I first wrote this article over two years ago. At the time, eliminating employee schedules seemed like a crazy idea to many small business leaders. Not so much today.
Here are two conversations I've had recently. The first was with my youngest son, Carter, earlier in the summer.
C: Dad, I love my new job.
T: That’s great Carter. What are you doing?
C: The job is with a financial services company, and I have an administrative project that I'm working on. My job is to work my way through a room full of loan packages, keeping some documents and throwing away others.
T: Why is this such a great job?
C: I love this job because of the flexibility. I can create my own schedule. My favorite hours are from midnight until around 5 am. I get a lot of work done with minimal distractions. The best part is that I then have the rest of the day to do what I want. It’s great!
The second conversation was most recently with one of my clients named Bill.
T: Bill, you look frustrated. What's wrong?
B: I need to fire one of my directors.
T: What’s the issue? Poor performance?
B: No. His performance is fine. The problem is that this director is unable to get to work on time. Our office opens at 8 am, and he is never here on time. He does work late and sometimes on weekends. If he can’t get here on time it’s an issue, and I must address it now. We have an office schedule and he must comply with that schedule.
T: Bill, would you rather manage employee compliance or job performance?
B: We are all about job performance! His job performance is stellar. Now if I could just get him to show up for work on time.
Do either of these conversations sound familiar to you?