Availability in a ROWE
Our Creative Team has been working in a ROWE for over a year at SpinWeb. Believe me, it takes major mental shifting to undo the habits that come with a traditional work environment!
In an office environment where a majority of the team sit at desks 8-5, it’s easy to do “teamwork” without much planning. If something comes up, you simply round up the troupes, drop what you’re doing and have a fire drill.
Traditional work environments accept fire drills as a way of life (Some employees may even cause them to add excitement to the boring life of being locked to a desk).
If work doesn’t get done by 5PM the employee can simply say “Hey I’m done for the day, it has to be finished tomorrow.”
In a ROWE, habitually poor planning wrecks havoc on a team. It has little to do with the team being available; and everything to do with a personal lack of planning or time management. Without putting the emphasis on learning these soft skills, employees see the problem as someone else’s failure to “be available”.
The real issue are people who blame their poor habits on someone else’s need to be “on-call.”
Teamwork takes on new meaning in a ROWE. Who can help with this idea? Who is the most knowledgeable in this area? What question should I ask this week, so that I don’t have a problem next week? These questions foster Results in a ROWE.
The question is not “OH NO! Who can fix this RIGHT NOW!”
If you only realize that you need someone’s help at the last minute, this is not a result of lack of availability. It’s a lack of planning and being personally accountable.
But once a team learns that this type of high-accountability means that you can leave the desk and 8-5 behind, people will gladly trade in their fire drills for the personal freedom of a ROWE.
