“I'll be online later,” you say, grabbing your laptop as you head out the door.
“Please don’t,” say a growing number of CEOs who are radically rethinking the modern workday. Prompted by Millennials who value work-life balance, an increasingly global workforce spanning time zones, and devices that allow us to connect anywhere, anytime, these CEOs recognize the value of redesigning business to accommodate life, and not the other way around.
18 months ago, I asked my team to do the unthinkable: stop emailing after 6 p.m. and on the weekends. Hailing from places such as McKinsey, Goldman Sachs, Samsung, and Omnicom, staff was somewhat skeptical that everything could be done in a 40-hour work week. But these are clearly smart people, and so in short order we prioritized tasks, right-sized meetings, and modeled the behavior from the top down. Nothing broke, and to this day, I start the day off getting work done instead of answering email.
And yet no one quite believes me that this is true. In fact, they get flustered. Of all the human-friendly policies we have researched for the Human Company Playbook, those that deal with working hours are perhaps the most contentious.
In a world that is always on, when does work stop?
In one corner is the argument for flexible hours, the darling of the tech set. When executed well, this approach allows staff to work when they work best while navigating life events that don’t naturally fall before 9 a.m. or 6 p.m. However, probe a bit further and many employees admit that flexible hours often mean “always working,” with little or no ability to shut off.
In the other corner is the 9-to-5 (or 6...or 7…) model, which can feel downright quaint in 2016. And yet it is making a comeback. At its best, a set hours policy has clearly defined and predictable boundaries, allowing staff to enjoy life outside of work. At its worst, this model can feel rigid, valuing “face time” over quality work.
So which working-hours policy—one that encourages quality work without burning out your staff—is right for your company? Here’s what four CEOs who participated in our ongoing Human Company Design research had to say. Work When You Work Best
It should come as no surprise that Alexandra Cavoulacos, founder and COO of The Muse, promotes a thoroughly modern model. Informed by the 50 million (mostly Millennial) people who tap her company’s website to navigate their careers, Cavoulacos has codified a flexible work policy that encourages productivity while accommodating for life. “The human thing is to give people the chance to make the choices they need for their lives,” says Cavoulacos, a self-admitted night owl who arrives at work no earlier than 10 a.m.
In this model, each team member determines how, when, and where they work best. Many developers, for example, tend to come in later and work later. Other staff members come in at 8 a.m. and are done by 4 p.m. To manage such a wide variety of schedules, The Muse asks that all team members be transparent about their schedules and update their calendars accordingly. Cavoulacos says that core hours naturally emerged, with most people in the office from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. for meetings. Work Can Wait™
When founding Basecamp, David Heinemeier Hansson was living in Copenhagen; Jason Fried was in Chicago. As a result, they only had three hours of overlapped working time that later served as the blueprint for a distributed model. “Most people work from home, on their own schedule. All we ask is that you have reasonable overlap with the people you work with,” says Hansson.
To avoid the “always working” trap, Hansson suggests a rough guideline of 40 hours a week. “The best workers are the ones who take vacation, are rested, and have fulfilling lives outside of work,” says Hansson. He and Fried openly buck the hero myth that dominates Silicon Valley. “We get plenty of sleep ourselves. We don’t send emails at 2 a.m. about work stuff. We built it into the software,” says Hansson. Released with Basecamp 3, the “work can wait” function allows users to set boundaries for work notifications. For example, a 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. schedule means Basecamp won’t tell you about messages received after 5 p.m. until the next morning. Always on, But Not Always Answering
For service companies such as JDI, people are the product, which means that staff is often required to be highly available. And yet CEO Josh Dilworth-Jones makes it clear that always on does not have to mean always answering.
“Late-night email is a weird game of chicken,” says Dilworth-Jones. The challenge with email and other notifications is that human beings are designed to be responsive. “If a client sees me send an email at 9 p.m., they say ‘just call me,’ and all of a sudden, a condensed working period I have control of turns into an open-ended work session at 10 p.m. And I don’t think either of us really want to be doing that.”
The same goes for employees. Dilworth-Jones eschews the “I’ll be online later” that precedes a staffer’s exit for the evening. Rather, he offers a clearly defined order for getting in touch with someone when they are not in the office. They use Slack to indicate status; if one is not on Slack, it is assumed that he/she is not working. Texting after hours means that an issue is being escalated. Last, but not least, is a call. “A phone call is a deathly serious thing,” adds Dilworth-Jones. Start with Your Value System
For Arjun Arora, a serial entrepreneur and venture partner at 500 Startups, working-hours policies should reflect an organization’s value system. In his companies, this means balancing responsiveness and the “hustle” (getting your work done) with intelligence, adaptability, and mutual respect.
This is in direct contrast to what he calls the “unspoken rules of killing it” in Silicon Valley. “Martyr capitalism is not good for the business long term,” he adds.
Arora’s preference is to create core working hours for meetings, typically 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., and then offer flexibility for employees to manage their life. Special requests, such as the employee who wanted to telecommute one day a month to help out his parents’ small business, are also honored. “Because the values are set and clear, he was probably even more responsive (when telecommuting),” says Arora.
