Billable hours
January 3rd, 2008 by Cali & Jody
We were delighted to see this piece in Slate that talks about how the practice of law firms billing by the hour is coming under fire.
As the story notes in the opening of the second paragraph:
“For years, critics have argued that tracking the work day in six-minute intervals—the standard billing system used by big law firms—discourages creativity and efficiency.”
Amen. (And not just for lawyers.)
But what we found interesting is that it’s the client who is driving this change. It’s the client (and not lawyers searching for more work-life balance) who are finally getting sick of the waste and inefficiency of having knowledge work being tied to the clock. While the idea of a Results-Only Work Environment isn’t widespread enough yet for a company’s customers to start asking for ROWE, we can see this happening in the future.
The reason is that a ROWE allows a company to serve its customers far more intensely than a traditional work environment.
First, because people can choose to work at any time of the day, someone, somewhere in the company is always working. As a result, the entire company is more in tune with the global, 24/7 economy.
More importantly, because employees are rewarded based on results rather than filling hours, they are more innovative, more focused on solving problems, and more responsive. They have more incentive to complete their work quickly and efficiently because once their work is done, their time is their own.
So if you’re out there wanting ROWE for your organization, don’t stop there. You can also add the companyies you work with to your wish list for this exciting new way of working.
You are spot on! For years, when I address legal organozations on the topic of wor-life “balance”, I stress the fact that billable hours are a doom loop. There’s another marvelous book, Transforming Practices, written by Stephen Keeva- head of the ABA Journal. It’s old but still quite compelling.
Keep up the good work!
The Idea of the ROWE is in itself a novel one but for it to have a wider footprints across every niche domain of professional life, so as to make this world a better place to work it has to evolve furthur…
We also have to take into account the work environments where people have to spend designated hours(billable) at work and find a roundabout to make there life a peace as well. Eg. Few places people have to stay put in the office while providing the support for customers (IT Industry)….
And believe me or not to make this Model a grand success we have to make it as global as possible… and i think this is surely possible in this Globally Localised world we have today…
Lets all work to make people realise the advantages of this model and make it a success!!!