From The Globe & Mail:

The Nova Scotia government is looking at switching to a four-day work week in a bid to conserve energy.

Energy Minister Richard Hurlburt said Thursday the idea came up during a brainstorming session at Conserve Nova Scotia, a government agency that encourages people to use energy more efficiently.

Of all the reasons to consider a four day work week, I think energy savings is probably the weakest — especially in a more rural province like Nova Scotia, where people will likely spend their extra day off driving around.

But I do think the four-day work week is a great idea for a lot of industries. Working four 10-hour days as opposed to five eight-hour days means more ‘core time’ and less time winding up and winding down. Plus, three days gives people the chance to actually get away on the weekend and come back feeling refreshed.

I know it’s something 37signals has done to great success. I’d be interested to hear about other examples.

Generation Y Veneration has some predictions about working from home:

Despite the ability for many people in my industry (and other industries) to work from home everyday if they wanted to, they don’t.

Why?

Because nothing beats a face to face conversation.

I think it’s dangerous to conflate ‘working at home’ to ‘never leaving your house for work-related reasons’. The Generation Y-fueled change is not necessarily a shift towards impersonal business, but rather toward increased fluidity between work and life. Depending on the industry, your office can be a kitchen table, a coffee shop, a hotel lobby or a rented meeting space. Or, when it works, a virtualized online space.

It’s about being flexible and being open to new ways of work. Because, really, is there any real logic to the belief that work needs to be done collectively at a physical location with a water cooler and fluorescent lighting?

The aforementioned post by Ryan Healy sparked off a whole bunch of comments, as posts on Brazen Careerist tend to do. One, in particular, by a poster calling himself ‘jrandom42′ sparked some thinking.

The comment:

Bluntly put, nobody gets a free pass on anything, until they can prove to me that they can deliver results that positively affect my goals and bottom line.

In other words, show me you why deserve these exceptions from what everyone else has to adhere to, and then we’ll talk. And it’s still not guaranteed you’re going to get any of them.

I think this is a dangerous attitude that’s been cropping up a lot as this Generation Y hysteria works its way through businesses. It’s almost as if there are three stages of reaction to Generation Y in the workplace.

It tends to go:

1. Shock & Outrage - “When I was your age, I was damn lucky to get the job I had! I worked sixty hours a week breaking chunks of coal with nothing but my forehead. And at the end of the week, when my boss came by, I said THANK YOU.”
2. Dismissal - “Ha ha, whatever you say, kid. You just wait until you get a little older and see what’s out there in the REAL WORLD. Then you’ll be singing a different tune!”
3. Begrudging Acceptance - “Okay, sure, whatever. If you want to be a lazy jerk unlike EVERYONE ELSE IN THE HISTORY OF WORK than I GUESS you can have some slack. Provided you prove yourself to be a model employee under our current structure first. I’ll do you a FAVOUR.”

I think getting to stage three is enough for a lot of Gen Ys. Even though it comes with some passive aggression, at least your boss or manager is giving you the freedom you need. And, sure, it kind of sucked to have to slog through energy- and morale-sapping months to “prove yourself” but, if you’re creative and talented, you got through it. And then you were able to develop a situation that gave you at least some of the work-life balance and structure you were looking for in the first place.

But this isn’t how it should be.

Generation Y is not asking for special treatment. We’re not asking that you give us freedoms that other employees don’t have. Absolutely, things need to be broken down based on the type of responsibility of each job — if you’ve been hired to answer phones or paint cars, you probably can’t work from home — but that doesn’t mean things can’t be flexible, equitable and universal. Everyone who works for you should be afforded the same arrangement, within reason.

Quite frankly, this is the only way it can work. If you start letting your 23-year-old employee go home early because that’s the way he works best, your 10-year-veteran sales person who likes to stay a half hour after work hours just to show the bosses how dedicated he is (this is absolutely GROSS behaviour, by the way) is probably going to get upset.

Which tends to be where it gets complicated.

Look, I’d never argue that management is simple. With multiple generations in the workplace, it’s only going to get more complicated. But going the easy route, where you set blanket policies and only give flexibility when your younger employees demand it, is not a viable solution. To truly make the intergenerational office work, Generation Y needs to accelerate change for EVERYONE in the office, not just themselves.

