
Getting Real About Office Hours - mikeyur
http://blog.metalabdesign.com/post/435902901/getting-real-about-office-hours
======
enjo
ROWE (Results Oriented Work Environment) isn't about working from home,
however. It's about supporting an environment that allows employees to nicely
integrate their professional and personal lives in ways that work best for
them.

We have an office. We are a results oriented shop that measures our
performance on results, not hours worked. While sometimes we might choose to
work from home, we generally work in our office. My employees, however, have
no mandate to actually be in the office at any specific time except for one
Monday afternoon meeting a week (which you can call into if you really need
to).

I agree with the author, working from home isn't always a good idea. I'm not
sure it's ever really a _good_ idea actually. However, the flexibility for a
parent to pick their kids up from school or take a day to go fishing to ponder
a problem is huge. It results in happier employees, but also much more
productive ones (at least in my experience stretching into teams of 50+).

This extends to vacation days, btw. We have unlimited vacation days. I only
ask that for extended vacations (more than a couple of days) that you work
with me so that we can keep the project nicely staffed and scheduled. That
caveat is, of course, that your meeting my high expectations for actually
getting stuff done. In part because of the character of person we hire, that's
never been an issue.

I don't see why we have to confuse the two issues. Remote is not the same as
flexible.

~~~
pxlpshr
Question: How do you know the true capabilities of your employees when you
measure work solely by results with no correlation to time? Does your company
get a pay discount when an employee finishes a milestone in half the time?

I ask because from my perspective startups generally have a finite amount of
capital and resources, and maximizing those resources is key to survivability.
There is always work to be done, so until you've earned the stripes there is
no cruise control.

~~~
cookiecaper
I kind of hate this attitude. When you say "there's always work to be done", I
take that to mean that you think the employees should always be working.

I think that if you're doing it right, you don't have to worry about the
literal amount of time an employee is "working" or "not working". If you are
treating your employees right, they will reciprocate, and they will be
interested in making a great product, really interested. They will contribute
in unexpected ways, and they will take care to perform outstandingly on a
consistent basis because of the way you perform for them. You just have to be
willing to give up that classical "I own your eight hours mwahaha" viewpoint.

Inspiration can't be scheduled; maybe if you would let your employees go home
and play some video games, something in the game would trigger an idea that
would result in huge wins for your company. Inspiration almost never arises in
the face of intimidation, though. (Not good inspiration, anyway; maybe
inspiration about how to sabotage, how to collect paycheck while manifesting
passive-aggressive resentment and crossing fingers that the boss ultimately
falls on his face and loses everything.)

You have to be reasonable about your expectations. People need to live
balanced lives. You don't want workaholic employees, you want employees who
lead healthy, good, balanced lives. Encouraging emotional starvation may look
good on paper but it almost always results in lurking, pernicious, rarely-
perceived-until-it's-too-late crumblings elsewhere.

There is always work to be done, on almost anything. Give your employees some
trust and freedom, and as long as you're hiring mature professionals, you'll
get much, much more than your initial investment back. It may not always
manifest as extra time-in-chair, but it's always worth it. How can it not be?
You let your employees live their lives, you empowered them to both live well
and remain in control. That's always worth it.

~~~
pxlpshr
You're making an assumption. My guys rarely, if ever, work more than 40 hours
a week but 30 hours a week is unacceptable _at this stage_.

I agree with you about inspiration in some regards, I spent the first half of
my career as a creative in the advertising industry. However, not staying
focused on the problem you're solving is generally very dangerous when it
comes to technology startups. If you think you need a lot of new and unique
ideas every week, your startup will likely fail for a variety of reasons
including but not limited to a sub-par product that does a lot of things but
not one thing well, and a convoluted marketing message that confuses
consumers.

Second, we're a team. There is no "I" that can sit at home and work whenever
they feel like inspiration has granted them the ability to produce. I have to
manage the product and UX (try communicating that over IM), another guy is
responsible for the iPhone which is entirely supported by web services (a 3rd
person).

Lastly, I've spent about 13 years working very closely with designers and
developers, and I can't decide which group has the most self-appointed prima
donnas. You either got it or you don't, but those that don't have a lot of
reasons why they need special treatment. I generally avoid these people and I
hope they avoid me. I don't have time to drop pedals in front of their feet
where they walk. I go to great lengths to make our culture and work
environment relaxed and enjoyable for the TEAM, but there's no room for loners
who need special treatment just to create.

------
_delirium
Having the office hours be two hours a day every day, as opposed to, say,
having two days a week of office-hour days, seems pretty inefficient from a
commute perspective, unless everyone lives next door to your office. Part of
the advantage of not having to go in every day is not having to commute there
every day.

I also personally find frequent interruptions in my ability to manage my own
schedule pretty damaging. If I know I'm going to have to be somewhere 1-3pm on
Wednesday, I will probably not get anything done Wednesday morning, either, in
anticipation of being interrupted:
<http://www.paulgraham.com/makersschedule.html>

