Rowe Program at Best Buy
ROWE Program at Best Buy
Diane Adebiaye
Strayer University – Online Campus
BUS520
Leadership & Organizational Behavior
Professor Kimberly Millier
June 12, 2011
Describe the culture of Best Buy.
The culture at Best Buy is typical of any retail companies in the U.S. before the introduction of Results-Only Work Environment (ROWE) program. Best Buy strives to provide the right product at the right time, at the right price to meet the demand of its customers nationwide with an increasingly stressed out workforce. The company culture embraced long hours and sacrifice, corporate employees cannot balance work life with family. Women were accepting reduced pay and status for a part-time position in order to have family time and flexibility, employee turnover increased. Darrell Owens ended up in the hospital after staying up late to write a report that was suddenly due. The type of sacrifice that the culture allowed was to encourage employees to come in early to work and leave late at night as one employee was given a recognition plague for doing just that. The culture did not respect work-life balance of its employee until the ROWE program was launched in 2003 at Minneapolis, Best Buy headquarters with the help of Jody Thompson and Tracy Tobias. The introduction of ROWE changed the culture of Best Buy as well as performance.
Discuss the approach to organizational change that the ROWE program illustrates.
The ROWE program is based on thirteen principles and rules for employees to embrace to make it a success. Some of the principles were flexible work schedules, every meeting is optional with key exception, no focus on hours worked, work is something you do not a place you go, focus is placed on getting work done other hours can be spent at employees discretion. ROWE is about result, no result no job. The program is about result without stress. The organizational change that ROWE program illustrates is increased productivity, low turnover, increased
Diane Adebiaye
Strayer University – Online Campus
BUS520
Leadership & Organizational Behavior
Professor Kimberly Millier
June 12, 2011
Describe the culture of Best Buy.
The culture at Best Buy is typical of any retail companies in the U.S. before the introduction of Results-Only Work Environment (ROWE) program. Best Buy strives to provide the right product at the right time, at the right price to meet the demand of its customers nationwide with an increasingly stressed out workforce. The company culture embraced long hours and sacrifice, corporate employees cannot balance work life with family. Women were accepting reduced pay and status for a part-time position in order to have family time and flexibility, employee turnover increased. Darrell Owens ended up in the hospital after staying up late to write a report that was suddenly due. The type of sacrifice that the culture allowed was to encourage employees to come in early to work and leave late at night as one employee was given a recognition plague for doing just that. The culture did not respect work-life balance of its employee until the ROWE program was launched in 2003 at Minneapolis, Best Buy headquarters with the help of Jody Thompson and Tracy Tobias. The introduction of ROWE changed the culture of Best Buy as well as performance.
Discuss the approach to organizational change that the ROWE program illustrates.
The ROWE program is based on thirteen principles and rules for employees to embrace to make it a success. Some of the principles were flexible work schedules, every meeting is optional with key exception, no focus on hours worked, work is something you do not a place you go, focus is placed on getting work done other hours can be spent at employees discretion. ROWE is about result, no result no job. The program is about result without stress. The organizational change that ROWE program illustrates is increased productivity, low turnover, increased
References: Hellriegel, D. & Slocum, J.W. (2011). Organizational Behavior. Mason, OH: Cengage Learning Best Buy ROWE initiatives: Retrieved from: www.news-medical.net/news/20110408/Best-Buys-ROWE