Showcasing Success: ROWE Implementation Stories and Their Impact

by | Jun 15, 2025 | Business, business growth, Customer relationships, Leadership, life work balance, Mastery, Outsourcing, Productivity, remote meetings, Remote Office Management, ROWE, Team Work, Time Management, working from home, working remotely

giftOver the course of this blog series, we’ve explored the many facets of a Results-Only Work Environment (ROWE) and how it can revolutionize the modern workplace. In this tenth installment, we’ll examine real-world examples of organizations that have successfully implemented ROWE, distill lessons learned, and highlight the impact of ROWE on employee satisfaction, productivity, and retention.

 

 

 

Examples of Organizations Successfully Implementing ROWE

Several companies across various industries have embraced the ROWE approach and witnessed positive outcomes:

  1. Best Buy: Facing a high employee turnover rate in their corporate headquarters, Best Buy adopted ROWE in 2004. The shift resulted in a significant reduction in voluntary turnover, improved productivity, and higher employee satisfaction.
  2. The Gap: The retail giant implemented a ROWE pilot program in their corporate offices, leading to an increase in employee engagement, productivity, and overall job satisfaction. This pilot program was particularly effective in promoting a better work-life balance for their staff.
  3. Sun Microsystems: The technology company adopted a flexible work policy similar to ROWE, reporting improved employee satisfaction, reduced real estate costs, and increased productivity. Sun Microsystems found that their ROWE-inspired policy allowed for reduced office space and lower overhead costs, leading to a more profitable company overall.

Lessons Learned and Practical Takeaways

From these case studies, we can gather several essential lessons and practical takeaways for organizations looking to implement a ROWE:

  1. Clear communication: Successful ROWE implementation requires transparent, ongoing communication between employees, managers, and leadership. Ensuring everyone understands the expectations, goals, and benefits of ROWE is crucial. Best Buy, for instance, found that educating their staff about the new ROWE approach was essential for its successful adoption.
  2. Proper training and support: Equipping employees and managers with the necessary skills, resources, and tools to navigate the ROWE environment is essential. This may include workshops, mentorship opportunities, or providing access to relevant technology. In the case of The Gap, their pilot program offered support and guidance for employees as they transitioned to the new system.
  3. Empowering employees: ROWE is built on trust and autonomy. By empowering employees to manage their time and take ownership of their work, organizations can foster a sense of responsibility and accountability. Sun Microsystems found that giving their employees the freedom to work on their terms led to improved satisfaction and productivity.
  4. Flexibility and adaptation: No two organizations are the same, and ROWE implementation may require adjustments to accommodate unique needs and challenges. Being open to feedback and willing to adapt the approach as needed can help ensure success. The Gap’s ROWE pilot program was adjusted over time based on employee feedback, resulting in better outcomes.

Impact of ROWE on Employee Satisfaction, Productivity, and Retention

ROWE’s impact on employee satisfaction, productivity, and retention can be significant:

  1. Employee Satisfaction: By providing autonomy, flexibility, and work-life balance, ROWE can lead to increased job satisfaction and employee engagement. When employees feel valued and trusted, they are more likely to be satisfied with their roles and organizations. This was demonstrated by Best Buy’s implementation of ROWE, which led to increased satisfaction and reduced turnover.
  2. Productivity: With clear goals and expectations in place, ROWE enables employees to focus on their core responsibilities, leading to increased productivity. Additionally, a more engaged workforce is often more efficient and committed to achieving organizational success. Sun Microsystems experienced improved productivity as a result of their ROWE-inspired work policy.
  3. Employee Retention: ROWE’s emphasis on trust, flexibility, and empowerment can contribute to improved employee retention rates. When employees feel supported, valued, and satisfied, they are more likely to remain with their organizations long-term. The Gap’s ROWE pilot program led to increased employee engagement, which often correlates with improved retention rates.

In conclusion, the Results-Only Work Environment has been shown to have a positive impact on employee satisfaction, productivity, and retention when implemented successfully. By examining the experiences of Best Buy, The Gap, and Sun Microsystems, we can learn valuable lessons and best practices for adopting a ROWE approach in our own organizations. With clear communication, support, and flexibility, businesses can create a work environment that fosters satisfaction, productivity, and loyalty.

