There is a nice, lively debate about the merits of ROWE in the comments section of The Globe and Mail. One of the conversation threads that stood out for us was this idea of availability. Here are four quotes from four different comments to show you what we mean:

“We need people to be available, in person as necessary, for ongoing issues, and yes at short notice.”

“I find the problem starts when you need to ask a coworker something, and he isn’t in the office that day.”

“[I]n an environment where you need people to be able to offer answers, feedback and decisions on short notice, you need to be able to predict when they’ll be available. Human beings don’t cope exceptionally well with unpredictable situations.”

“In my line of work there are many disciplines working on a project. Timing and scheduling are crucial. There are times when I need a piping designer to make modifications right away; not when they get back from an afternoon movie.”

One of the big misconceptions about ROWE is that because it gives people control over their schedules, it’s a “time off” program. The assumption is that if someone is not physically present, then they are unavailable, and therefore worthless to the organization. When you think about work in this way, then the two choices are either “at work” (and therefore working) or “out of the office” (and therefore unavailable and not working).

There are two problems with this model. First, you can have everyone in their cubes and in meetings from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. and the work still doesn’t get done. Even with 100% percent availability, there is no guarantee that people are engaged. They could be surfing the internet, chatting with their coworkers about what they watched on TV last night, or simply spacing out.

And even if everyone were working the entire time (talk about a fantasy!), the energy people spend on being available is energy they’re not spending on driving results. Whether you want to admit it or not, the simple act of making sure you’re on time every day (and appearing bright-eyed and bushy-tailed in front of your boss and coworkers) consumes physical and emotional energy. In our view, that energy is completely wasted. Put that energy toward results and both employer and employee benefit.

The second problem with the availability model is more of an untapped opportunity. As we know from our personal lives, technology has made the notion of availability a lot fuzzier.

For example, if you want to watch a DVD right now, then you would go to the video store. But if you wanted to watch a video sometime in the coming week, then you might rent it online. So which DVD is more available? The video store DVD is available immediately, provided that the store is open. The online DVD is also available immediately (you could rent it at 3:00 a.m. on a Sunday if you wanted to), provided you’re willing to wait a few days for it to arrive. The better method depends on your needs and desires.

A ROWE works under the same principle. It doesn’t mean that your boss can call you at 3:00 a.m. demanding to know where you keep the toner. It also doesn’t mean that everyone leaves at once on a sunny day to play golf. It doesn’t mean that if there is a genuine emergency (as opposed to fake emergencies — but that’s for another post) that no one deals with it. A ROWE means that you get very clear about the business results you’re trying to drive. You plan how to get there and then you let people do their jobs (and live their lives).

Don’t you think that beats “available”?

One of the risks of getting wrapped up in your own world is that you get  . . . well . . . wrapped up in your own world. Which is why we are grateful to Tim Walker for his post about relying on your brain instead of relying on technology.

We spend a lot of time talking about how technology frees people to work whenever they want and from anywhere. And it’s true: part of what makes a Results-Only Work Environment so successful is the widespread availability of laptops and cell phones.

But technology isn’t the whole story. In a ROWE, the point isn’t to see who can get the most done over e-mail, or who can stay out of the office the longest, or who can work from the most remote location. Technology gives people the power to live “untethered,” but if they’re not putting results first, then they’re not living up to the promise of ROWE.

A workplace that had zero technology could still be a ROWE. People could still do whatever they want, whenever they want, as long as the work got done. They could still decline meeting invitations where the desired outcome of the meeting wasn’t clear. They could still challenge their boss to give them meaningful goals, rather than thirty things that would be nice to accomplish that year. They could still serve the customer and not the clock.

We call this using the “ROWE mindset.” It’s a way of looking at work and the world and solving problems based on what needs to get done, not our assumptions about how work needs to get done. Technology just makes it all shiny and pretty.

