British meat company Brown Brothers recently (and rightfully) caught flak for their “Dickensian” bathroom break policy. The company required that workers clock out, and then take off their boots, overalls and hairnets before going to the toilet.

Union leaders complained this amounted to having workers lose pay in order to use the loo. The company countered that they had an incentive plan where more money was awarded to people who could go to the bathroom at preferred times.

I don’t think you need us to give the Results-Only Work Environment take on why Brown Brothers’ policy is boneheaded. You don’t need to use the ROWE mindset to know that it’s unfair (not to mention unwise) to micromanage your employees’ bladders.

But we aren’t galled by the policy. (We’ve heard so many evil, controlling workplace policies that it takes a lot to shock us.) What amazes us is that Brown Brothers didn’t think anyone would find out.

One of the factors working in favor of people who care about work-life balance issues is the increasing transparency of the working world:

If you do something stupid, shortsighted and cruel, then the world is going to find out.

If you do something smart, forward-thinking and generous, then the world is going to find out.

We hope that every HR manager and business leader within the sound of this blog takes these simple ideas to heart. The next time you revisit the employee handbook, ask yourself if you want to be the kind of company that ends up in somebody’s blog for contributing to making work suck. Or if you’d rather be known for doing it right.

Our mouths pretty much dropped when a friend sent us a copy of a “Guide to Hiring Women” from a 1943 issue of Mass Transportation magazine. We thought it must be a hoax, but Snopes bore out that it’s oh so real. Here are some of our favorite moments:

“[P]ick young married women . . . they usually have more of a sense of responsibility; they’re less likely to be flirtatious.”

“[Husky] girls — those who are just a little on the heavy side — are more likely to be even-tempered and efficient than their underweight sisters.”

“Retain a physician to give each woman you hire a special physical examination — one covering female conditions.”

We offer this tidbit not out of a sense of superiority at how advanced and modern we are compared to the Neanderthals of yesterday, but out of a sense of hope. We offer this article because when we talk about a Results-Only Work Environment, there are people out there who immediately counter by saying, “Things will never change.”

Of course things change. What seemed like an impossibility in 1943 (women being treated like adult humans) is a given today.

(Before you write that “but things also stay the same” post in the comments, realize that we know that women still face discrimination and bias in the workplace. We’re not saying it’s a perfect world, just a better one.)

One of the reasons why ROWE works is because it is more in line with the business realities of the 24/7 global marketplace. ROWE is also more accommodating to employees’ “always on” lives. In forty years, the way we defend the traditional work environment is going to look as silly as that Mass Transportation article.

To all the doubters out there, we ask this:

Wouldn’t you rather have tomorrow today?

Oh - and we’ve picked a winner for the “Create Your Own ROWE Revolution” contest.  It’s Jeff with the following response to why he needs ROWE:

“Because please, for the love of God, I just want to do my damn job.”

‘Nuff said on that one - good enough reason for us.  Jeff’s boss will be receiving a copy of the book very soon…

We were joined on our virtual book tour yesterday by three amazing guests - Tim Ferriss, David Allen, and Melanie Benson Strick.

As always, there was passionate, engaging conversation about ROWE, the book, and the need to shift our paradigms about work.

The link to the streaming audio is here: http://www.snipurl.com/caliandjody3

The downloadable file can be found here: http://www.authorteleseminars.com/audio/whyworksucks3

And, for those of you that would like the audio from our previous calls (with the likes of Dan Pink, Michael Port, and Scott Stratten), click here: http://www.whyworksucksbooktour.com

Enjoy!

As gas hits $4/gallon in parts of the country, government officials, pundits and bloggers are talking about how to solve the problem of the increasingly expensive daily commute. So far we’ve seen:

Symbolic gestures

Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm’s decides to start biking to work

Robbing Peter to pay Paul

U.S Representative Steven LaTourette proposes bill to reimburse commuters

Taking it to the, er, street

How to talk to your boss about changing company policy to offset commuting costs

The last item sort of makes sense, provided people don’t fall into the same trap they fall into when talking about traditional flexible work arrangements.

