Hank [BS/MSEE,
MSM $$$, Ph.D. Mgmt] teaches 
The generation of individuals who are currently students have “different” ideas about what their future workspace might look like. They want to work at what they want to work at, not what some white shirt whose claim to fame is that he is their boss by appointment thinks t hey should work at. If they can complete an assignment in half the time it takes those less talented, they feel they should be compensated at the going rate. Ownership to them involves just that, ownership, not platitudes asserting ownership, such as you have a stake in the company, therefore you should work your butt off for your paycheck. A stake means tangible ownership, sharing in profits, not just words. In the face of such expectations, just getting someone in the front door and getting them engaged in projects for your new startup may be challenging. BTW, Guy K. has an interesting blog entry on using Craigslist as an asset in the hiring process. But I digress; Business Week suggests ground rules for attracting talent to your new company are changing in the following ways: (Good place for any OLS majors reading this to jump in!) Hank
“More and more companies are figuring out which perks and benefits will bring top talent running. The workplace of the future will pay you to learn, move walls to fit projects, and replace pensions with perks. Oh, and did we mention on-site elder care? Here’s more of what’s on the horizon:
Women: Whatever They Want
Women now nab more than half of college and graduate degrees. Companies are beginning to redesign career paths, jobs, and workplaces to get women to stick around once they start having children. New programs vary workloads to accommodate women with family obligations. Lehman Brothers now tries to woo back stop-out moms. Think sculpting jobs to fit lives–instead of the other way around.
There’s No Place Like…Work
Google gave new meaning to bringing the home into the workplace (three free meals a day and new T-shirts twice a week). With more people equipped to work from home, companies will be falling over themselves to lure workers back to their cubicles. That’s why offices at the likes of Procter & Gamble and Microsoft are beginning to resemble kitchens and living rooms. Nap stations, gaming rooms, and media lounges are also in the works.
Throw out the time sheets
As more companies put a premium on what you achieve, instead of how many hours you put in each week, costly time-keeping policies, rules, and procedures will evaporate. It’s already happening at such companies as Best Buy and Netflix, which offer variations of unlimited time off. Employees are free to work wherever they want, whenever they want, so long as the work gets done. Then again, in a workaholic era, sometimes it’s nice to have someone forcing you to take vacation.
The Nanny Corporation is watching
Wellness programs are the leading edge of a new kind of company paternalism. Companies will be interested in whether you are fat or thin, a fitness freak or a slug, and how many risky sports you play. If you are the picture of health, you’ll get a break on health-care costs; if you’re not, you could get fined (or worse). The upside? Bedside doctor visits. The dark undercurrent? Blood tests that show how much you drank last night.
Benefits Customized for you
One-size-fits-all bennies are so yesterday. What’s attractive to Gen Y can be anathema to boomers. Companies realize they can get a better return on investment by tailoring perks to how you perform and the stage of life you’re in. So look for the cafeteria approach now emerging in health plans to seep into other benefit areas, and variable compensation plans that enable employees to put a percentage of their pay at risk.”
Michelle Conlin and Jane Porter 20 August 2007 Business Week
It makes sense that more and more companies are offering more time off or better benefits. We live in a fast paced society and doing these things are there to give more of an incentive to completing a job in a timely fashion. The forty hour work week doesn’t seem to really have a place anymore with the advances in technology that lead to better communication and higher quality products. If an employee can complete a task in less time then what is allotted, then why not pay them for the work done rather then the time it took.
I agree with Pat. What I’d like to add is that it also makes sense that companies are making the work place more friendly and inviting by having places like a nap station or a gaming room. If companies didn’t make the work place more cozy and friendly the workers wouldn’t work as efficiently as they do in a place that is more friendly and inviting.
I like the idea of the future workplace. It’s logical to add incentives for employees that excel in what they do. I agree with the idea of having employees get payed for what they accomplish instead of how many hours they put in. Currently, it seems as though employees work at a pace to finish their work in the time they need to put in, usually the average forty hours a week. I feel that this limits their potential and wastes not only the employees time but also the company’s. Why not have employees try harder and finish things as fast as they can so that things get done faster for the company and the employees have options of either working more for additional pay or going home and relaxing.
Yes, I love the idea of trying to make to the workplace more relaxing. I also like the quote, “Think sculpting jobs to fit lives–instead of the other way around”. This is great for women and also I think it could work for men as well. It could be difficult for jobs to sculpt it around our lives but this idea could help many people and also make them happier to have a job like that, which could make their work preformance better.