This story about how social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace are “sneaking into the office” is just a tidbit, but we were intrigued by the last line:

“As with instant messaging and wireless access, banning the technology from the office is not effective because it is likely to creep in anyway. It is better to recognize it, evaluate it, manage it and then use it appropriately.” 

We don’t have all the answers on this topic, so we thought we’d throw the question out to you.

How is technology used (effectively or ineffectively) in your workplace?

How would you like to see technology used?

Finally, if we let technology lead the way (as opposed to us making rules about how technology is used) how might we behave differently in terms of work?

Thanks very much to Harriet Traxler for the tip on this:

Sound the alarm! Microsoft wants to hook you up to your computer to monitor your “heart rate, galvanic skin response, EMG, brain signals, respiration rate, body temperature, facial movements, facial expressions and blood pressure.” And we thought the stress mouse was bad.

You can read the scores of reactions to this story, and we’re in agreement about the privacy issues, but we also think there is something larger happening here. What bothers us more is the idea that the role of the workplace in people’s lives has expanded to the point where it has invaded territory traditionally owned by friends, families, communities, and so forth.

We’re all for health and safety standards at work. What we don’t like is this idea that work is supposed to take care of you, or that work is the place where you have the strongest social network, or that work is where you find your identity.

One of the benefits of a ROWE is that it downplays the role of work in people’s lives. Of course your job should still make you money, and can still bring you fulfillment as a career. But in a ROWE, people rediscover aspects of their lives and their selves that they had forgotten because they had gotten too bound up in work.

Work-life balance is about more than time. It’s really about creating a healthy balance among all aspects of your life. You can reject workplace spyware, but don’t stop there. Reject anything about your job that takes away from you being you.

We ran across this recent blog post about a new technology that would help people recognize when they were stressed at the office. We thought this was funny, and perhaps a little chilling, that people would turn to their mouse to tell them they were about to blow a gasket.

We have another tool you could use to tell you if you’re stressed—it’s called the human body. The fight-or-flight response is a robust but also well-calibrated tool for responding to external or internal stressors. In other words, when you’re stressed, you don’t need a computer to tell you. You need only acknowledge the misery that you’re already experiencing.

The bigger issue is how you respond to that stress. There are countless relaxation techniques that you can try, but the best thing you can do to eliminate stress is to remove the stressor. If you’re stuck in a rigid, inhumane work schedule, you can do all the deep breathing or desk yoga you want, but there is no substitute for having the freedom to live and work the way that suits you best.

We don’t need another workplace Band-Aid. We need the workplace to catch up with the times.

Interesting story out of Australia about concerns that giving senior government workers a BlackBerry would upset their work-life balance:

“Staff expressed fears about BlackBerries contributing to a longer working day and felt it was going a step too far because mobile phones are adequate for out-of-office contact.

Not everyone agreed, however, with some senior executives claiming a BlackBerry can contribute to work/life balance by facilitating telecommuting and more flexible schedules.”

We often hear this concern when we’re out speaking to the public about a Results-Only Work Environment. People say, “Yeah, but if work isn’t confined to the office, then people will want to reach me at all hours of the day. Work will end up consuming my life.” (This is also an objection people raise to telecommuting.)

This is a valid concern if you’re using technology to promote availability. If your cell phone or remote internet access or BlackBerry only makes you more available to other people, then you’re right to worry. Given unlimited access and no accountability to results, people can use technology to bring you their questions and concerns the instant they arise.

But we would argue that this is a misuse of technology. In a ROWE, the point of technology is not to give people more access to an individual, but to give that individual more control over their time. You use your cell phone, remote internet access and/or BlackBerry to manage your job on your own terms. Your focus is on outcomes, not availability.

When someone contacts you outside of “normal” business hours, it’s your choice as to how to answer. Your decision is based on the results you’re trying to drive. If you’re on deadline for a project and someone sends you a relevant e-mail, then you respond. If someone is just “checking in” then you let it go until the morning. You let the work drive the behavior.

Isn’t that a better way? Would you rather have people be effective than available?