~~~
Devilboy
I think the idea is that everyone still comes to work every day, but some
people may want to start earlier and others later. On most days you'll still
be in the office for 6 hours or whatever, but you have the flexibility to take
a morning off for personal or whatever reasons without having to clear it with
everyone.

~~~
Goladus
Right and I think that's an unfortunate way to approach the problem. "Everyone
still comes to work every day" is really not that beneficial in the long run.
"Everyone shares some core hours" definitely makes sense.

If you spend 30 minutes commuting, that consumes an entire hour of time,
arbitrarily splits two other potentially productive 2-hour blocks in half, and
risks afflicting your emotional state with fear and anger that affect your
work and interactions with others. If you make it 3 4-hour days rather than 5
2-hour days that means people have days where they can live their life free of
a stressful commute altogether, and that is a huge win.

------
Goladus
Whether there are a lot of distractions at home depends a lot on where you
live and how you arrange your work-at-home environment. In my current
apartment, there are definitely far fewer distractions, and I can cook myself
a healthy lunch in about 15 minutes rather than spending money for crap from
the cafeteria.

When I work from home I don't work a 16 hour day. I work 8 to 6, in fact I
often work more hours, am done earlier, and get more accomplished. I didn't
have to waste any time or stress commuting, I got to make myself lunch and
spend 30 minutes meditating in peace and quiet, and there was no background
noise at all for the whole day.

Instead of getting distracted by facebook, email, hacker news, and wikipedia I
take a few minutes here and there to do house chores like laundry and
sweeping. Those are the sort of long term efficiencies that make working from
home so beneficial.

The biggest thing I miss about the office, apart from being able to attend
meetings when scheduled, is the reliable wired LAN. The VPN is much slower and
using the web version if Outlook blows given the volume of email I deal with.
Personally, I wouldn't want work from home more than one or two days per week,
because being available for random walk-ups and face-to-face interaction with
co-workers is an important part of the job. But when I need to tackle a
technical problem that requires a lot of reading and a state of "flow" there
are huge advantages to working from home.

------
odonnell
I listened to an episode of the 37signals Podcast where Jason mentioned that
some days they all show up at the office but are forbidden to speak to each
other for productivity reasons. Many of his business decisions are
questionable, glad to see someone challenging them.

~~~
Judson
It may just be me, but I like that work fulfills that "getting out of the
house" desire every once and a while.

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patio11
If there are other one-man bands here, I'd appreciate hearing your experiences
on this. I'm considering renting a room at my local tech incubator after going
full-time, just to achieve mental separation of work and non-work: if I've
biked over to "the office" I'm working, if I'm not at the office I'm not.

~~~
Adaptive
When I work from home I get up like I'm "going" to work, put on decent clothes
(no pj's) and don't screw around before sitting down to work. I keep a regular
schedule just like I was working in situ.

~~~
marilyn
I totally agree. Real clothes is a really import step to a productive day.

------
jfornear
I agree with this post 100%. Working from home mostly leads to working longer
and less productive hours. You need to separate your work place from your
living space.

Does it not seem like a conflict of interest to anyone else that 37signals
preaches the work-from-home lifestyle while selling remote collaboration
tools?

~~~
aasarava
It depends on the individual. I've worked from home for the past three years
and have never been more productive. When I was in an office, the constant
interruptions by coworkers, the uncomfortable lighting, the uncomfortable
seating, the false privacy of a cubicle, the endless meeting requests, the
cooing over someone's new baby, the barking of someone's dog, the constant
pressure to attend someone's birthday celebration in the kitchen or going-away
party in the lobby or baby shower in the meeting room -- all of it kept me
from doing my best work.

My living space and work space are the same. But on most days, I'm out the
bedroom door at 6pm and in talking to my wife and playing with my son in the
kitchen at 6:01pm. Happiness and productivity are very tightly linked.

~~~
pxlpshr
That's because you had a terrible work environment and you're honey mooning,
not because working from an office is evil. Separating life and work is
generally a very good thing, particularly if you're an entrepreneur because it
forces you to unwind. Way to many people don't understand how toxic living and
breathing your work can actually be. I speak from experience having worked
from a "home office" for 7-8 years.

I recently went back to a separate office, it's been a freaking blessing. And
don't get me wrong, I was very productive at home -- I'm just more productive
in the right ways now. Working at an office generally gives you more focus on
what's really important.

~~~
thibaut_barrere
> That's because you had a terrible work environment

That's the average work environment, in my experience :)

> Working at an office generally gives you more focus on what's really
> important.

I do work from home but with a specific (and very small) area as my office -
I'm far more productive here than in the cubicles I used to work.

