Working Smart vs. Working Stupid
Yesterday the Washington Post fed the insecurities of American workers with the headline, "As Cuts Loom, Will Working From Home Lead to a Layoff?" My response "Only if we are committed to a work model inspired by the 1950s and 'working stupid' by rigidly adhering to old work models that are less effective." I've been working in a virtual work environment for over 10 years. This means I work at home or wherever I happen to be, and so does everyone else I work with at MoveOn.org and MomsRising.org. It is hard for me to imagine a more efficient, effective, family-friendly and environmentally sound model for my work. I am amazed by how much stuff gets done every day, and how well balanced my life is overall. If my daughter gets sick, I don't miss work. I'm still able to do what needs to be done and also take care of her. I walk downstairs to work. I have great relationships with my co-workers... I just don't actually see them in-person very often.
MoveOn has over 5 million members. Our job is to listen to our members and empower them to be a powerful grassroots voice supporting common sense policies that they prioritize. Our core staff has typically numbered under 20 and we are dispersed throughout the country. We supplement that staff with key contractors who are also dispersed throughout the country. One elegant aspect of not requiring people to work in any specific geographic location is the freedom it gives them to be with spouses wherever they need to live. In fact this distribution into communities across the country has helped MoveOn staff stay grounded and helps inoculate us against the alternative reality bubble that tends to hover over Washington D.C. More organizations need to consider encouraging their work force to work from home!
Mother's Day 2006, I co-founded MomsRising.org, a virtual organization to speak to the needs of mothers and families. There was no doubt in my mind that we would be a virtual organization. Having experienced both brick and mortar and virtual work environments I saw no reason to even consider a physical facility. So let's not allow our economic downturn to cause us to revert to outdated work models that aren't in fact good for the bottom line or workers. In fact, studies show that flexible work options bring huge benefits to the business who offer them via increased employee productivity, decreasing costs, lowering turnover, and much more. This is a win-win for both businesses and employees.
How can I adequately describe the advantages of virtual work? It is the quintessential results-only-work environment. It is all about what you produce. There is no commute time, a saner lifestyle, and a lower carbon footprint. There's no better way to work!
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I rise at 6 and am at work by 7 -- at my home office. Usually done by 2 or 3pm. With a lunch. And I produce more than I ever produced at an office. And I produce excellent work. And I am a happy person. I think we need more happy people.
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Hi Joan:
thanks for this timely and thoughtful post. I think we need a whole more contrasting thought out there right now as we may be in danger of regressing on so many fronts. Clearly, you are shining the light on an important area and it is great to have your voice on these "pages."
Great article, Joan!
Thanks,
Lori
Ah yes, the work at home model! Overlooks so many, like Healthcare, service industries, labor, etc.
As soon as you have a plan for us...let me know!
One other problem with this grand plan...are you saying that your core group of 20 can/do make all the major decision making and then these "trickle-down" to all the others? How does that foster innovation and creativity from the "worker bees"?
This isn't for everyone. But it's not for the select few, either. Many in the service industry are already in positions which allow this model to work. A bank employee can be on the phone with customers and it does not matter if that phone is at home or in an office as long as the employee has an internet connection. Diagnostics of CTs/MRIs is now routinely done on India and other countries to lower health care cost. Many industries had a "work at home" model for centuries because simple assembly tasks could be sourced out to mothers who had to take care of their children but at the same time could do simple (often monotonic) work at home.
Working from home saves gas, time spent in commuting, parking fees or bus fares, money spent on breakfast and lunch items on the run. It saves your sanity in having to deal with loud, rude cubicle neighbors. It helps dismantle the whole corporate food chain that is demeaning to so many people. I quit working at a major company in downtown Cincinnati just before they installed the fingerprint time card system. Managers, who were never accountable for their time, are not required to be fingerprinted on entering and leaving the building. The "associates", as the rest of us were called, had to account for all of our time with the new fingerprinting system. Yet the corporate mantra was we were all valued members of the same family. Yes, if you routinely fingerprint your family members! Most jobs do not need to be done in an office setting. It is the future. Embrace it.
