ROWE is like Fantasy Football (really!)

What can cost U.S. companies $10.5 billion in productivity by the end of January?  An awful, deadly disease that will wipe out half our population in the next 4 months?  No, apparently it’s Fantasy Football.  Yes, this is just like the claims made about March Madness - when “office time” is spent on these activities instead of on work, the clock is tick-tocking away and productivity is being lost.  According to the studies, that is.

What we do find somewhat promising in this article (one of the many that covers the bring-down-the-business practice of Fantasy Football) is that it ends with a quote about more managers starting to use a measurement of productivity rather than time.  Perhaps this is the last NFL season we’ll have to endure these ridiculous numbers being thrown around.

Before this weekend’s games, we thought we’d provide some analogies between ROWE and Fantasy Football for those of you that get into that kind of thing (and if you don’t, then do not read this or you’ll be adding to that $10.5 billion in lost productivity and we can’t have that!):

• The way we feel about some meetings in the work environment is similar to how we feel about our tight ends.  They’re meaningless and not worth any of our time.
• Some leagues are Keeper Leagues and others are Dynasty Leagues, where you get to keep your entire roster for the next year. Managers often choose to go ROWE because they want to keep their Dynasty Team year after year - ROWE will secure it for you.
• When someone is out with an injury for the week at the RB position, you have another RB that you can plug right in.  He’s a backup and your whole team doesn’t fall apart.  You’re covered for that position and you get a few points.  [Now if you were the one in your league that had Brady go down this year, your whole team might have fallen apart, but that’s an anomaly!)  Backups in a ROWE are similar - it’s not your top-notch player in the role all the time, but backups keep the team moving.
• Trading players is just like ROWE.  You’re scanning the NFL environment and making decisions about who to move around to reach your outcome of winning the league.  You find players that you think will provide more value to your team and you swap out the waste.  Employees in a ROWE are always making trades - making sure what’s on their plates is truly needed to get to an outcome.
• The “sleeper” on your Fantasy team performs better than you ever thought he would.  The “sleeper” on your work team needs control over his/her time to really shine - they’re stifled in the current environment and they’re meeting expectations - but once they’re set free, they will amaze you.

Good luck to all of you Fantasy players this weekend, and let’s hope ROWE has moved far enough by next fall that we don’t have companies worried about how much time their employees spend on their teams between 8:00 and 5:00.  After all, are we more worried about the Fantasy game or the real work?

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Contest announcement: Thanks to those of you that sent in your most non-ROWE policies. We found ourselves gritting our teeth when we read them, and thought Kurt’s policy on Extra Hours and Overtime was the most painful.  Congrats, Kurt - a signed copy of Why Work Sucks and a Work Sucks bumper magnet are on the way to you!

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