What can happen when people don’t show up for work, regularly miss meetings, and take time off whenever they want? In one case, at least, you’ll see a 33 percent increase in productivity.

Go ahead – blink. You read that correctly: 33 percent.

This figure is part of the “wow” happening at the Best Buy corporate offices in Minneapolis, Minnesota, after they totally rethought the way they were doing flex time.

According to an article appearing in the March, 2007 issue of Employee Benefit News, Best Buy has undertaken a radically new approach. First, about five years ago, they tried what every other company was trying: Flex Schedules. However, a problem arose when people started seeing flex time as a “con game.”

Cali Ressler, formerly in HR with Best Buy, is quoted in the article as saying,

“Companies implement these flexible work arrangements hoping it will finally shut people up about their work-life balance issues.’ [However,] once you opt to work a schedule outside of the norm,’ you are immediately stigmatized.”

In a radical shift, Ressler and her coworker Jody Thompson suggested dispensing with the standard flex time idea that people had to be on-site between 10 and 2. Their brainstorm opened the doors for people to show up and leave whenever they wanted, so long as the work got done.

Their now very successful program is called ROWE (Results Only Work Environment), and not only is productivity up, but so is customer satisfaction – and voluntary employee departures are way down.

In my opinion, this is the quantum leap in thinking we’ve needed for some time. It’s a focus on results and not the clock. Obviously this arrangement doesn’t work in all industries, but where it’s feasible, this is a huge golden nugget.

Reason: We’ve become so obsessed with the idea of putting in forty hours—even for salaried individuals—that we’ve lost track of the real issue, which is productivity. 

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