~~~
pxlpshr
The average work environment is all relative. Maybe you should be a web
developer for advertising agencies -- after all, print is dying. :)

~~~
thibaut_barrere
You're right in that I'm not a web developer for advertising agencies anymore
:) I did a quick experience for a small one, and surely I won't do that again.

------
westbywest
A proposal: employees will maintain respectable office hours (a la be
physically present when senior mgmt is around) if you ditch the cubes and halt
the perpetual musical chairs.

------
amadiver
Jason Fried reminds me of Ken Lay of Enron. He needs to be grounded.

I work from home. Coming into the office: after weeks and weeks, I develop a
pattern. It's extremely different than my first week at work. My first week
coming in to the office, I'm extremely punctual: I clock in at 10, and out at
6. I spend a good amount of my day interfacing with my Project Manager,
talking to my fellow programmers, taking smoke breaks with them. Call of Duty,
and NERF fights break out irregularly

Working from home: after weeks and weeks, I develop a pattern. I wake up
early, 6 or 7, and start in on work or go to the gym. I may have four hours of
uninterrupted work time before work "officially" starts. Maximum efficiency
without interruption. I can "come in to work early" - 3-4 hours early -
without feeling like I'm being taken advantage of, because I may stop working
earlier than normal work hours. I usually don't, though -- my typical work
weeks clock in at over 50 hours, and I'm the better for it. I'm learning when
other people are sleeping.

I always ask my project manager and my director what's going on for the rest
of the day to ensure I'm working when everyone else expects me to be. I have
some flexibility in my schedule, and I try really hard to not abuse it. I give
as much warning as I can that I'll be away from my computer. I took no days
off from work last year except when I had to travel to SXSW because I was
nominated for a web award and for when I had to have surgery/recovery for
cancer.

iChat or Skype with video can _easily_ solve the body language issue.
"Emoticons" as horrid as they are, are invaluable in communication.
Exclamation points, too. As outside my comfortability zone as it is, this
statement: "No problem kicking it out before Monday! :)" communicates my
situation far better than "I can deliver by Monday" does. Really, I don't mind
putting in a few more hours over the weekend to ensure the project launches,
but there's no way to communicate that without facial expressions or
emoticons, so abuse the shit out of both.

~~~
bmj
My schedule is very similar to yours. I go to the office 3-4 days a week (and
work 7-8 hours there each day), and work from home 1-2 days (I've done
stretches of several weeks out of the office because of extenuating
circumstances, however). When working from home, I start early, work a few
hours before my kids wake up, spend an hour or so with them, then go to our
home office for the remainder of the work day. Those early hours are the most
productive by far.

Communication is key. Of course, my team is split between two offices, one in
PA and the other in California, so we're used to communicating on the phone or
via Skype. My desk phone is also forwarded on days I work from home, so if I'm
keeping early hours, a team member can get in touch with me if necessary. In
three years, however, I've never been called after 5:00 PM.

------
brandon272
The post really seems to frown upon the "work at home" concept, so I was
expecting that they had implemented something more substantial as far as
office hour requirements than a small 2 hour window in the afternoon.

------
blhack
Hmm...forgive me as I am not a professional coder, and only _dream_ about
working in this sort of an environment, but..

Wouldn't you _want_ to go in to the office pretty often? If your goal is
getting things done, and going to the office to meet with your team is the
best way of realizing that goal, then wouldn't employees come in as needed
naturally?

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aplusbi
I had a job where the "core hours" were from noon to 5. Past that you had to
work at least 8 hours a day. In practice this meant that everyone arrived at
the office at noon.

I thought the policy was pretty good but I don't think it worked out that well
for me. It meant I was at the office until at least 8pm every day, usually
later.

~~~
imp
Could you have worked 9 - 5 or 10 - 6 if you wanted to? Or was there pressure
to work when everyone else did?

~~~
RyanMcGreal
There's a lot to be said for mandatory start times.

------
InclinedPlane
Two points need to be made here, I think.

First, for extremely talented, highly individually motivated people it's
important that they have the flexibility of process to figure out what works
best for them. Chances are that such folks will do good work pretty much
regardless of any formal process, but working out a system that maximizes
their productivity, reduces their stress, and increases their job satisfaction
can be very important. Often these tend to be "non-traditional" systems or
even unique solutions depending on the various traits of the individual,
sometimes people have different ways of working. These are the sort of 99th
percentile workers that would be running their own startup if they weren't
working with you, they work because they love it and they are not just cogs
they are artists, their work is creative and creative work often requires non-
traditional work environments and hours.

Second, for individuals with average talent and average individual motivation
process tends to be more important. Indeed, process is often a critical
element in the success or failure of teams that are primarily composed of
average workers, whether developers or otherwise. Many of the non-traditional
work environments and work rules that translate into success for 99th
percentile workers will result in catastrophic failure when applied to groups
composed mostly of average developers.