Arora’s best advice, however, is in the why. Backed by research and his own personal experience, “a team characterized by trust, respect, and admiration, working 40-hour work weeks, will outperform a similarly competent team characterized by fear, mistrust, and scarcity thinking, frantically ‘being productive’ 80 hours per week.”
Athens 2006 / Milton Keynes 2014 / London 1&2 2022 / Seattle 1&2 2024 / Dublin 2024 / Manchester 2024 / London 2024
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brianlux
Moving through All Kinds of Terrain. Posts: 40,947
You might enjoy this book, Pap. It's not a book about surfing, it's a business book (of sorts) about how to run a business in a way that is good for it's employees, good for the planet and good for the customers. A real emphasis is placed in one section about keeping employees happy and watching out for their well being.
“The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man [or woman] who lives fully is prepared to die at any time.”
That sounds great what Stone is saying in that interview above!
I think it's optimal if we can work about 75 % and not full time, with something meaningful. But as always money is the big issue..
Co-worker told me he gives 100% at work. We work 4-12hr days/nights. He said 25% each shift adds up to 100! Helps not to be fried after a weeks work.
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F Me In The Brain
this knows everybody from other commets Posts: 30,802
That sounds great what Stone is saying in that interview above!
I think it's optimal if we can work about 75 % and not full time, with something meaningful. But as always money is the big issue..
Co-worker told me he gives 100% at work. We work 4-12hr days/nights. He said 25% each shift adds up to 100! Helps not to be fried after a weeks work.
Does this mean that he gives 25% of his potential effort, every day at work? (Does this mean he could really do a week's worth of output in one shift?) Not sure I grasp this concept.
It's like a being lazy joke. But a reminder to pace yourself. Physical work, if you give 100% eveyday you will exhaust yourself.
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brianlux
Moving through All Kinds of Terrain. Posts: 40,947
When my wife still had her bookstore she used to say, "One of the things I like about having my own business is that I only have to work half-days... and I get to choose which 12 hours I want to work."
“The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man [or woman] who lives fully is prepared to die at any time.”
Because I grew up in poverty and I don't want my son to have to worry about financial stability. He lives a very comfortable life but is constantly reminded what it's like not to.
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hedonist
standing on the edge of forever Posts: 24,524
Because I grew up in poverty and I don't want my son to have to worry about financial stability. He lives a very comfortable life but is constantly reminded what it's like not to.
Interesting. My dad lived a frugal life and encouraged not necessarily financial means in our family but moreso appreciating and not wasting things (food, fabric, materials, etc). My mom came from a family with eight children, she being the youngest. Nothing was wasted, ever, and she rarely had anything brand new due to the plethora of hand me downs. I guess we never needed reminders because at times, for many, we were the reminders. Me, never knew and at this point? Don’t really care either.
He also believed that when you love what you do for a living — and boy, did he ever — it’s not really work. We should all be so fortunate.
Anyway, apologies for getting wrapped up in nostalgia
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mickeyrat
up my ass, like Chadwick was up his Posts: 36,358
edited August 2022
after dropping out my senior year(wasnt graduating anyway, why stay?)spent the first 20 years of my "adult" life as a falling down drunk turned crack head.
turned that around and was finally able to enter a profession thats held my attention since I'm a kid. sober at 38. trucker at 43.
I now "work" 55 hrs a week(really its only work to me during bad weather). turning 2750 miles a week and am home every day. I hit 6 figures 2 years ago.
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
Comments
Those that can be trusted can change their mind.
For the state employees of my country, everyday is Friday.
Prague Krakow Berlin 2018. Berlin 2022
EV, Taormina 1+2 2017.
I wish i was the souvenir you kept your house key on..
“I'll be online later,” you say, grabbing your laptop as you head out the door.
“Please don’t,” say a growing number of CEOs who are radically rethinking the modern workday. Prompted by Millennials who value work-life balance, an increasingly global workforce spanning time zones, and devices that allow us to connect anywhere, anytime, these CEOs recognize the value of redesigning business to accommodate life, and not the other way around.
18 months ago, I asked my team to do the unthinkable: stop emailing after 6 p.m. and on the weekends. Hailing from places such as McKinsey, Goldman Sachs, Samsung, and Omnicom, staff was somewhat skeptical that everything could be done in a 40-hour work week. But these are clearly smart people, and so in short order we prioritized tasks, right-sized meetings, and modeled the behavior from the top down. Nothing broke, and to this day, I start the day off getting work done instead of answering email.
And yet no one quite believes me that this is true. In fact, they get flustered. Of all the human-friendly policies we have researched for the Human Company Playbook, those that deal with working hours are perhaps the most contentious.
In a world that is always on, when does work stop?
In one corner is the argument for flexible hours, the darling of the tech set. When executed well, this approach allows staff to work when they work best while navigating life events that don’t naturally fall before 9 a.m. or 6 p.m. However, probe a bit further and many employees admit that flexible hours often mean “always working,” with little or no ability to shut off.
