Caught this "innovation" in business operations and human capital management this weekend while reading latest (April) issue of Inc. magazine (not online yet). The article is about the creative class, productivity, profitability, innovation and work-life balance.
Extreme Flextime. For one company 9 to 5 is no way to make a living.
Ricardo Semler has an unorthodox approach to managing....Allow your employees to work whenever they want, wherever they want, and they'll reward you with increased productivity, greater profitability, and longer-term loyalty, argues the Brazilian businessman in his new book The Seven-Day Weekend (Portfolio). Semler, CEO of Sao Paulo-based holding company Semco, whose ventures include industrial equipment and environmental consulting, boasts his strategy is responsible for increasing annual revenue from $35 million to $212 million in the last six years with virtually no turnover among his 3,000 employees.
Semler himself says, "I've halved my work hours to about 30 a week, I spend 80% of my time doing what I want, rather than what people want me to do. I take piano lessons, play squash, do yoga every day. And I almost never feel guilty for lack of time for my little boy, wife, and friends.
Semler also wrote Maverick:Success Story Behind the World's Most Unusual Work Place which has been highly recommended to me for some time. Still haven't got to it, but it's on the reading list. About Maverick: "First published in Brazil in 1988 as Turning the Tables , this book was the all-time best-selling nonfiction book in Brazil's history."
Now I have not actually read Seven-Day Weekend either, but the press and promotion about it stresses the work-life balance for employees and glosses over why employees are more productive. Perhaps it's meant to be obvious that happier employees are more productive. But an important point seems to be unstated.
In an idea, creative, knowledge, information, call-it-what-you-will economy, what matters more are the intangibles. It is completely natural for individuals to have an open valve for imagination, creativity and ideas. There need not be an on-off switch -- unless you impose one. Individual minds are 24/7 operations. I'm just as productive, sometimes more so, when I am driving the car (silently, with radio off), jogging, or washing the dishes at home.
My employer or client buys a share in all my brainchilds during a specified period of employ. The company buys a stake in my mind not my hours at a desk. If you would prefer to only buy my hours at a desk, you will just be getting the tip of the iceberg.
It's not like on a factory floor where if I'm at home or walking my dog I am not producing any widgets whatsoever. Many intangibles, such as ideas, don't stop when a creative class individual goes home.
Face time spent on the 'factory floor' (any workplace) is a totally irrelevant metric in today's world -- it doesn't correlate to results (X widgets produced per hour) like it used to. And results are what matter.
As an employer, you have a place in your employee's mind at all times - they might come up with a lead generation epiphany anywhere anytime - so how do you make that asset more valuable? How do you increase idea productivity?
I was at a coffee tasting (or cupping) at Barefoot Coffee Roasters this past Saturday (thanks for the reco, John) and Andy the owner said there is a "tight balance" to good coffee. Too much or too little water and it's "nasty and bitter". Want stronger coffee? It's a fallacy to think water is the only variable to producing a stronger coffee. Yes, it'll be strong -- and undrinkably bitter. There's a tight balance to creativity and idea production. Spend too little time mentally forced "on" at an office and your creative productivity plummets. Spend too little time with some sort of structure and it can also plummet. It's not a law of diminishing returns - it can be zero or sometimes negative returns. I speak from my own personal experience of what makes me more creative and productive, but I have a hunch that this is true for many in the creative class. They just haven't had a chance to experiment in widely differing work environments and different schedules yet.
While I don't see a lot of companies employing Semler's strategies for primarily perceived control reasons, I think successful companies in which their core strengths are idea or innovation-driven will start to employ and adapt many more of them in a context that makes sense for them and their employees.
Evelyn, I found your blog via Worthwhilemag.com and just spent some time reading through it. Your insights are truly illuminating.
In fact, I just read "Seven Day Weekend" by Mr. Semler after being turned on to it by a Worthwhile post. If you haven't read it, you really should. I haven't read "Maverick" yet, but that's on my to-buy list.
The question, for me at least, is why more companies haven't given up control? Is it just an age-old model that keeps hanging on because of fear of the unknown?
Posted by: Mindwalker | Sep 27, 2004 at 10:04 AM