The culture of Best Buy reflects a traditional business to being a more contemporary, flexible work schedule. Before the ROWE program, many workers were tired of being overworked, not being able to spend quality time with their families. It seemed like the employees worked on their day off, come in early, leave late to make deadlines and it was just overall stressful. As stated the company’s culture used to embraced long hours and sacrifice (Hellriegel/Slocum, 2011 p. 553).
With all of this coming into play Best Buy chose to implement a new structure to help motivate the workers called the ROWE program. The number of people in the United States who say they are overworked as been rising from 28 percent of Americans in 2001 to 44 percent in 2009, according to Families and Work Institute. Instead of launching a “work-life balance” program, Best Buy rethought the very concept of work. Under the Results-Only Work Environment program, ROWE. Here the employees can work when and where they like, as long as they get the job done. (Hellriegel/Slocum, 2011 p. 553).
The ROWE program consists of 13 principles and rules, the key ones are: There are no work schedules in the traditional sense, every meeting is optional, with a few key exceptions, employees are not to judge how colleagues spend their time, thus there is no focus on “how many hours did you work.”, Work is not a place you go , it’s something you do, as long as the work gets done, employees do whatever they want whenever they want, In brief ROWE is all about results. No results, no job, it’s that simple. With this being in place all the departments joined at once, so that no employee is left out and made to feel out of place. 75 percent of the 4,000 employees at Best Buy’s headquarters are in the ROWE program. Each group finds a way to be flexible and things not turning into chaos. (Hellriegel/Slocum, 2011 p. 553). The Best Buy’s values are to have fun while being the best, learn, from challenge and change, show respect, humility and integrity and unleash the power of the people. Strong values are essential to guide employees for corporations who are serious about empowering the edge. (wordpress.com).

The approach to organizational change that the ROWE program illustrates is that it does not focus on time clock and how many hours worked, but that the job is getting done, completed. The employees can get up and leave throughout the day, come late, and not be questioned due to trust. At first many employees had to adapt to it, because it is something new, and wanting to take baby steps, many of the questions was, “Can I really do this? Do I need to stop and tell someone? What would people think of me?” (Hellriegel/Slocum, 2011 p. 554). There was an online calendar that was put in place, in which everyone entered exactly where they were at any given time, shortly after a few weeks the employees abandoned the calendar and now just use a combination of out-of-office messages and trust.
There at Best Buy there is no typical day, no mandatory meetings, and no schedules. As long as the work is getting done, it’s ok to do what you want, go where you want and have fun doing it. According to the text, on any given day to find people, you may see, “in the office today, out of the office this afternoon, available by email.” The unplanned meetings are gone, but doing the job by cell phone is a plus. According to Tobias, “you can still have those meetings/conversations but not always in person.” Now emails have become more concise and meaningful, everyone is starting to rethink their priorities. There are fewer times in meetings, if they don’t need to meet, they don’t. This process of change produced a lot of stress and changing of attitudes. The baby boomer generation broke down when realizing what they gave up to get ahead in the workplace, their families. It didn’t have to be that way, men were thankful to spend more time with their families, and to just be there for them. (Hellriegel/Slocum, 2011 p. 554). Some changes were ugly, when the mentioning of extending the flexibility to hourly workers, the managers resisted, saying, “there are certain people that need to be managed differently than other people.”Some need to be there to serve their bosses. To me that’s not a good way to think, if everyone can do what they want and when they work, why shouldn’t it apply here? As long as the job is being done, that’s what was stated in the principles, if its good for everyone else, why not the hourly employees?

The resistance in the organization and individual that ROWE had to overcome was first managers having to put up with the most resistance. According to Tom Blesener, was accepting responsibility for the stress his employees felt. He had to learn how to stop treating his employees as if they were “unruly children.” There were 20 hourly employees that told him they are tired of punching time clocks. So now data-entry clerks and claims processors focus on how many quality forms they get through in a week, rather than when they do it. Blesner had to give up some of his control; the teams were left to handle conflicts and coverage. (Hellriegel/Slocum, 2011 p.555).
The legal department for Best Buy resisted the new way of working, they are in house attorneys, and worried that it may reduce their pay. According to Jane Kirshbaum, the Best Buy’s lawyers are compensated in how well they serve their clients- other departments that have legal issues, and are not concerned to any revenue-generating part of the business. Kirshbaum wonders if they will be criticized as unresponsive if they take off one afternoon. She admires the freedom the employees in the ROWE program seem to enjoy. She changed to a four-day schedule after the birth of her second child and struggles everyday with the push of work and the pull of family. She checks her email and voicemail on her day off. (Hellriegel/Slocum, 2011 p.555). One woman named Tobias is now able to stop avoiding her children; she would wake up early in the morning, rushing to leave out of the door so her kids would not beg her to stay for breakfast. Now with the ROWE program she is now able to stay and eat with them whenever she wants. Now it seems like the people who had to adjust or had some minor problems with the program have converted to changing their minds. To me it brings a sense of peace, not looking over your shoulders, you are basically on your own working and have time to do the things that you would want to do normally. With this type of work and with this program you have to be disciplined because if you don’t, you could fall behind, and that could hinder the company.

The source of stress that is apparent in this case is that the employees felt like they were being overworked. The managers played a part in making the workplace more of a stressful environment. There were negative energy that this was creating corporate decided to try a more flexible system of scheduling that permitted employees to determine their own hours. This restructuring was not an easy process, it would result in producing more stress but it would relieve any. People were stressed because they may lose their competitive edge or receive less pay. Also some people generally like schedules and feel that the new system will be disorganized. There are a few factors that are creating the stress existing in this case. (www.journalofinternationalmanagement.wordpress.com/2011.) Best Buy clearly show concerns around stress, workload and work-life balance. This goes to the heart of what ROWE is addressing, employers need to be more flexible, they also should beware of letting employees become detached. With traditional telework, there are some risks that workers will feel less connected to the company. The goal should be to keep stress low and engagement high. Best Buy has evidence showing companies that have taken care of their employees’ stress and engaged them in their work enjoy the biggest financial benefits. In contrast, companies that just get one of those right, they engage employees, but stress them out, do not realize optimal results. (www.journalofinternationalmanagement.wordpress.com/2011.)

The organizational culture that has helped with the change is now using ROWE, 80% of Best Buy’s corporate staff now come and go as they please as long as the work gets done on time. With this, the employees are paid for results rather than hours worked. This provides both freedoms for employees and results for employers. ROWE is based on the assumption that employees will do more better work when given the latitude to decide how and when it is done. http://fpolom.wordpress.com/2011/02/27/rowe-program-at-bestbuy
I feel like the organizational culture has helped with the change, it brings more leverage, and everyone seems to be happy, benefiting both sides. Now ROWE is proving to be effective returning and average of 35% increase in productivity while reducing voluntary turnover by as much 90%. Research by the Flexible-Work an Well Being Center at the University Of Minnesota found that more ROWE employees than comparable employees: Have greater organizational commitment, report higher job satisfaction, view the culture as family friendly, and report increased job security. http://fpolom.wordpress.com/2011/02/27/rowe-program-at-bestbuy