Photo ‘Office Hours’ by shawnblog. Licensed under Creative Commons

I’ve talked about Results Oriented Work Environment (ROWE) before. It still continues to be something I’m fascinated by, especially as it evolves as a practice at Best Buy, a Fortune 100 company. Tim Ferriss at Four Hour Work Week has an interview with Cali Ressler, one of the architects of ROWE, that sheds some light on how it’s working:

ROWE stands for Results-Only Work Environment. In a ROWE, each person is free to do whatever they want, whenever they want, as long as the work gets done. Currently, there are two authentic ROWEs—Fortune 100 retailer Best Buy Co, Inc. and J. A. Counter & Associates, a small brokerage firm in New Richmond, WI. At both organizations, the old rules that govern a traditional work environment—core hours, “face time,” pointless meetings, etc.—have been replaced by one rule: focus only on results.

Read both part one and part two. I really think this ROWE has a lot to do with the future of work, especially as more Gen Ys take up careers.

Sarah Bunting, late of Television Without Pity, posted an interesting response on her blog this past week to the proposed ‘congestion tax’ for New York City. Essentially, she wants to know why people even need to go to work?

I can think of dozens of industries that either don’t require workers to physically appear at all, or could easily get by with telecommuting at least part-time, or split shifting — have employees choose their eight- or nine-hour workday, and come in then. 

I’ve spent a lot of time looking at the idea of telecommuting or working from home as a strategy to keep your employees happy, but the environmental side is hugely important and relevant too. People look at congestion taxes like they have in London (and which I am in favour of, for the record) as a ‘green’ solution, but they’re only truly green if they’re getting people out of their cars, full stop. As long as businesses and organizations — and, to be fair, I’m only referring to certain industries here, where face-to-face interaction is not continuously required — require their employees to come in every day at set, specific, already-congested hours, there are always going to be people who will drive.

We desperately need to ask tough questions, and it starts with employers asking themselves why their employees need to be at work each and every day.

Sarah, again:

Again, I think trying to get people off the road is great. It’s good for the environment, it’s good for the remaining drivers’ stress levels — it’s a good idea. But as long as people still have to take their asses into a place of business, it isn’t going to have the dramatic effects the government probably expects.

The Environmental Impact

Philly.com has some numbers:

In “The Green Book,” authors Elizabeth Rogers and Thomas Kostigen found that workers commute an average of 10,000 miles per year and consume 67 billion gallons of gas.  Telecommuting reduces vehicle miles traveled per year by more than 35 billion and saves almost 2 billion gallons of gas.

There is, of course, the argument that working-at-home is a zero-sum game, because energy is still used, just at home instead of at the office. And, unless you’re in a really specific probably creative industry, you still need to have the office, staffed and with lights & computers on. So, in effect, the world is having to power two workplaces (your home and the office) where it used to only have to power one.

This ignores technological advances, though. If the last ten years are any indication, we’re likely to see great strides in the efficiency of office technology — things like lights, computer monitors, printers, etc — while the car will still probably stick around as is. Sure, some people will drive hybrids, but the internal combustion engine is just not going to go away. 

It’s far easier, and far cheaper, to make your home office energy efficient than it it is to really ‘green’ your commute.

Photo by _e.t. Licensed under Creative Commons

Dan Benjamin¹ writes about Offices and the Creativity Zone and makes about a million good points.

There’s no choice about how or when you’re expected produce, or under what circumstances. Here is your computer, here is your workstation, you have the tools, the florescent lights are turned on, why don’t you go ahead and get to work, thanks, bye.

I’m beginning to think that when you boil things down to their core, the modern day ‘knowledge worker’ has two functions: creation and collaboration. And for the latter, the office environment can be important. I love online collaboration environments as much as the next person, but there’s always something to be said for the face-to-face meeting, where ideas fly over the boardroom table. It’s a proven method, and will always be enough to justify traditional office space.

But the creative element is a whole different matter. For that we are uniquely individual in our needs and practices.

Unfortunately, most people can’t simply step into The [creative] Zone. In the very same way you’d want to find the right time and place to read a book, creative types need to setup the specific conditions they need to enter The Zone. For some people, this might mean listening to a certain kind of music. It might be fueled by caffeine and a dark room late at night. Some people work best in the silence of the early morning. It all depends on the person.

One of the major symptoms of the shift to the information age is that more and more of your employees are doing work that requires creativity. Stuff like answering phones, filling out forms, data entry, tech support, purchase order accounting and so on, is either less important or has been outsourced to another organization halfway around the world. In smaller businesses, especially, it’s important to understand that everyone can be (and should be) a creative worker, but it will only happen if you give them the flexibility, freedom and motivation to find their ‘creative zone’ in relation to the work you’ve asked them to do. And if that zone happens to be outside the wall of your office then, well, who cares?

And definitely don’t do this:

Of course it makes sense why corporations work this way, but that doesn’t mean that this is the right setting for creative people. The corporate world rewards based on perceived productivity rather than accomplishment. People who arrive at work at 8am, take a 30 minute lunch break (at their desk), and leave at 6pm are usually congratulated regardless of their real accomplishments, while those who struggle with corporate schedules but produce brilliant work (delivered on time) are often penalized.