Even though I love the idea of the future workplace, I’m not sure how it’ll work out. Right now a lot of labour workers in the western world are losing their jobs to people in developing countries who are willing to work harder and for less money. Of course you could say that multinationals are SOBs, but we’re quite spoiled and we always want the cheapest of everything, so you can’t really blame them for trying to stay as cheap as possible.
And this trend is not only happening with labour workers but with highly educated people as well. A few years ago in Britain a company fired all of their IT employees, who had an average income of 600.000 pounds with several benefits and replaced them with Indians who earned an average salary of 60.000 pounds, had fewer benefits and worked several hours more.
And even if American companies decide to never hire cheaper high educated workers, in today’s world of globalization I’m not sure how they’ll compete with uprising companies from developing countries. Besides a lot of people in developing countries are from poor backgrounds and have worked their asses off to get their degree and are willing to work really really hard to get and/or keep a job. One dude once told me: People in France are upset because they don’t want to work 40 hours a week and people in India want to work 40 hours a day. Yeah 40 hours a week seems stupid nowadays and it’s not so motivating for employees and having offices made up as living rooms with lounges and everything is really really great (I’d love to work some place like that). But again, a lot of people in developing countries are willing to work really really hard and get paid a lot less than what we would work for.
Just to give an idea of the ‘threat’ posed: Tata Motors (huge Indian company) is developing a 2.500 dollars car. This pricetag is possible due to: a lot of passion by the owners of the company, a lot of motivation by the engineers and a low labour cost. Not only will this car obliverate all competition in India (a lot of european and japanese cars) but just imagine this car hitting the US market.
My point is: we got to be careful with what we want from our work, right now we’re getting a tad too spoiled. Yes I know that a social life, healthcare, time to be with family,… is important, I agree with all of that, I want it as well and I find it great that western companies are doing their best to accomplish all that (I lived in Belgium all my life so I can relate to all that). BUT there is an increasing amount of people from developing countries who are really motivated to work under any condition and they are posing a threat to our jobs. Especially since there are more and more people from those countries with a college degree
I mean, right now there are over 140.000 students from India and China in the US (and the number keeps rising each year) and I’m pretty sure a lot of them are going for really tough degrees, like engineering. And maybe some (or a lot of them) will want to stay in the US, but the rest are going back. And what seems more attractive? A (US) company full of highly educated people with an average pricetag of 10 million dollars per project or a (chinese) company full of highly educated people with an average pricetag of 2 million dollars per project.
This sounds like a great idea. More businesses should be accomodating mothers and their children. Those women willing to take on both tasks at once should be encouraged to do so. Mothers may need an extra hour in the morning to get the kids to school or maybe they prefer to have their children in a day care center at work. A helpful and understanding work enviornment will encourage the mom/employee to work hard while she is there. I also agree with the incentive concept. In a business that work is able to be measured, it should. The only concern I would have about putting a price to an amout of work completed, would be wether or not the quality is good enough. The future work place should be comfortable, but still professional. Games and places to relax are a good idea, especially in those high-stress jobs. Companies should talk to their employees and ask the employees what would make work more enjoyable for them. They won’t be able to please everyone, but they may start to see some common themes.
well everything this article described i feel. The lifestyle based incentive system that the article talks about at the end seems very influential in motivating employees to me. Like a trip to cancun, or a really nice watch. Those things motivate me to work harder. I’m with being paid for the work i do, not by the hour. I’m also all for paying my employees by the job. I paid my painters a labor budget per job last summer. It was good for both of us. They don’t have to be there any longer than they need to, as long as the work is beign finished, and their still being compensated for what they actually accomplished. It was good for me on my end because i didn’t have to worry about being there 24/7. I know technically this isn’t true, but They were working on their dollar, not mine, in their minds. so that does away with slacking when the big guys not around.
I think all of these are good ideas and should be integrated into the work place as soon as possible, so future employees like me can benefit from them. But where does the line end. What happens to the employee that doesn’t want to leave because he is more comfortable at work then home. What happens employees family when there parent never wants to come home because they fell more at home at work. The reason they call it work is because its uncomfortable and never ending.
I think it is great that places such as Google, Proctor and Gamble, and Microsoft are making work more comfortable and less stressful. I also agree with the evaporation of time cards, because people who get paid by the hour tend to slack and take longer to finish tasks. However, with all these incentives people may want to work more, but in the long run if these benefits are not offered at every job there may be employment issues. Also I feel that people should want to work hard all the time not just because they have a kitchen or two clean shirts a week. So I agree with Nate in that work is supposed to be a job not play or relaxation time.