Charting a Course to ROWE: A Step-by-Step Transition Guide for Non-Profits

by | Feb 23, 2025 | Business, business growth, Leadership, life work balance, Mastery, Outsourcing, Productivity, ROWE, Time Management, working from home, working remotely

time managementAs non-profit organizations explore ways to enhance productivity, promote work-life balance, and foster trust in the workplace, the Results-Only Work Environment (ROWE) presents an innovative solution. In this sixth installment of our ROWE series, we’ll walk you through the process of transitioning to a ROWE model, from assessing your organization’s readiness to devising a comprehensive implementation plan.

Understanding ROWE and Its Advantages

ROWE is a management strategy that prioritizes results over the traditional focus on work hours and physical presence in the office. Grounded in performance-based evaluation, flexible work arrangements, and trust, ROWE offers various benefits to both employees and employers:

  1. Increased Productivity: By allowing employees to work when they’re most effective, ROWE can significantly boost productivity and efficiency.
  2. Enhanced Work-Life Balance: ROWE’s adaptable work arrangements enable employees to manage their personal commitments, resulting in reduced stress, higher job satisfaction, and increased loyalty.
  3. Strengthened Trust and Communication: A trust-based work environment nurtures open communication, collaboration, and mutual support, leading to stronger teams and better decision-making.

Evaluating Organizational Readiness for ROWE

Before embarking on the ROWE transition journey, it’s essential to evaluate your organization’s preparedness. Consider these key factors:

  1. Culture and Values: Assess your organization’s existing culture and values. A successful ROWE implementation requires a solid foundation of trust, open communication, and commitment to change.
  2. Leadership Support: Ensure that your leadership team fully supports the transition to ROWE and is willing to lead by example, embodying the model’s core principles.
  3. Employee Needs and Concerns: Survey your employees to gauge their needs, preferences, and apprehensions regarding ROWE, ensuring that the transition process addresses their feedback.
  4. Technological Infrastructure: Evaluate your organization’s existing technology and tools. A thriving ROWE environment relies on dependable communication platforms, collaboration tools, and remote work capabilities.

Crafting a Strategic Plan for ROWE Implementation

Once you’ve assessed your organization’s readiness, follow these steps to create a plan for transitioning to ROWE:

  1. Set Goals and Objectives: Define clear goals and objectives for your ROWE transition, aligning them with your organization’s mission and strategic priorities.
  2. Develop a Communication Strategy: Design a comprehensive communication plan to inform employees, stakeholders, and partners about the transition, addressing any questions or concerns they may have.
  3. Establish a Pilot Program: Test ROWE within a smaller team or department, identifying challenges and refining processes before scaling the model organization-wide.
  4. Develop Guidelines and Policies: Create clear guidelines and policies for your ROWE environment, outlining performance expectations, work arrangements, communication protocols, and accountability measures.
  5. Provide Training and Support: Offer training and support to equip employees with the skills and knowledge needed to excel in a ROWE environment, focusing on goal setting, time management, and effective communication.
  6. Monitor Progress and Adjust as Needed: Regularly monitor progress, gather feedback from employees, and make necessary adjustments to ensure a successful transition.

Overcoming Challenges During ROWE Transition

While embracing the ROWE model can yield numerous benefits, the transition process may present some challenges:

  1. Change Resistance: Some employees may be hesitant to adopt ROWE due to concerns about change and job security. Address these fears by providing clear information, offering support, and emphasizing the model’s advantages.
  2. Communication Barriers: As teams adapt to new work arrangements, communication can become more complex. Invest in communication tools and platforms that facilitate open and efficient interaction among team members.
  3. Performance Management: In a ROWE environment, measuring performance based on results rather than work hours requires new approaches. Develop performance metrics that effectively gauge employee contributions and achievements.

Navigating the path to a Results-Only Work Environment can be a game-changing step for non-profit organizations striving to foster innovation, flexibility, and trust in the workplace. By thoughtfully evaluating your organization’s readiness, devising a strategic plan, and offering comprehensive support, you can successfully chart a course to ROWE and unlock a wealth of possibilities for your team.

