The Flexible Workplace: Hardly Working, Or Working Hardly?

A lot is being written these days about flexibility in the workplace. Is the traditional five day a week, eight-hour work-week relevant in today's marketplace? I am not aware of any study that definitively proves that the forty-hour work week yields maximum productivity for employers. Quite to the contrary, my hypothesis is that, at best, the average non-self employed individual produces five quality hours in a workday, if that. The other three hours are just not as productive, and are filled with personal phone calls, furtive use of the internet, day-dreaming, and worst of all, sitting through endlessly boring meetings. Of course, this brings into question: what does productive mean?

Are we talking efficiency or effectiveness? Or both?

If I, Joe Employee, can accomplish my widgeting in four hours instead of eight, am I 200% productive, even though my widgeting results in a significant number of errors? Or suppose I take longer than eight hours to achieve the targeted widgeting, but with great results?

A good example that illustrates the difference between the two is the opposing quarterbacks in a football game. One team’s quarterback may complete 75% of his passes (he is highly efficient) yet never score a touchdown (he is highly in-effective). Conversely, the other team’s quarterback may complete only 45% of his passes (he is very inefficient), but four of his completed passes result in touchdowns (he is highly effective). Of course, each quarterback’s efficiency and effectiveness ratings are dependent on the ability of his wide receiver to catch the ball—which is where team productivity comes into play (no pun intended).

I recall once reading in one of my graduate school management classes about a consultant who was supposedly hired by a company that developed a recipe for a soft drink to give it recommendations on how it could build market share. The consultant's report comprised two words: "bottle it". Those two words resulted in millions of dollars in sales. Would the consultant have been more productive if he had issued a one-hundred page report listing dozens of recommendations? Should he have been paid more for that two- word report than if he had issued the one-hundred page report?

I also recently read that Google has been cited as a workplace that offers flexibility, but even Google generally follows a traditional eight-hour workday. Free food during the day, and maybe a nap, but all to basically squeeze as much ingenuity and "productivity" out of a happier workforce.

The Whisperer would be interested in hearing from those of you out there in the 9 to 5 crowd. Take the poll and register your opinion.

Work Smart. Not Hard.
--TMW