Feds To Test Results-Only Work. What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

I have mixed feelings about this plan, especially when it comes to government workers, many of which are very conscientious workers, and many who are not. Many years ago, when auditing a JFK anti-poverty program on the lower East Side of Manhattan, we noticed that there were many more employees on the payroll than showed up for work each day. I initiated a twice a day desk check in the various offices and within a week the desks were filled with people we had never seen before.

In another time, I was out of work for a few weeks for an operation during a particularly important budgetary time. While recuperating, I was able to telecommute and get the job done.

This idea can work, but I can assure you that it takes a lot of discipline on the individual's part and is almost impossible to evaluate without sophisticated controls which the government never seems to get right.

To me, this is just a program to purchase the hearts and minds of the government employees, or to create no show jobs for the Democrats' union cronies.

Excerpt: The U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) will soon implement a pilot that moves 400 agency employees into a Results-Only Work Environment (ROWE) -- where employees can work when and where they want, as long as they're meeting their predetermined goals and results.

ROWE is a management strategy in which employees are evaluated on performance, not presence, according to CultureRx workplace consultancy, whose founding members have expertise in ROWE. "In a ROWE, people focus on results and only results -- increasing the organization's performance while creating the right climate for people to manage all the demands in their lives ... including work," according to CultureRx's Web site.

On one hand, do we really think government employees will actually be held to those goals and results while spending less time working? On the same hand, different finger, do we think that government employees will game the system to earn more overtime pay with less results? On the thumb, how safe do you feel about government employees taking their work "where they want," possibly proprietary and confidential information, the better to be lost/stolen? Read article here.