How Do You Like YOUR Latte?

by | May 20, 2024 | Business, business growth, Customer relationships, Leadership, Mastery, Outsourcing, Productivity, Remote Office Management, Team Work, Virtual Assistant, working from home

virtual office assistantI have a friend who worked as a Barista at a well-known coffee shop. She tells the stories of guests who would return their latte because “it just isn’t right”. After making thousands of lattes she understood that what is ‘right’ to the recipe isn’t always ‘right’ to the customer. She learned to ask probing questions such as “is it too sweet? Too milky? Too much coffee?” By requiring the guest to be more specific, she was able to fix the problem quickly. In short, she learned to speak the language of guests’ expectations.

Hiring a remote support professional can be a little like that, except you’re the guest whose latte isn’t quite ‘right’.

When you hire someone to do a job you have a number of expectations about how the job ought to be done. It can take time to learn how to talk about the tasks you need accomplished. It can be difficult to accurately define the quality, feel or essence of a job that needs doing. You might think it is simple, yet you understand all the reasons you do it THIS way, and perhaps even all the reasons you DON’T do it another way. Your ‘right’ isn’t the same as everyone else’s. Often this skill is learned through trial and error.

To start learning this skill you just have to begin. One options might be to choose a small one-off task that can be outsourced with limited risk to your organization. It could be a mailer that needs to be written, or a spreadsheet that needs cleaning up. Just a couple of hours’ worth of work. Find a resource who can do the project for you and see how it goes. If they do a good job, you have a great product and good return on your investment. If they don’t meet your expectations, ask yourself how you could have communicated better.

Then try it again.

In this way you learn to speak the language of your expectations and your business in such a way so your resource can grasp what you need and want and meet those expectations the first time!

Check out our Nine Guidelines to Outsourcing to help you find your remote support groove.

Tick tock, tick tock…

by | Mar 24, 2024 | Accomplishments, Business, business growth, Customer relationships, Leadership, Marketing, Mastery, Productivity

As the needs and wants of society change, the requirements of many suppliers of goods and services change as well. Changes in technology and the ways to manage them, such as those mentioned in Forbes article on this topic, current issues and other innovations have made it so businesses must be mindful of how these have an impact on their business offerings. So how do you know when it’s time to change or at least time to think about evolving your business?

 

Consider some of the following indicators as potential flags for a business in need of evolution:

  1. Current clients have chosen to move to other companies for the goods and services you once provided to them;
    2. There doesn’t seem to be any new business coming in;
    3. There have been significant changes within your industry;
    4. Service gaps discovered while challenging your knowledge and client requests.

 Current clients bring in revenue for your business, so as business owners we do all we can to ensure they are happy with the service and deliverables received. Some of the more common reasons for losing clients are either they are unhappy with the service received, the product delivered, or how much that product costs, but in many cases, businesses have worked hard to deliver a quality product, have remained professional and researched prices well enough that they align to the market. At times we hear business owners say, “I did all of that, but they still moved on.” In these cases, it is possible that the client simply didn’t need the product anymore as it is in its current state. Perhaps some enhancements can be made to your current offerings to provide a little more to clients to give you an extra edge over competitors. A few examples can be found in this Entrepreneurship in a Box’s article. It’s fantastic when current clients hang with us but to continue business growth, new customers are also needed. Positive word of mouth from existing customers is one of the best ways to create this organic growth in customer base, but if you need to go out to find them, you need to get out there. Try attending tradeshows, updating your marketing strategy and image and networking through newer types of media.

To manage both the maintenance of current clients and the acquisition of new clients it may be necessary to take a look for gaps in your current offerings. It’s nice to think we’re doing all we can, but perhaps there are areas you can educate yourself on to provide a more complete solution to clients. Maybe you are a bookkeeping wizard, but new accounting software has come out that you’re unfamiliar with, and you have begun to see a client need related to that software. It might be time to evolve and learn the software to fill in that gap to offer that complete bookkeeping solution.

Innovative changes happen constantly and will continue to do so, with or without you.

When your industry starts to change it may not be very noticeable at first but over time you may see your competitors changing and evolving with innovations and there may be a reason for it. When changes in technologies and how a client’s function in their activities happen, suppliers to those clients also need to evolve and innovate. Check into each of your products and services to see if they are all still applicable or if they have grown stale. If you’re wondering how this can be done, check out this interesting Info Entrepreneurs article touching on some of the ways to innovate.

