This is a bit off-topic from what will generally be written about here, but I find that you can’t really address best practices for a certain business type without considering business in general. So I created a new category called Productivity and this post will be its christening.
The United States works more hours on average than any other country on the planet. And American businesses tend to have a penchant for banal corporate environments and strict scheduling policies for their workers. But recently many startup companies, especially in the Silicon Valley, are starting to discover that productivity isn’t measured by the numbers of hours at the computer or just how early you come into work.
Netflix, for instance, doesn’t keep records for time at work or time on vacation for its salaried employees. Take as much or as little as you like, spend three weeks in the Caymans, leave most days at 3 to pick up your kids. It doesn’t matter, so long as you get your work done. Netflix CEO understands that an employees worth is measured in what they produce, not time in the office.
“The worst thing is for a manager to come in and tell me: `Let’s give Susie a huge raise because she’s always in the office.’ What do I care? I want managers to come to me and say: `Let’s give a really big raise to Sally because she’s getting a lot done’ - not because she’s chained to her desk.”
Now obviously you can’t apply such a practice to all business types, such as retail. But when you can’t give employees more freedom in when they work, you can do something about the environment they work in.
The incomparable Veerle has created a Flickr group of inspiring workplaces, a collection of open, usually modern, sometimes wild workplaces that provide a fresh, creative alternative to everyday work environments. It’s important for the mind to be bombarded, on occasion, with the drastic and unusual, and these companies try to provide some of that for their employees. And what do you get in return? A creative atmosphere and more productive workers (whether or not you actually want creative workers is another topic altogether). And come on, who wouldn’t want a slide instead of a metal staircase?