The fact that we don’t know how the future jobs will be is a mystery within itself. But from the blog, if this if somewhat true or even an idea or thought, I totally agree with the way they are thinking. I like the ideal of women having the opportunity to earn a name for themselves as workers whether than to go to school and get a degree just to answer some bosses phones. Giving the women the ability to work and still be a mother as well as a wife in some cases are great! Not only would this pull women in but it would also create a more diverse group, which could be good for the company.
The ideal that we (workers in today’s society) have the option to work out of our homes have to be one of the worse decisions made possible to me. Now don’t get me wrong it has its ups and downs, but in my eyes the cons weigh out the pros. Sure its nice to not have to dress up for work or even get up for work. But the whole purpose of a job is to interact with each other, discuss problems, help each other out. Its kind of hard when your typing everything or your look like your on a bad channel because the webcam is fuzzy. This is where technology has spoiled Americans which makes it easier for the people to just take the easy way out.
Considering the fact that I worked at Best Buy for a couple of years, the time sheet issue is gone and it runs pretty smoothly for the most part. You do have problems like anything else in the world. Some things that I say that was a problem was when one rep. go over to another section, the section that they left all of a sudden becomes busy therefore leaving customers with out the service then someone from another dept. has to come over and try to help. But this to causes problems because no everyone knows the product of another dept. leaving a lot of unanswered questions, which leads to unhappy customers. Once again something that has its up and downs.
I think what I’m saying is that if you look at the workforce were in now and what’s expected I think one can say… “hey, I don’t think there is nothing wrong with the way things are going.” Once people look at the big picture I think not only the work place but the workers would have a major increase.
I love this idea, of having work be a more enjoyable environment. I think it is important to love what you do; otherwise it shows in your work ethic and progression. When I am unhappy, I am less motivated to succeed. It’s important to want to strive for something more then you know, because you are always learning and growing and that will reflect in the work you do. But I also agree with Nate, there has to be a median where work and enjoyment can work together for everyone’s benefit. Also, I like the idea that more companies are catering to women’s needs, such as their work life after giving birth. It is an important issue that many women have not had previously to pursue opportunities as a new mother and working women .
I do like the idea of a workplace that is enjoyable for their employees. After all, If you enjoy the atmosphere of your workplace you will be much more likely to enjoy the work you are doing, thus perform better. But I am not so sure about these nap stations. Sure I would love to take a nap at work but you come to work not sleep. There would be too many employees hiding out in there napping away instead of doing what they are supposed to. I do like the idea of how Best Buy is letting their employees work when they want, however much they want, as long as they get their work done. Why pay one person who gets nothing done in 8 hours the same as another person that uses those 8 hours to get a whole weeks worth done. It teaches the employees to take the initiative to get their work done. If they want a week off to take a vacation it is up to them to make that happen. If more companies did that sorta thing I think they would have more employees willing to preform at their best. I also like the idea of accommodation for women when they have children. It has to be hard to balance work and your kids. Maybe companies could have like a day care type programs or include paid day care into their benefits. It would really make women want to stay working even after they have children.
Everyone should read Janam’s post coz one of the 140,000 Indians and Chinese is me and I’m gonna getcha Yanks! Kidding!…No I’m not!
Actually redesigning the workplace is not only good for bringing the employees back to the cubicle, it also motivates them to do a fine job of what they are doing. For example, when I open my firm, I am gonna destroy the uniform and verbal decency code except for business meetings with other companies and other important meetings. I heard of a company(from my dad) that was constantly failing till a new president took over and abolished uniforms. It is now flourishing(Dang, I don’t know the name. I’ll ask him and get back). One fine example is the education interaction between the students and professors in the U.S. In India and many other countries the professors only talk to study geeks and classroom ‘answer machines’ and have a very strict environment in class. The result - NONE of the sane guys/gals like them and they despise them and their subject. The only ‘nice’ teachers are the ones who teach in Indian schools abroad, like Singapore, Bahrain, Dubai(its a city…NOT A COUNTRY!!) especially the English teachers(who are exceptionally nice!).Thus there is a severe demotivation to learn the subject. But the teachers here mix almost completely with the student’s culture and it is amazing! Motivation is high for those interested and for those willing to learn the subject.
The same thing happens in the workfield. If you can relax the rules and make yourself and the work place welcoming, you will get motivated people to the place who will work for you and improve company performance.