 

 

Success is a State of Mind

by | Mar 3, 2024 | Accomplishments, Business, business growth, daily lfe, Leadership, Mastery, Productivity

Whether in business or in our personal lives, we’re constantly striving to find something, to do something, or to complete something leading to an achievement or accomplishment and we measure how successful we are against the ability to reach these goals. Many times, we’re so busy looking ahead to how we can achieve these goals, we often forget to reflect on what we’ve already done and we may only be recognizing professional achievement and not the day to day ‘stuff’ that this wide ride called life can throw at us.

A colleague told me a story of how one of her friends was completely down on himself, feeling like he hadn’t accomplished anything. While he admitted this was an extreme way of thinking, to not have accomplished ANYTHING, he couldn’t shake the feeling that he had not yet done anything with his life, as he was in his mid-thirties, had never been able to buy his own home and did not have a solid career nailed down, nor did he have any idea what his career was. However, he had been married for 15 years, with three almost grown, respectful children and he took care of his parents and grandmother when he could. She pointed out what he had already accomplished but this didn’t resonate as actual accomplishments to him. But why?

When we fail to recognize what we’ve done in our lives as a whole, we may be denying ourselves that feeling of accomplishment, which gives us that little motivation boost to go further to achieve the goals we set out to do.

It comes down to how we measure success, and we all do it differently. These differences can stem from our upbringing, our personal and professional experience, our current societal norms, numerous other factors, but one thing remains: for the most part, we want to be successful and we each have a measure in our mind of what this is. Forbes magazine has given an indication of how one should measure success, and that all starts with YOU, in terms of what success represents, how it is measured in your state of mind, and that it is for YOU to measure an no one else. So the first question is: How do YOU measure success?

Success comes in many forms, small to large, professional and personal and it’s a good idea to know where you are at with respect to your own larger goals, because each little step further towards and overarching goal is an accomplishment in and of itself. If I said I want to be a psychologist so I can help people, this is a very broad and very big goal. The chance that I may not accomplish this larger goal is fairly likely, but that should not be a deterrent for trying or enjoying the path to get there. Each course passed towards a psychology degree, each article read and understood and each opportunity to rest and let the information connect is its own accomplishment.

So, why not celebrate what you have managed to do, to provide the fuel to your motivational fire?? If you’re still focused on those larger goals, Psychology Today as a short article on steps to achieving those goals and remember to enjoy the road to get there! So, take it easy on yourself, give yourself a pat on the back for what you’ve been able to do and you will move on to do more.

I’ve successfully written this short article.

Now it’s your turn to do something amazing!

 

Mastery

by | Oct 9, 2023 | Business, business growth, Leadership, Mastery, Productivity, Uncategorized

business masteryMany business owners start off with a great idea that will change the world and, through time and effort, they will evolve personally and professionally to be the best in their field.   Though you might not think of it these terms, what they are actually doing, actually reaching for, is “mastery”.

You know this, because you work day and night, you have put in the hours of work, training, research, and sweat.  I don’t have to tell you that becoming the master of business requires hard work.  Malcom Gladwell would tell you that it takes 10,000 hours of “deliberate practice” to master a skill.

Imagine watching the best Formula One driver, or the most incredible ballerina.   They make their chosen trade look so easy, and accessible.  It is only when you attempt to duplicate the complex beauty of the Dance of Sugar Plum Fairy (reported to be one of the most difficult roles to dance), or harness the 1000 horsepower around a turn pulling 3 G’s in a Formula-1 car, you realize that just because something looks easy doesn’t mean it is.

And that may be true for something like ballet or the violin where the skill is quantifiable.  Becoming a master in your field of business however, is much more than “time in” on any endeavour.

As I look around there are any number of businesses supplying goods and services to their customers in thousands of industries.  What separates the successful from those who have become a master at their industry is a gritty combination of discipline, hard work, humility and generosity.  Most of us would agree with the first three, but generosity?

There’s an old adage, “if you want to learn something well, teach it to someone else”. In order to teach well, it requires that you face your presuppositions about things, unearth those ideas that you didn’t even realize you believe.  Being the master of any subject (even one that you invented) requires you to be able to objectively look at whatever you’re doing and seeing ways it can be improved.   To teach someone else what you know requires a certain generosity. After so many years of defending your own turf, that can be difficult, but that generosity has the reward of unearthing flaws in your system in order to improve them, and you cannot master what you think is perfect.