I recently came across a story that just reinforces something I have always felt, but was never free to do in the corporate environments I used to work in.  I have always felt that companies should care more about worker productivity than whether or not a person comes in exactly at 8:30am or 9am. I think that companies should care if workers have things to do like take a kid to school or pick a kid up from school. I think that companies should care if a person isn’t feeling well and needs a day or two at home. Now two women at Best Buy get it and they are turning a very stupid way of thinking around.

At Best Buy in Richfield, Minnesota, they have started something that is so smart it makes anyone not doing it look stupid. Instead of looking at the relationship between work and results as work+time=results, they are looking at things like work+freedom=more results and the system is working. Instead of telling employees that they have to work from 9 to 5 or something like that, employees are free to come and go as they please - as long as they get their work done. Yes! This is results oriented work at its best. Instead of jumping all over people because they came in late, the boss gives them tasks to do, a timeframe in which it must be done and then lets them do it. That’s it! Isn’t that so smart? Worker productivity is up on all of the teams using this approach at Best Buy. Jody Thompson and Cali Ressler came up with idea and people love it at Best Buy.

I felt this way for years before I started my own company. People used to think that my philosophy was crazy. I believe that a company has to treat its employees as if they have lives outside of work and then trust them to get the work done. You shouldn’t micro-manage your employees. You should give them your expectations and let them run with it. Kudos to these ladies for trying to help Best Buy eliminate a very stupid thing.

Here is a link to the article.