Cheezhead

When I first heard about Best Buy’s flexible work program, I was surprised. A large company that allows its workers to pick their own schedules and work from home sounded too good to be true.

I caught up with Joshua Kahn, Senior Pipeline Generation Expert at Best Buy, to ask how the program was implemented. It turns out that Best Buy’s doing a lot more these days to attract a younger generation. Here are three tactics that stood out.

1) They have a Facebook page, a must-have application for all corporations looking to reach a younger demographic. Kahn said the page, orginally published last January, was intended to be a forum for Best Buy employees to chat about their work experience, but they also began using the page to recruit and spread brand awareness.

“It also allowed us to connect to their networks of non-Best Buy people,” Kahn said. “Figuring these extended networks have similar interests to those working for us already, this seemed an easy way to use the dynamic of how information spreads through Facebook to a recruiting and employment branding end. We also wanted a place to post ‘why you’d want to work here’ kind of stuff like photos, discussions, and articles. We felt this would allow people interested in potentially working for Best Buy to get a better feel for the real culture and what the actual employees were talking about far beyond what could be communicated via a job posting or banner ad.”

2) They’ve created an internal social network called Blue Shirt Nation. According to Kahn, the network was developed independently by a couple of guys who used to work in advertising, Gary Koelling and Steve Bendt.  

“They were trying to come up with a way to get real-time, front line feedback on varioius promotions that were being developed at corporate and run in the stores,” Kahn said. ”They shopped the idea for an internal social network around corporate but couldn’t get sponsorship for it, so they just did it themselves. Neither of them were programmers or developers, just creative and smart. They started it using Drupal and open source, freelance development help, and grew it very slowly and organically.” 

3) They offer a flexible schedule program called ROWE, or Results Only Work Environment. Kahn said the idea for it was hatched and tested in one department at corporate. Once it proved successful, ROWE was rolled out across all departments and then tested in the field. 

“Essentially the program shifts the work expectations from 40 hours of face time in the office to accomplish your results, and you’re free to work from home, in the evenings, and whenever is best suited to your productivity cycle,” Kahn said. “Each department sets up their own rules for running the ROWE program. Usually there are some times when people are required to be in the office for a team meeting or something similar, but otherwise, as long as the schedule is communicated to that person’s team, they are free to work when it suits them, again as long as they are achieving the desired results and outcomes. Obviously, depending on the department you may have more or less flexibility.”