Browse Definitions :
Definition

Results-Only Work Environment (ROWE)

A Results-Only Work Environment (ROWE) is one in which the most important criteria for evaluating employee performance is the completion of satisfactory work on time. How or where an employee completes work is not important.

A ROWE does not provide employees with paid sick days, personal days or vacation days. Employees who work in this type of outcome-focused work environment are free to set their own hours and work from any location, as long their choices do not cause bottlenecks that hold up other people's work.

Advantages of working at a ROWE

The ROWE strategy is popular with startups, particularly those that are technology focused. This type of workplace environment has received renewed interest because of COVID-19 quarantines.

Advantages of working at a ROWE include:

  • Better work-life balance. 
  • Shorter "commute" times.
  • Ability to schedule work around appointments, illnesses and family responsibilities.
  • Less stress.
  • Focused productivity.

Disadvantages of working at a ROWE

Although employees who work in a ROWE are free to come and go as they please and work hours that suit them from any location, involuntary turnover (employees being fired) typically increases. This may be because putting the focus on meeting objectives allows managers to easily see which employees aren't pulling their weight.

Disadvantages of working at a ROWE include:

  • Reduced opportunities to communicate Ad hoc with other employees.
  • Time management becomes a key performance indicator (KPI) for success.
  • Lack of clear delineation between "work time" and "home time."

History of the ROWE

Former Best Buy managers Cali Ressler and Jody Thompson developed the ROWE paradigm at the company's headquarters in Minneapolis. Ressler and Thompson created the model to address problems they saw with the typical work environment that affected both productivity and employee satisfaction.

In 2013, however, Best Buy CEO Hubert Joly did away with the company's ROWE strategy. Joly felt the approach put too much emphasis on delegating work to employees and not enough emphasis on other leadership tasks such as coaching, motivating or directing employees.

Extending the concept of results-only to service contracts 

The concept of "results-only" is increasingly being applied to IT service contracts in a delivery model that may or may not include outcome-based pricing (OBP). When the contractual mechanism for services is results-based, the price for a product or service is directly tied to a KPI, and the customer signs away their right to know when or where the work is being done.

This was last updated in October 2020

Continue Reading About Results-Only Work Environment (ROWE)

Networking
  • firewall as a service (FWaaS)

    Firewall as a service (FWaaS), also known as a cloud firewall, is a service that provides cloud-based network traffic analysis ...

  • private 5G

    Private 5G is a wireless network technology that delivers 5G cellular connectivity for private network use cases.

  • NFVi (network functions virtualization infrastructure)

    NFVi (network functions virtualization infrastructure) encompasses all of the networking hardware and software needed to support ...

Security
  • virus (computer virus)

    A computer virus is a type of malware that attaches itself to a program or file. A virus can replicate and spread across an ...

  • Certified Information Security Manager (CISM)

    Certified Information Security Manager (CISM) is an advanced certification that indicates that an individual possesses the ...

  • cryptography

    Cryptography is a method of protecting information and communications using codes, so that only those for whom the information is...

CIO
  • B2B (business to business)

    B2B (business-to-business) is a type of commerce involving the exchange of products, services or information between businesses, ...

  • return on investment (ROI)

    Return on investment (ROI) is a crucial financial metric investors and businesses use to evaluate an investment's efficiency or ...

  • big data as a service (BDaaS)

    Big data as a service (BDaS) is the delivery of data platforms and tools by a cloud provider to help organizations process, ...

HRSoftware
  • talent acquisition

    Talent acquisition is the strategic process an organization uses to identify, recruit and hire the people it needs to achieve its...

  • human capital management (HCM)

    Human capital management (HCM) is a comprehensive set of practices and tools used for recruiting, managing and developing ...

  • Betterworks

    Betterworks is performance management software that helps workforces and organizations to improve manager effectiveness and ...

Customer Experience
  • martech (marketing technology)

    Martech (marketing technology) refers to the integration of software tools, platforms, and applications designed to streamline ...

  • transactional marketing

    Transactional marketing is a business strategy that focuses on single, point-of-sale transactions.

  • customer profiling

    Customer profiling is the detailed and systematic process of constructing a clear portrait of a company's ideal customer by ...

Close