This is what makes generic advice so difficult. Advice that applies to one
group will frequently cause consternation and failure in the other. The advice
of Jason Fried, coming from 37signals, often applies only to the first group.
Both Jason's advice and this critique from MetaLab are perfectly valid but
neither is suitable as blanket advice for every developer across all skill
levels and in any organization.

People need to first understand that there is no one-size-fits-all process
that will maximize developer productivity in every situation and that
different processes are necessary for different skill levels, personalities,
and levels of individual motivation. Once that is understood then they can
move forward towards figuring out what sorts of work environments and
schedules work best for each individual.

~~~
jzimdars
I've heard this argument before that it requires a certain type or caliber of
employee to offer a flexible, results-based work environment. When trying to
implement these policies in another company I was always told that "we don't
have those kinds of people."

I think if you treat people like they're "those kind of people" they may just
start acting and producing like "those kind of people".

Excessive accountability and other policies designed to maximize productivity
often have the undesired effect of making people feel mistrusted. It is
employees that feel like a part of something, whose efforts matter that do the
best work.

I love this quote from Cristóbal Conde, president and C.E.O. of SunGard:

"If you start micromanaging people, then the very best ones leave.

If the very best people leave, then the people you’ve got left actually
require more micromanagement. Eventually, they get chased away, and then
you’ve got to invest in a whole apparatus of micromanagement. Pretty soon,
you’re running a police state. So micromanagement doesn’t scale because it
spirals down, and you end up with below-average employees in terms of
motivation and ability."

[http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/17/business/17corner.html?pag...](http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/17/business/17corner.html?pagewanted=1&adxnnlx=1264458781-J%20GjSEysMw0LlzD3IYDSmQ)

------
abalashov
Reminds me of this submission that I had made once upon a time:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=757407> \- it's about the relationship of
locales - and specifically, of changing them - to productivity.

It understandably never got read or voted up due to its unappealing wall-of-
text presentation, but I think it's an important angle on the issue.

------
Evgeny
Actually most days I try to come to work 1 hour earlier than everyone else and
spend this hour on some "self-development" tasks. I use to think that it is my
lack of motivation/discipline, but in this 1 hour I can get more learning,
studying etc. done, compared to the whole evening at home.

------
marltod
Good article, I WFH and I think my peak productivity would be if I was going
into the office 1-3 days a week.

One benefit to the employer he didn't mention is lower salary. I have had
opportunities to move to jobs with 20% more pay but it hasn't been worth
giving up the flexibility of my current job.

------
erikstarck
Just some random thoughts but for me personally I know that I work in bursts
of inspiration. Sometimes it can go weeks between my periods of "flow".

We all go through different phases of inspiration and flow and what works good
in one phase doesn't necessarily work in another.

------
kimfuh
I just make our office comfortable enough that everyone finds it hard to
leave. A relaxed body and mind is a productive body and mind.

------
doki_pen
When will people stop arguing about this? Stop projecting your own problems on
me. I work great from home. Just because it doesn't work for you, doesn't mean
it doesn't work for others. This seems like a pretty basic idea in life that
people should be able to understand. It doesn't mean my cocks bigger because
I'm productive at home, it simply means that I work better from home.

------
cookiecaper
I've thought about this issue a lot.

I think that the ideal is to have an office with normal working hours and have
the staff expected to generally meet those hours (within a couple of hours on
the start and end time). However, with this, offer leniency on individual
adhesion. For instance, if someone has an appointment during the day, or needs
a half-day, or needs a whole day off, or whatever, and that person has no
impending obligations that day, simply require a few minutes of notice and
then let it slide without Nazi-tizing the operation.

The workplace needs to be concerned with productivity, not draconian
enforcement of arcane rulesets. Leniency with the schedule is fine as long as
the employee is performing well.

It is good to keep general office hours. Fried's approach as quoted here seems
naive and reactionary to me; we've all worked at places where hours have
received far too much emphasis, but the right solution isn't doing away with
them completely because there's a lot of benefit for everyone involved
(clients, company, employees) in having generally-followed hours.

Generally-adhered-to office hours benefit everyone. It's good to have everyone
in the same space. It fosters relationships, it results in collaborative
creative spurts, not to mention the personal benefits of getting out of the
house, "grown-up" time without distraction or the normal demands at home with
the family, and so on.

The right solution is compassionate enforcement and a focus on productivity
and morale, not absolute compliance with pre-defined generalized rules.

One of my old employers operated almost this way and it was totally awesome
... until the forward-thinking, ex-NSA programmer boss got supplanted by the
business-school manufacturing executive. Almost the whole team followed the
good boss out of the company.

------
sscheper
I agree with this post.

