At Babson, we studied a case on Sun's iWork policy which basically allows employees to work from home, potentially very rarely visiting an office.  This has created an environment where in many cases individuals work in completely different continents from the rest of their team.  Around 50% of Sun's 32,000 employees have taken advantage of the program meaning they don't have a permanent base at any of Sun's locations.

In the team of 7 I'm working in just now, 3 of us are based in Sun's Menlo Park HQ, 1 in the Boston office, and the other 3 all work from home in Belgium, Texas and Oregon.  It's been great seeing the policy in action and being able to weigh up many of the pros and cons for myself.

I had the opportunity last week to hear from Bill McGowan, Sun's Chief HR Officer, and asked him about iWork.  One of his main points was the change in mindset required by managers who were used to having their team all based in the same hallway to having them on different continents.  He talked of it being very much an issue of trust - even from the exec leadership team who could find it tough on a Friday afternoon looking out and seeing an empty parking lot.

I'd always considered this type of solution to be a trend for many modern companies, particularly in the hi-tech space, so it was interesting when Bill used Google as an example of a company at the other extreme. 

Google are renowned for their employee benefits which include free bus transport to work, free on-campus restaurants and cafes, on-campus laundry, games rooms and even a budget to decorate your workspace.  This all combines to an environment where people tend to work long hours (come in for breakfast and stay for dinner) and where the office becomes a key part of an employee's life.  I think of it as saying "forget work-life balance, let’s make work your life but really make it great".

I love seeing two entirely different approaches in action trying to solve the same problem of attracting and retaining the best talent.