The high gas prices may actually work some magic when things are all said and done. If the pain gets great enough perhaps it’ll create a willingness to try something new even in environments traditionally reluctant to change such as say the workplace. Now that I see some seriously overweight sedentary people taking the plunge and riding old bikes on errands in my neighborhood (a good thing!) I know radical changes can be possible even in the most stubborn of people.

Ellen Ernst Kossek starts the conversation at Harvard Business Publishing with the post “High Gas Prices: A Plus for Employers”:

All the talk about pain at the pump misses an important point: High gas prices can work to a company’s benefit, if the company uses them as an opportunity to initiate or expand flexible work arrangements such as a compressed work week or telecommuting.

Several states have done so. Oklahoma and Kentucky have state-sponsored or -supported telework and flextime programs specifically designed to help workers save on fuel costs. Michigan, Arkansas, and California are considering implementing similar programs. And Utah has mandated a 4-day workweek for 17,000 state employees, about 80% of the state workforce. Hawaii is considering a similar policy.

My question for years and years back to the first day of my first job has always been “why not?”.

Yes there are concerns that any manager will have if you want to sway from the 9-5 norm (Is 9-5 really the norm anywhere anymore??). You simply need to address them in a professional manner. Lindsey Pollack brings up some great objections to consider in her long titled post “Thanks to Coachology advice, my boss agreed to flextime for me. But now he wants help in selling it to the other managers that have to answer questions from their employees. What should I tell him?”

Put yourself in your manager’s shoes. What will the others be worried about? That you won’t get all of your work done? That your colleagues will all want flextime too? Anticipate these concerns so you can be prepared to address them. Researching other people who have successfully worked flextime.

After that it should simply be logical. But alas, logic is not so common. Stephanie at The Chockley’s points that out so candidly in ROWE:

An example of the issues raised by “flex time” can be seen in my office’s adaptation of “summer hours.” In this scenario, I can come in half an hour earlier and leave half an hour earlier, or come in on time, take a shorter lunch, and leave half an hour earlier. How generous to allow a grown adult the choice of coming in at 8 or 8:30, yes?

The problem with summer hours is this: I am my absolute busiest during the summer. This is the time of year I need to do the most work. Sadly, it is also the only time of year I have the opportunity to leave at 4:30. This extra half hour improves my quality of life exponentially.

Then she throws logic at the problem (you don’t say!) and shares about the radical example Best Buy set when they allowed employees to — gasp! — be adults and come and go as they please as long as the work gets done.

Of course, this scenario makes no business sense at all. The logical thing would be for me to work as hard as I can in the summer in order to get my job done, then have an opportunity for “summer hours” in a time when I’m not as busy. But our HR department would never allow that, so I don’t bother getting upset about it. It’s just not the way things are done. Or is it?

I was recently alerted to the breathtakingly perfect situation at the Best Buy corporate offices. Apparently they have adopted a radical new approach to the concept of work: ROWE, which stands for Results-Only Work Environment. Basically the idea is this: Each person is free to do whatever they want, whenever they want, as long as the work gets done.

Whaaa? You mean it’s more important for the job to get done than for butts to be in chairs from 8:30-5:00? You don’t say! How sad that in 2008 this is deemed “radical” when really it just seems logical. But as I read about it, I realized what a blow this was to the traditional power structure of the American office.

I was surely amazed myself when I first read about Best Buy. Then, this week I read the Inc. article called “Beyond Flextime”. There are some amazing gems in that article. The one that struck me most was:

That hasn’t been the only revelation for Devereux. When the new system started, he was something of a resister. The problem: His assistant Shannon Mehls was, as he puts it, “no longer at my beck and call.”

“I had no idea how much I was creating fires until we started ROWE,” Devereux says. “She’d be working, and something would happen in my world. I’d give her my emergency and walk away.” After a few days of ROWE, Devereux found that Mehls wasn’t always there to dump work on. Instead, if he had an emergency, he often had to take care of it himself. “I had an ‘aha’ moment, and I said to her, ‘Have I always created this kind of panic?’ ” (The answer was yes.) Devereux says he is now focused on planning — and more respectful of Mehls’s time and skills. They discuss in advance what needs to be done and when she will be available to work with him.

You mean a ROWE environment could help reduce the number of man made crises in the workplace?? Now THAT alone would increase productivity and employee morale a hundred fold. You see…sometimes the ROI is hidden in places that people aren’t even looking!

What I learned in my experience is that if you don’t ask the question, the answer is always No. In one of my jobs I managed to convince a very conservative executive to whom I reported to allow me a trial telecommuting arrangement. The beauty of it was that he left the company before the trial ended and it simply continued on until I left the organization. It made me much more productive AND happy. I could get focused work done on remote days and face-time work done when I was in the office. That was even before we had nearly as many virtual tools at our disposal.

So, if you’re feeling the work-life pinch, give it a try…ask. It can’t hurt and if you do it right you’ll benefit greatly and ideally so will the company: a win-win all around.

Paula Gregorowicz, owner of The Paula G. Company, works with lesbianswho are ready to create their lives and businesses in a way that fits who they are rather than how they were told they “should”. Get the free 12 part eCourse “How to Be Comfortable in Your Own Skin” http://www.coaching4lesbians.com and start taking charge of your own success.