Smashing the Clock

Yahoo Finance ^ | 12/7 | Michelle Conlin - BusinessWeek Online

[Arthalion]

Fascinating. I suggest reading the full article before making any conclusions. My first reaction was that laziness has finally creeped into the corporate heirarchy, but I have to wonder whether this really might be a good idea. My question is: How do you track employee productivity to make sure they're really working?

[Dog Gone]

I'd hate to be there when all the checkers decided to leave.

[King Moonracer]

My question is: How do you track employee productivity to make sure they're really working?

Fire their managers, if they don't know they are working. I've worked for idiots who had to do a special study to figure out if they were at capacity or not. If Managers and Supervisors don't know, then what the hell are they managing???

[kinoxi]

I have never had a good (competent) customer service experience in a Best Buy. I suspect the trend will be unaffected by this creative management concept.

[tarheelswamprat]

Should work about as well as those colleges where the students get to design and run their own courses and grade themselves.

[Yo-Yo]

The endeavor, called ROWE, for "results-only work environment," seeks to demolish decades-old business dogma that equates physical presence with productivity. The goal at Best Buy is to judge performance on output instead of hours.

CEOs need not apply.

[GRRRRR]

Uh, what we're going to need to do is get those TPS reports out on time....er, OK?

Love the BOBS!

[ansel12]

I'm boycotting them any way.

http://www.snopes.com/politics/christmas/bestbuy.asp

[D.P.Roberts]

Sorta like grad school.

[Oberon]

How do you track employee productivity to make sure they're really working?

Weekly and monthly production goals, hitting project milestones, volume of output. All these things can be documented and tracked.

[mountainlyons]

I will not buy at these stores until they pay the rebate they offered.

[Mr. Jeeves]

Weekly and monthly production goals, hitting project milestones, volume of output. All these things can be documented and tracked.

Nah, it's much more important that they are sitting in a cubicle thirty miles from their homes, looking busy. ;)

[dandelion]

My question is: How do you track employee productivity to make sure they're really working?

One word: COMMISSIONS

If workers have an employee ID number, you check to see how much merchandise they are moving. Then if you wish to reward them, you offer a commission.

The glitch I see in this method is that you'd have a lack of workers at slower times, but I'm sure that with an incentive or two you can cover those shifts...

[durasell]

But they do not bring the affirmation of my faith into the retail experience. They are satan with iPods.

[nascarnation]

It's an interesting concept, but likely to fail.

I manage people who work 3 different shifts to comprise a 24 hour/day operation. But I'm actually on site only about 10 hours/day myself so much of the time the two "off" shifts are unsupervised. Frankly peer pressure is one of the best feedback mechanisms. If a shift squad has to accomplish a certain quantity of work and somebody is not pulling their weight, I'll hear about it.

[Emmett McCarthy]

Hell, I've been doing this for years. Makes deals, get money. Make no deals, get no money. I meet the prospect, get whatever specifics I need, sit at my desk in my boxers and fax it to my designer, watch TV or go ride my motorcycle until it's time to take the proposal back to the client. Being in the same place for 8 hours at a time would mean I wasn't doing any business. Well, after 2 hours in the same place, the dozin' an' droolin' would probably kick in anyway.

[bannie]

Me too. Keepin' the Christ in Christmas!

[Oberon]

Nah, it's much more important that they are sitting in a cubicle thirty miles from their homes, looking busy. ;)

That's my typical workday. =/

[toddlintown]

When I walk out the door with that 60-incher HDTV, I hope everyone's in the back doing a blunt.

[killermosquito]

Looks like a company whose stock should be sold short.