The hour is an irrelevant metric in most work. Smash the clock.

1. Benamin, with John Gruber also regularly appears on the excellent podcast The Talk Show [↩]

37signals, makers of great software, recently posted a series of experimental changes they’ve made within their office. As a small company, some would argue it’s far easier for them to implement such changes than it would be for companies of 100+ employees, but that argument seems more than a little defeatist. History is littered with broke companies who couldn’t implement change because of risk or difficulty.

37signals’ changes are below, accompanied by some comments from me.

Shorter Work Weeks

So recently we’ve instituted a four-day work week as standard. We take Fridays off. We’re around for emergencies, and we still do customer service/support on Fridays, but other than that work is not required on Fridays.

Three-day weekends mean people come back extra refreshed on Monday. Three-day weekends mean people come back happier on Monday. Three-day weekends mean people actually work harder and more efficiently during the four-day work week.

I will continue to hammer on this issue until more people start listening.

I’m a big proponent of ignoring tradition in favour of simple reasoning. People need to constantly question the things they do habitually, with an eye toward this question: why am I doing this? If the answer is “because that’s the way it is” or, worse, “because everyone else is” then something is fundamentally broken.

I’d very much argue that the 9-to-5, Monday to Friday work week is fundamentally broken.

Funding people’s passions

We decided that 37signals would help people pay for their passions, interests, or other curiosities. We want our people to experience new things, discover new hobbies, and generally be interesting people.

[...]

Part of the deal is that if 37signals helps you pay, you have to share what you’ve learned with everyone.

This is one of those things that seems to offer such an obvious, explosive benefit but, in my estimation, it’s something that is rarely, if ever, considered, especially at the “enterprise” (a word that doesn’t mean anything) level. I think the reason this is overlooked is because it requires a shift in thinking about your employees.

An employer who just regards his office as a collection of positions that need to be filled so work can be accomplished will never even consider a move like this. A more brazen man might call these ‘doomed employers’. What makes 37signals such a leader in this sphere is that they see their office as a collection of people — creative, motivated and talented — who generate ideas and products.

Thinking that way, it makes all kinds of sense for an employer to fund programs, courses, etc. that undoubtedly spark creative thinking. Asking them to share it back with the group is just the icing on the cake.

Discretionary spending accounts

We’re in the process of giving everyone at 37signals a credit card. If you want a book or some software or you want to go to a conference, it’s on us. We just ask people to be reasonable with their spending.

Of all of these, this is the one that I can see as problematic for larger employers. But then, maybe the optimal model for a larger employer is to break their employees up into small teams, a la 37signals? In either case, combatting the “but what about abuse?” argument is simple: if you can’t reasonably trust your established employees not to go crazy with a company credit card, why are you trusting them at all?

And if you’re not trusting them at all, what the hell they are doing all day?

And so

Simple changes make all the difference in these cases. An employer who implements these changes has instantly established three core values that are important to Generation Y: flexibility, growth and trust. (More on those in this post.)

If you’re an employer or manager and you’re shaking your head while reading this, then, sure, maybe these specific changes aren’t for your workplace. Regardless of that, however, the core values behind these changes need to be apparent in your office. Otherwise you’re sunk.

Photo by Larsz. Licensed under Creative Commons

Tamara J Erickson’s “Task Before Time” article (which I wrote about here) made the rounds this week, appearing in a bunch of papers all over the globe. Here it is in the Malaysia Star. (That they’re publishing this in Malaysia shows just how global these issues are.)

I love the way she’s able to distill the issue down to a simple truth: time is immaterial when it comes to getting work done. And it’s completely irrelevant when it comes to getting work done well.

My favourite bit:

Ys love to work asynchronously – anytime, anywhere. One said during our research, “What is it with you people and 8:30am?”

Employers are going to struggle with this, partly because it requires a lot more managerial talent to ensure work is getting done when it’s not getting done right in front of you. And that’s a worthy and just concern. It’s also, thankfully, a surmountable one. With enough training and re-culturing, employers in small, medium and large businesses can find a way to make it work.

Unfortunately, I think there are a number of older workers who dislike the idea for another reason altogether. They hear about the changes Gen Y is demanding and they immediately feel resentful. That’s not what it was like for them. They got to work at 8:30 a.m. (or earlier!) every day for YEARS and never once complained. In fact, they were GRATEFUL for it.

This is an attitude that’s going to be hard to change, no matter how many articles like Erickson’s appear in newspapers and online. I predict that, for these employers, it won’t be until the impact of not changing is felt economically that we’ll see real movement.