When people change to four ten-hour days for family reasons, they feel anxious about their career, judged by their coworkers, and distrusted by their boss. As long as work is a place you go, rather than something you do, then even if a four-day week saves on commuting costs, it doesn’t solve the foundational problem.

What we’d rather see is people having the power to decide (versus having it be mandated or guidelined to death) when and where they work, as long as the work gets done. In a Results-Only Work Environment, the culture respects that you have a life outside of work that has an impact on your ability (or your desire) to be physically present. Some people might not want to come into the office every day because they’d rather spend time with their kids. Some people might decide not to come into the office every day because it’s freakin’ expensive.

As long as the work gets done, who are we to judge?

Final note: check out this nifty calculator that lets you figure out whether or not you should move closer to work in order to save money on commuting costs. You’re supposed to fiddle with the cost-of-the-new-house variable and the distance variable, but we played with the number of commuting days a week. Moving closer to work can make a difference…but only driving to an official physical office space two or three days a week saves you BIG.

We hope you enjoy the first in our series of YouTube videos.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5BNoqlsov7M

It’s time for another installment of our virtual book tour!

Our third teleseminar is on Tuesday, July 8th, and we can’t wait for you to join us.  The banter with the participants on the last two calls has been full of energy and passion for changing the way we think about, and do, work.

For more information and to register for this [FREE!] call on 7/8, go to: www.caliandjodybooktour.com.

As always, we are thrilled to be joined on the call by three guests - this time, it will be:

• Tim Ferriss, NY Times bestselling author of The 4-Hour Workweek
• David Allen, bestselling author of Getting Things Done and the upcoming book Making It All Work: Winning at the Game of Work and Business of Life (Dec. ‘08)
• Melanie Benson Strick, Million Dollar Business Coach, creator of Virtual Team Building Secrets

Can’t make the live call?  Register anyway, and you’ll gain access to the recording.

See you on Tuesday!

We’ll get this out of the way first: We’re keeping the Start Your Own ROWE Revolution contest open a little longer.  If you want your boss to get that free book sent to him/her, tell us why you want or need ROWE!

Readers of this blog know that we’re not fans of traditional flexible work arrangements, but a recent article in Workforce Management has us rubbing our eyes in disbelief. The piece brings up some excellent points, including the fact that of 21 “high income” countries, the U.S. finished last in having laws that support flexible work arrangements. But the solutions that are being proposed make us cringe:

In December, Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Massachusetts, and Rep. Carolyn Maloney, D-New York, introduced the Working Family Flexibility Act, which would grant employees “the right to request” reduced hours or an alternate work schedule.

If the bill is passed, employers would have to establish formal procedures for discussing employees’ needs and how to address them but wouldn’t be required to grant employees their requests.

In May, Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers, R-Washington, introduced the Family-Friendly Workplace Act. Under the bill, private sector workers would be able to work overtime and essentially bank that toward paid time off, or “family time.” Currently, only public sector employees have family time.

Taking the first bill first, isn’t the “right to request” something already covered by the First Amendment? Or does the Bill of Rights get suspended once you start collecting a paycheck? (We’re not experts in Constitutional law, so tell us if we’re wrong on this one.) Of course, all the free-speech-loving requests for a humane workplace don’t mean anything if the law doesn’t require your employer to act on that request. Furthermore, companies already have procedures for requesting a more humane work schedule. The reason more people don’t follow those procedures is out of fear of committing career suicide.

As for the second bill, how it is that you’re getting more “family time” by working more hours? Does that mean that the person who works an 80-hour week gets more time with their kids than someone who works a 60-hour week? To us that sounds an awful lot like that old marketing ploy, “The more you spend, the more you save!”