Doesn't .org = non-profit? It is nice when you work in fields where that flexibility exists. Try running an engineering company or transportation company where the ever increasing load of regulatory paperwork has to figured out & completed right now. At this point in time the factotum mentality of underfunded public sector regulatory agencies make the virtual workplace something from The Jetson's.
Problems can be solved from any location. Your argument is non-existent.
Actually, it isn't. Many regulations require that the necessary regulatory and/or financial documents be stored under prescribed security conditions, I.E., a locked cabinet in a locked office with restricted access. These security conditions are not likely be maintained in a residence.
Changing the way we work also involves changing and challenging the messages we receive through advertising and elsewhere about what work is supposed to be and how we're supposed to structure our lives. I've seen two TV commercials recently that deliver the message that constant work is right and good.
One is for Fuze, a cell phone from AT&T that apparently does everything. "This is how I work while I play" is one of the lines from the ad.
The other is for some laptop. The line that jumped out at me was something to the effect of "in your world, you're always on duty."
Both ads insist that constant work, never taking a vacation, never taking time solely for yourself, is the right way to be. It's a message straight from money-holding slave drivers. It has nothing to do with the well being of people.
Having a good work ethic is valuable and important. Knowing when to kick your shoes off, shut the phone off, close your laptop, drink a beer, and do something fun is even more so.
It's the 21st century but many companies are still operating as if it was the 19th.
I was very amused, though about the following sentence:
"I am amazed by how much staff gets done every day..."
If my limited English skill don't fool me, you probably meant to write "how much stuff gets done" but misspelled. However, not only is it much funnier this way, it also contains a lot of truth. All over the world a lot of "staff gets done" by poorly thought out and implemented operations. What a waste a mind is that is caught up in a ridiculous process.
I couldn't agree with you more, Ms Blades. I am in the seventh year of running a virtual executive assistant and marketing support business, working mainly with consultants and executive coaches, and it is certainly "the quintessential results-only-work environmen
I had to work very hard at first to sell the idea that one can be very productive when working virtually. However, over the years, I have seen a wider acceptance of this concept. It is an extremely efficient and cost-effective way of getting work done. My clients pay only for the time worked on their assignment, with no overhead staff costs to them !
Like you, I commute downstairs to my desk. I get my clients' work done, and I get to do what needs to get done for my family as well. Today, that included taking my son to the orthodontist, and then to tennis practice at school. "Snow days" don't faze me, traffic jams are no problem - the work gets done, and my (very enlightened) clients are very happy.
If you can do it, more power. I on the other hand need structure. If I'm home I'm, distracted.
Wouldn't mind a four day work week though.
Also, a work hub, like a stripped down branch office (1 Room, Desks, computers, and a bathroom) where employees who live close together but far from the main office can come together a few times a week instead of traveling could be an interesting angle.
Maybe, just a decent sized house in a regular neighborhood could suffice. Sounds cozy.
More and more small companies that need worldwide operations hire that way. Executives and sales/local contacts work from home. Why pay for an expensive office and flights for people on one coast, for instance, when one can have distributed employees on both? Since everybody is living out of their Blackberries and suitcases, anyway, the stress for employees can be significantly reduced, too, by not having to hit "home base" all the time. The work ethics issue is on the table, of course. But one can waste employer time just as well sitting in an office...
:-)
We also need to change this 9 to 5 time frame to allow workers to work when they are most effective. I'm NOT a morning person. I do NOT do my best work when I have to be 'at the office' by some early time set by this agriculture work ethic we needed when we were all farming. We now have lights and electricity. If I work better from 3pm to 10pm, let me do my job at that time.
Love that observation of the vestiges of our earlier agricultural-based society that in many ways doesn't fit with our current information-driven society.
Given my standard 5 AM rising and late nights as well for much of the last thirty years, my sympathy for your predictament is.....zil
So obviously you never learned to work smart (not hard) in the past 30 years. Well, I guess you are punished enough. No need to rub it in.
:-)
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