Photo by H4NUM4N. Licensed under Creative Commons

The snow and a winter flu bug has got me down this week, so I haven’t devoted as much time to work as I normally would. Fitting, then, that the Times has an article titled It’s Task Before Time For Generation Y.

Jobs have long been structured primarily around units of time — a 40-hour workweek, an eight-hour day. The time you spend — or are supposed to spend — determines whether you are working full-or part-time, with implications for compensation and other benefits.

Face time can serve as a proxy for commitment and ambition. But that comes as a bit of a surprise to many of today’s newest employees. Generation Y workers (born since 1980) prefer jobs defined by task, not time.

They want to be compensated for what they produce.

I have a feeling this will be a point I continue to hammer on. I tend to put these posts under the banner of “Flex Time”, but that’s not entirely accurate. For Generation X & Boomers, “Flex Time” was a concept that allowed them to spread their 40 hours out over the week to best suit their schedule. “Flex Time” for Gen Y is smashing the clock altogether, with the understanding that what’s important is that the work is getting done.

If this seems alien to you, try to think about the number of Fridays you’ve spent sitting at your desk, your work for the week completed, waiting for the clock to reach an arbitrary “home time.” Why on earth do we do this?

In the short time since I started this blog, I’ve already talked fairly extensively about Generation Y’s tendency to want to be mobile in their work. (For more, see these posts.) I truly believe that one of the more immediate effects of Generation Y going to work will be the eradication of the long-standing ‘9-to-5′ daily schedule, to be replaced with a far more fluid dynamic, where work is done (and, yes, it gets done) at the hours that make sense to the person doing it, as opposed to an arbitrary rigid structure.

And, of course, one of the big reasons that’s an option now is because of technology and web infrastructure. Everyone has computers and high-speed connections. E-mail accounts can be accessed anywhere in the world. Files can zoom around faster than they ever could through those old pneumatic tubes. Our laptops can now, for some reason, fit inside manilla envelopes. Technology is the key that’s unlocked the chains that were holding employees at their desk.

That said, developments like this drive me crazy.

Rogers already has a twisted idea of what constitutes reasonable internet use. Under their BlackBerry plans, they claim that 1.5 MB of data is “enough for tons of picture uploads,” and they ridiculously average web pages at a 4 KB maximum. That would be equivalent to a web page without any images, and consisting of less than 4,000 characters of text. Rogers justifies that measurement by only classifying those sites as ad hoc pages “optimized for mobile viewing.” Under the unlimited data plan, consumers can only visit Rogers-approved sites, like Lavalife Mobile, Yahoo! Search, and Canada.com, lest they encounter the good ol’ 5¢/KB rate again. So, you can search for something on Google, but just don’t visit the link once you find it.

Rogers is the largest cellphone service provider in Canada. They are an awful company and largely the reason Canada lags so far behind the U.S. when it comes to mobile connectivity. Our data rates have been traditionally more expensive than those found in third-world countries. And this so-called ‘unlimited plan’ is just a smokescreen to disguise the fact that we still have less connectivity than Rwanda does.

This bothers me for so many different reasons.

First: governments need to realize that the internet for home users is NOT just another kind of entertainment, like a TV with a keyboard attached. Web connectivity is a utility, one that is rapidly becoming a bigger part of people’s lives than the phone. The internet is a utility, not an entertainment service bringing fun games, hilarious joke and graphic pornography (even if it does those things too) — giving telecom companies free reign to create expensive tiered pricing schemes for it is the equivalent of doing the same to the electric or water companies.

Second: even though Rogers and businesses may not realize this, schemes like this are actively hurting productivity in Canadian cities. Even with the Blackberry — which I would argue is not a very Y-friendly device to begin with, and exists largely through corporate accounts — they’ve created a barrier between users and true mobile messaging.

Third: they’re losing money on deals like this. All Rogers needs to do is offer a real, legitimate unlimited mobile data plan and whatever marginal per-megabyte losses they’ll lose out on will be quickly replaced with a massive influx of customers. They have the iPhone on their doorstep — a guaranteed million-seller in Canada — and they won’t release it because they’d rather charge consumers a dollar to click on a google link.

As testy as this issue can make me, at the very least I can remain confident that what we’re experiencing in Canada now is a mere speed bump before we hit true mobility. Telecoms in the US also balked at customer-friendly pricing schemes, but were eventually forced into it due to competition. We’ve got less competition in our mobile market here in Canada, but we also a government that looks to be getting involved, so hopefully we’re not too far away.

Generation Y is counting on it.

Photo by Blog Story. Licensed under Creative Commons