standing tall \05.18\

standing tall \05.18\

Posted by Lauren at 11:59 PM ✪ No comment yet

Since the beginning of 2012, I have put a lot of time into exploring and learning as a means of seeking my next life destination.  That means not only internal reflection, but also consulting an array of external experiences and written material - books, articles, blogs, etc.  Today I ran across a blog that's associated with a book.  This book happened to make some headlines, so perhaps you've heard of it: The 4-Hour Work Week.

I didn't wade through a lot of the original content, but I was struck by a stats page.  It broke down the average number of vacation days taken in a year, U.S. vs. the world.  Being at the bottom of the list was expected, but the actual difference was a bit mind-boggling:
Italy - 42
France - 37
Germany - 35
Brazil - 34
Britain - 28
Canada - 26
Japan - 25
USA - 13

Something else that I continually circle back to in my quest for a next step is a desire for flexibility.  I have whims (no surprise there) that make a cubicle feel like a cage.  If only I could have the freedom and be trusted to manage my daily workload from outside the confines of the office environment when I needed wanted to.  There was another set of stats on The 4-Hour Work Week blog that spoke to this new-fangled concept.  Although they're somewhat dated, I would guess that the general trend still applies.

At the end of 2007, Best Buy HQ converted all 4,000 employees to a "Results-Only Work Environment".  Work no longer defined a physical place, but rather a task that you perform (as it should be).  The basis for performance was output instead of hours.  Employees now worked wherever and whenever they wanted.  What was the outcome?

There was a 35% rise in productivity, compared to figures from 2005.  The average change in quitting across all divisions was -72.3%!  People stopped quitting their job when they were given more freedom AND they became more productive.  So, I guess it just gives me hope.