This whole change in the workplace is great. I never imagined that such little changes could cause such a huge impact. As a junior in college and nearing the end of my time at school these are definite ways to lure me to a job.
Creating a plan for mom’s who leave to have children is something I respect greatly in a company. Also offering people to finish their assignments on their own time is a perfect solution to pickin vacation days and all the mess that goes along with it. Personally I’m somone who enjoys working in the evening time and the whole 9-5 day shift sometimes just doesn’t work. The customized benefits are a sure way to get people as well. Sometimes people would rather have a choice and giving a choice shows your employees that you care about their needs and their situations.
We also have to look at this as a entrepreneur. This would be great if the business you are running is huge and making mega profits. If you are a small business this is not a great way to run a business. You would not be able to afford to make it feel like home, and to be at the business whenever you feel like it. If you start out paying by the hour you will get workers and still have money to run other parts of business.
The idea of a more relaxed workplace sounds great but what happens when they become too relaxed and start doing a horrible job. Than that plan goes down the drain
I don’t believe that work is always uncomfortable and never ending. I think it is only that way for the people who aren’t doing something they enjoy doing (look at Hank, he‘s getting paid to do this, and he seems to be really enjoying himself J). In that case, they need to get a new job, they’ll live longer without the stress of doing something they hate. I don’t really see people not wanting to leave work as being a problem, either. At least not for the employees who have happy home lives.
Aditya made a comment about wanting to abolish uniforms. My comment for him is: What happens when a big client comes in and sees everyone in jeans? Or if they walk by that nice corner office and hear foul language coming from the people sitting inside? I believe that would make the entire business seem very unprofessional, and would discourage clients from returning, or recommending others to that firm. I can see having casual Fridays or something like that, but not allowing your employees to come to work every day in jeans and a t-shirt.
Having lounges in businesses where people can play games or take naps is an excellent idea, as long as they are out of the customers’ sight. It keeps the employees happy and refreshed, without ruining the professional image of the company. Day cares in the businesses are also a good idea, that way parents can run down the hall and check on their children if they want to while they are on a break. They also don’t have to worry about the quality of care their child is getting, the can go see for themselves what goes on.
One of the major problems in people’s lives today is stress, which I’m sure some of comes from work. So why not make things better and more enjoyable for people why they are at work? This will reduce some stress which may help in other aspects of their lives. One reason I chose the major I did here at Purdue was that I want to enjoy waking up and going to work when I start my career. For those who may not have the job of their chose, or even those who do making the workplace that much more relaxed or stressless will in turn make the work they produce that much more effective.
Ok, I’ll take the bait… I’m an OLS major - so, here’s a little of what I’ve learned in my years of experience and recently in the classroom.
The race is not won at the end when the runner crosses the finish line or when the checkered flag drops. The race is won somewhere between the excitement at the beginning, the drops of sweat in-between, the second wind, the small advantages down the stretch, and perhaps even at that time when no one else persevered - and you did…
The same is true in the corporate world. The point at which you win the race is not when you get your paycheck, sell you stock, or get that big bonus. The real winning point is in the middle somewhere - the point at which you (or your team) make(s) that winning difference.
That winning difference comes from what W. Edwards Deming would call the management and application of (1) the system and (2) profound knowledge. Companies that take these into consideration know the following are bad for business:
(1) short-term thinking
(2) ranking people
(3) merit systems
(4) result tampering by management
(5) incentive pay & pay for performance
The system is, “a network of interdependent components that work together to try to accomplish the aim of the system” (Deming, 1994, p.50). Management of this type of system requires knowledge of interrelationships between the various components and people within the system.
A system of profound knowledge takes into account the fact that management must be transformed via individuals in a discontinuous manner. The company must work like an orchestra that is ultimately judged by the listeners.
Companies that make accommodations for these types of things (i.e. knowledge = continuing eduction or tuition reimbursement; work from home; none mandatory work hours; etc.) get it and will have the advantage in the workplace of the future.
We will see more of these “different” ideas to lure and keep employees in the work place of the future. We are only limited by our imaginations, the effectiveness of our ideas, and the ultimate costs. But, in the end, we will all hopefully benefit in one way or another.
For those of you who would like to know more - The W. Edwards Deming Institute Fall Conference will be held at Purdue University 13-14 Oct. 2007. Students and participants may download a registration form at http://www.conf.purdue.edu/deming — There are limited scholarships for students that could bring the cost down to $25 for everything (meals, workshops, etc.). For other participants the cost is $250. For more information about the conference content, contact: The Deming Institute at staff@deming.org or call: 301-294-8405.