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ConradHex
When people complain that work-life balance is out of whack, I don't think that means you need to go to the other extreme, and let everyone leave work at two in the afternoon to go to the movies.
iigs
Why? What if certain industries do this and find out that hours worked and productivity are negatively correlated?
delackner
Bingo. There is only so much coding I can do in a single day at peak efficiency.

The reason employers fear this idea is they fear that their employees might just slack off.

The cure for that is meaningful profit sharing. When the company's success IS your success, people get very motivated, and that motivation does not drive them to say "I'd better sit here surfing the web until I am the last person in the office". It drives them to cut out the dead time in their day with work, and when they cannot work, to do something they enjoy.

gamble
I've never seen profit sharing work as a motivator; in most companies it's too decoupled from individual performance. You can work yourself to the bone and still receive a pittance if the company is doing poorly for reasons beyond your control as an employee.

Where 'profit sharing' works, it tends to be called something else: a commission, for example. Works pretty well with sales staff. Equity is also a good motivator if there's a reasonable chance it will be worth something. What's important is being able to connect individual effort with reward. Otherwise, it's not much better than a lottery.

delackner
Since we are both obviously just talking about our own experiences, I can state quite definitely that knowing my team was gets 25% of the REVENUE from each of our projects is a great motivator. Not to work insane hours, but to do our best, knowing that we were being treated very fairly for our efforts.

If the success of the company is not influenced at all by your efforts, then that must be pretty depressing. Maybe a good sign that you would be happier somewhere else...

strlen
wouldn't the other extreme be micro-managing workers to the other side of work/life balance (e.g. mandatory workweeks of no more than 35-hours, mandatory vacations).

the balance is letting employees plan their work day as they see fit, as long as they are delivering on target.

dougp
"At IBM, 40% of the workforce has no official office" I hate this stat. 40% of IBM is not hanging out in their pajamas like these articles imply. 40% is in global services (consulting) of which the vast majority are on client sites. IBM has a great PR department.
__
Not necessarily. Journalists, many of whom don't care about what's actually being measured, probably met them halfway.
tyohn
Performance based management - about time. I hate the constraints of a 9-5 job. What is the use of forcing me to work till 5 even though the only thing I've been doing is sitting on my ass reading online news? If the works not there how about you let me go home. Stop assigning me busy work - why do we have to be "busy" all the time? And if there is a large amount of work I'd be happy to work late nights to get it done. And if I can get my job done from home, the wild, Starbucks or where ever why does it matter - where I am?
jwilliams
If you like this, take a look at "Maverick" by Ricardo Semler.

He takes over his father's manufacturing company in Brazil... Then he proceeds to implement a lot of radical (for the time) ideas - from abolishing fixed work hours to letting employees setting their own salaries.

Not only is Semco one of the most top "to work for" companies in Brazil, the changes allows Semco to make it through some pretty bad times in the Brazilian economy.

lsc
you save a lot of money on office space if you let people work at home; and usually you can save on salary, too- many people will work for less money if you let them stay at home.

This is what I've been doing, more out of necessity than anything else, Office space would cost more than what I'm paying people, and it's much easier to find people in my price range if I don't mind that they live a few timezones away.

jcromartie
As far as I can tell, this is the essence of a post-industrial workplace. We can't keep looking at knowledge work as something where more people and longer hours results in more product.

I find it really strange when I ask to work from home for some extended period (like 3 days!) and my superiors ask me to not mention it to the other employees (whoops, here I am, mentioning it... well they don't read HN). I guess the corporation would not like people to get wind of the fact that they don't actually need to be there. The appearance of loyalty and coherence are important to some people, I guess.

Bah.

callahad
I'd love to see a follow-up article on this.

While reading it (from my cube, going on three hours waiting for my IDE to finish installing so I can actually work), I kept thinking back to how work and collaboration played out in college.

Students are allotted full autonomy in when, where, and how they work on tasks, provided that they're completed in an appropriate amount of time. Furthermore, most institutions provide diverse environments in which to work.

Some students will choose to work from their room, some will sequester themselves in the library, others will prefer the student union. A handful will walk down to the local coffee shop or park.

Often, the chosen spaces provide a much more conducive environment for informal collaboration, and it gives ad hoc groups the ability to dynamically form and find a space to work together (right now the 20 people on my team are scattered throughout a group of 180 other folks, across 9 rows of cubicles; I don't see half of them for weeks on end). When your work is dependent on another person's presence, you mutually agree on a time and space to meet. You know, a good, productive kind of meeting.

I wonder why more corporations don't follow academia's lead in allowing this sort of autonomy? What tasks require a static, personal, physical desk, these days?

I'd give anything just to have a laptop and be able to work from a table near a window. After a late night, I'd love to be able to take a quick midday nap to boost my mental acuity for the afternoon. Instead, I'm chained to my cube, regardless of my performance.

eru
Do you know the typical students track record on meeting a deadline?
callahad
You pay the school for an education, ergo, it's hard to get kicked out.

The employer is paying you. Underperformance is a quick way to be shown the door.

I believe that would be sufficient motivation.

eru
In Germany you generally do not pay the school or university. And you can get kicked out for failing too many tests (and not doing a test for two years can count as automatically failing).

Anyway students' time management is just as bad.

Prrometheus
From my experience - over 95%. Though I grant you that I haven't spent most of my time around typical students.
silentbicycle
Didn't we just see an article yesterday complaining about how millennials are so entitled and self-absorbed for wanting to do this?
strlen
Yeah, we did. Buried in the discussion was a link to this article, which I felt merited discussion of its own.
drewp
That was a great way to handle the subject line (original title plus 16-word summary). Thanks!
pmorici
"Best Buy is recognizing that sitting in a chair is no longer working."

"I was always looking to see if people were here. I should have been looking at what they were getting done."

"decades-old business dogma that equates physical presence with productivity."

Holy crap finally someone with the balls to come out and say it like it is. I find it shocking that it took until 2008 to figure this out.

The other less obvious lesson in this article is, the only way to get a really good and inovative idea implemented at a large company is to not tell anyone about it until it is already successful. Then they can't deny it's benefits.