Asking the right questions
November 5th, 2007 by Cali & Jody
A nice piece in this Sunday’s New York Times (registration required) about the politics of the modern workplace. The writer focuses on the current presidential campaign, but makes a larger point about the “historic opportunity” we are facing in freeing people from their assumptions about where and when work gets done. He asks:
“[W]hy shouldn’t more middle-class workers whose jobs can now be done remotely have the option to structure their own hours and still enjoy the security of a safety net? Why shouldn’t data-entry clerks and graphic designers and actuaries and reservations agents — anyone who spends his days staring at a terminal in some sterile environment straight out of Office Space — be able to work in shorts and spend more time around the kids?”
Exactly. The answer is that there is no reason why not. What’s been missing until now is a new social and mental framework to replace the old, broken model of face time and putting in hours. That new framework is a Results-Only Work Environment. When people deliver results and are rewarded for outcomes, then they don’t need to put in face time. Businesses benefit from more productive, engaged and focused workers. Employees benefit from having more control over their time. Good news for what the article calls “the modern, untethered workforce.”