In the other corner is the 9-to-5 (or 6...or 7…) model, which can feel downright quaint in 2016. And yet it is making a comeback. At its best, a set hours policy has clearly defined and predictable boundaries, allowing staff to enjoy life outside of work. At its worst, this model can feel rigid, valuing “face time” over quality work.
So which working-hours policy—one that encourages quality work without burning out your staff—is right for your company? Here’s what four CEOs who participated in our ongoing Human Company Design research had to say.
Work When You Work Best
It should come as no surprise that Alexandra Cavoulacos, founder and COO of The Muse, promotes a thoroughly modern model. Informed by the 50 million (mostly Millennial) people who tap her company’s website to navigate their careers, Cavoulacos has codified a flexible work policy that encourages productivity while accommodating for life. “The human thing is to give people the chance to make the choices they need for their lives,” says Cavoulacos, a self-admitted night owl who arrives at work no earlier than 10 a.m.
In this model, each team member determines how, when, and where they work best. Many developers, for example, tend to come in later and work later. Other staff members come in at 8 a.m. and are done by 4 p.m. To manage such a wide variety of schedules, The Muse asks that all team members be transparent about their schedules and update their calendars accordingly. Cavoulacos says that core hours naturally emerged, with most people in the office from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. for meetings.
Work Can Wait™
When founding Basecamp, David Heinemeier Hansson was living in Copenhagen; Jason Fried was in Chicago. As a result, they only had three hours of overlapped working time that later served as the blueprint for a distributed model. “Most people work from home, on their own schedule. All we ask is that you have reasonable overlap with the people you work with,” says Hansson.
To avoid the “always working” trap, Hansson suggests a rough guideline of 40 hours a week. “The best workers are the ones who take vacation, are rested, and have fulfilling lives outside of work,” says Hansson. He and Fried openly buck the hero myth that dominates Silicon Valley. “We get plenty of sleep ourselves. We don’t send emails at 2 a.m. about work stuff. We built it into the software,” says Hansson. Released with Basecamp 3, the “work can wait” function allows users to set boundaries for work notifications. For example, a 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. schedule means Basecamp won’t tell you about messages received after 5 p.m. until the next morning.
Always on, But Not Always Answering
For service companies such as JDI, people are the product, which means that staff is often required to be highly available. And yet CEO Josh Dilworth-Jones makes it clear that always on does not have to mean always answering.
“Late-night email is a weird game of chicken,” says Dilworth-Jones. The challenge with email and other notifications is that human beings are designed to be responsive. “If a client sees me send an email at 9 p.m., they say ‘just call me,’ and all of a sudden, a condensed working period I have control of turns into an open-ended work session at 10 p.m. And I don’t think either of us really want to be doing that.”
The same goes for employees. Dilworth-Jones eschews the “I’ll be online later” that precedes a staffer’s exit for the evening. Rather, he offers a clearly defined order for getting in touch with someone when they are not in the office. They use Slack to indicate status; if one is not on Slack, it is assumed that he/she is not working. Texting after hours means that an issue is being escalated. Last, but not least, is a call. “A phone call is a deathly serious thing,” adds Dilworth-Jones.
Start with Your Value System
For Arjun Arora, a serial entrepreneur and venture partner at 500 Startups, working-hours policies should reflect an organization’s value system. In his companies, this means balancing responsiveness and the “hustle” (getting your work done) with intelligence, adaptability, and mutual respect.
This is in direct contrast to what he calls the “unspoken rules of killing it” in Silicon Valley. “Martyr capitalism is not good for the business long term,” he adds.
Arora’s preference is to create core working hours for meetings, typically 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., and then offer flexibility for employees to manage their life. Special requests, such as the employee who wanted to telecommute one day a month to help out his parents’ small business, are also honored. “Because the values are set and clear, he was probably even more responsive (when telecommuting),” says Arora.
Arora’s best advice, however, is in the why. Backed by research and his own personal experience, “a team characterized by trust, respect, and admiration, working 40-hour work weeks, will outperform a similarly competent team characterized by fear, mistrust, and scarcity thinking, frantically ‘being productive’ 80 hours per week.”
Trieste 14, Vienna 14, Gdynia 14, Leeds 14, Milton Keynes 14, Denver 14
Central Park 15
Fort Lauderdale 16, Miami 16, Tampa 16, Jacksonville 16, Greenville 16, Hampton 16, Columbia 16, Lexington 16, Philly1 16, Philly2 16, NYC1 16, NYC2 16, Quebec City 16, Ottawa 16, Toronto1 16, Toronto2 16, Fenway1 16, Fenway2 16, Wrigley1 16, Wrigley2 16
(Does this mean he could really do a week's worth of output in one shift?)
Not sure I grasp this concept.
Anyway, apologies for getting wrapped up in nostalgia
Not today Sir, Probably not tomorrow.............................................. bayfront arena st. pete '94
you're finally here and I'm a mess................................................... nationwide arena columbus '10
memories like fingerprints are slowly raising.................................... first niagara center buffalo '13
another man ..... moved by sleight of hand...................................... joe louis arena detroit '14
I also hate NY now, lol.
Apart from the last bit!