February 12, 2012

There are no working hours… (Initial Results)

I recently wrote about a method we are implementing at Silvechip (There are no working hours) . I want to write a quick post documenting out initial results.

In summary, we will be continuing to run with this way of working and over the next few month enhancing the scheme.

The concept has worked because of out team, they understand we still have deadlines and client targets to hit and while there have been short days from all of the team, each person has put the time and effort in when needed.

The quality of the work has increased and the office environment has improved dramatically. We are now looking at enhancing the scheme by offering each team member a laptop and the ability to work where they want, when they want.

We’ve used a number of tools to make this possible,

For chat, we did use MSN Messenger – but this is not the right tool for a complete remote team. We tried Campfire, but found it’s look dated and clumsy (Disappointing) . We have now settled with Hipchat. It’s a great tool and facilitates everything we need!

We have migrated all our pipeline and contacts to Highrise – this works well and is a very good tool.

All our email services (Exchange) are available anywhere with an net connection.

Our files on internal server can be access via  a VPN (I’d like to move this to a cloud service but haven’t found a concrete solution yet – we have a lot of large photoshop files).

I’ll keep the blog updated with details of how we are progressing with this working pattern. I’d also appreciate any advice on tools we are missing or might help us! Feel free to ask any questions below as well.

January 15, 2012

There are no working hours…

This week we’ve decided to introduce a new (Trial) method of working, it’s based around a concept that I have felt strongly about for a long time.

I’ve always worked best and most productive during the afternoon and evenings, the morning has never been a good time for me to work. Other people will be the same, others will work best early morning etc. The core point I’m trying to get across is that everyone works differently and is most productive at different times. So why do we insist on a 9-5 working pattern?

I’ve done some monitoring of how productive I am when in the office, I found there were certain points when I’d get into the office at 8am and not start work until 10am. Even at 10am I don’t feel like I’m producing the same quality as when I am in the “zone” and then other times I can sit down for 2 hours (in the “zone”) and code will almost write itself, I’ve been more productive in them 2 hours than some full days. So again we have to ask why even employers that offer “Flexible working patterns” insist on employees working 8 hours per day?

We’ve decided at Silverchip, to strip the start and end point for the team and simply give each employee responsibility for certain areas or projects, no number of hours they have to work per week etc. Our focus will be on work output, not hours worked.  What we hope to happen is the following,

The Team Is Happier

We’ve all had days, where things go wrong and the guys will now have the ability to take some time out so they can come back with a fresh set of eyes. The guys will all have the ability to go to the gym, go out for meals with friends or even just sleep in. This should produce a much happier team.

The Team Is More Productive

If the team can choose how,when and where they want to work, this will increase there productivity – they wont need to have lunch at a certain time or get on an overcrowded bus to work. All these aspects should improve each team members productivity.

We attract the best quality staff and retain them

By offering this method of working, we hope the great staff we have are retained and when we come to attract new people, our company and work-style is a deciding factor.

Now, people out there will be sceptical of doing this due to the fact they have to be there in the office to answer phones and hit deadlines etc. Well we do too, and due to the internet, we can redirect calls anywhere in the world, deadlines are still an important part of what we do and each of us will be responsible for a project hitting the deadlines. We will be using Campfire to communicate as a team and a whole host of web based tools to manage what we do. We haven’t finalised everything we are using yet but will update you once we do.

So, I’ll be keeping a log of how this goes over the next week and be sure to keep you posted if it succeeds or fails. I strongly believe in the team we have and see no reason why the above wouldn’t succeed.

Agree? Disagree? Implemented something similar? I’d love to hear about it below.