We’re not ruling out the possibility of the federal government playing a positive role in this fight. Blanket cynicism about ineffectual government doesn’t help anyone. But let’s not pretend that trying to rejigger old ideas about time are going to somehow magically make life better. Next time you see an article about a “solution” to the problem of work, put it to this simple test:

Does it give people control over their time? Does it focus on getting work done instead of on what work looks like? Does it give people real power to make choices about what is best for both their work life and their personal life?

If the answer isn’t a resounding “Yes!”, then move on. There’s nothing to see here.

A friend of ours recently told us a story that made our jaws drop. He was visiting one of his vendors and happened to have a copy of the book with him. When he showed it to the people there, they were very excited about the prospect of a ROWE. It seems that they have a very strict punctuality policy—if you don’t punch in on time, you get docked 10% of your pay.

When employees complained about fairness, management put an ingenious (and cruel) spin on it. They told people to think of the policy as a “punctuality bonus”. If you punched in on time, you’d get your 10% bump, even if it really just brought you up to your normal salary.

*Sigh*

We hear stories like these and it makes us wonder what would happen if the leadership at that company were exposed to the ROWE mindset. Work cultures are slow to change, and we doubt this place will become a good place to work without a lot of struggle, but maybe, just maybe we could make work suck just a little less at this company.

You probably have your own horror stories, about a company policy, a manager’s outdated notions about time, or coworkers who Sludge like crazy. You can probably also see how a Results-Only Work Environment would change the culture of your work.

So we want to hear from you. Post a comment (five lines maximum) about why you want or need ROWE. We’ll award a copy of the book to the best entry. If you’d like, we’ll also send a copy to your boss, manager or member of the executive team. We can’t promise to score that “punctuality bonus” for you, but maybe we can help plant the seed that will make those kinds of policies go away.

We’ve been running polls over at CultureRx and today we’d like to open up the results for discussion. A few weeks back, we asked what was considered coming in “on time” at people’s workplaces. Most recently, we asked what was considered “leaving early”. Here’s what you said:

On time

34% Before 8:30 a.m.

30% There is no such thing as “on time”

27% Before 8:00 a.m.

9% Before 7:30 a.m

Leaving early

41% Before 5:00 p.m.

22% Before 4:00 p.m.

13% Before 3:00 p.m.

13% Before 6:00 p.m.

11% There is no “leaving early” — we leave whenever we want

What we found interesting about these results is the difference between the beginning of your day and the end of your day. It seems that the rules are looser in the morning than they are in the afternoon, that you are more likely to get in trouble for leaving early than for being late.

Our first question is whether or not these results ring true for you. Do 30% of you out there honestly not have to worry about being “on time”? Or is something else at work?

Our second question is why there is a gap in the first place. Why would the traditional work environment have more of a problem with people leaving early than they would with them coming in late? If the goal is to put in an eight-hour day, then what difference does it make where you miss the time?

Thoughts? Insights? Witty comments?

A friend of ours sent us this link to Read at Work and when we saw it, we nearly fell out of our chairs. For those of you who prefer not to click the link, RAW is a website that perfectly mimics the Windows desktop, except that the folders open up to short stories that are formatted as PowerPoint presentations. Finally, you can catch up on classics like F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “The Ice Palace” while looking like you’re building that next great sales pitch.

RAW is perfectly executed. A casual passerby would be completely fooled into thinking you were hard at work. But there is also something extremely sad about the very existence of this site. When we see humor like this we laugh for a moment and then settle into a mild funk, because it assumes (and rightly) that:

1. When you are at work, you are essentially a prisoner.

2. You are a prisoner at work, and you will always be a prisoner because the culture of work will never change.

3. Your best bet is to laugh at your imprisonment and/or make up clever workarounds as opposed to finding a way to set yourself free.

We know we have a lot of work to do to change the culture of the traditional workplace. And we’re the last people to want to step on a laugh. But we also want you to take heart. There is a better way. Laughter may be the best medicine, but we’re fighting for an all-out cure.