 19%.” Find the balance that works for your business. Your employees will thank you for it!
