The Way to Enough

The challenge for Tærum, and therefore for Hydro, is profound: How can he best contribute to his company -- while staying true to his traditional heritage and to the life he and his wife want for their family? His sense of balance is admirable but also precarious: It's dependent on his own as well as his employer's commitment. So how does Hydro accommodate an invaluable employee and also get the most out of him? How does it cultivate his potential?

The answer is rooted, first, in flexibility. Since his third child, Mathea, was born last August, Tærum has arranged to work three days a week at Hydro's headquarters. He gets paid 80% of his full-time salary for the work he does on those days. The other two days of the workweek, Tærum stays at home while Lie goes to work.

Much of Tærum's work at Hydro involves providing support and answering questions for Hydro fertilizer salespeople: What kind of fertilizer works best for mangoes? For mace? For rice? When is the optimal time to apply it? Technically, Tærum is off work on his days at home. But because his office phone is forwarded to his mobile number, a call will often come in from Kuala Lumpur or Cairo or Angola. As often as not, a farmer is calling.

"Sometimes I will be out plowing a field," says Tærum, "and I will get a call. Recently someone from Russia called, and I could say, 'As it happens, I'm sitting on my tractor, putting some fertilizer on my own field now.' I can draw on my own experience as a farmer, and people trust me more for that reason."

Tærum likes the arrangement. Despite changing responsibilities and ever-shifting schedules, he says, "I feel less stressed this way. Before, I was leaving the house early every day. I was back at 6 p.m. I was tired, I was traveling, and, in a way, I was never happy. Now I can manage my day and my life a bit better. I think I'm doing a better job for Hydro. I'm doing different things five days a week, and I'm more connected to my family."

Certainly, the arrangement is far from perfect. The mobile phone can ring at all hours of the day or night. Tærum also travels up to 100 days a year. On those weeks, the flexible arrangement breaks down. Meanwhile, the farm always waits. "Some days during the summer," says Tærum, "we work 17 or 18 hours."

Still, he says, "When you are doing one job, you are resting from the other." In fact, Tærum hopes to return to 100% pay -- but on his terms: three days at the office, and two days a week working at home. "With the kind of work that I do," Tærum says, "working at home should not be a problem. If you can't find a flexible solution at Hydro, you can't find one anywhere."

Turning Work Style Upside Down

For Ragnhild Sohlberg, Tærum exemplifies how knowledge workers work: As long as he is conscious and has a phone, he's on the job. His balance between the farm and the office, she thinks, presents an appealing model. "What he has is something that we're all fighting for," she says. "We're all desperate for time to reflect. We have a kind of Calvinist work ethic. We're always moving."

That said, Skotselv or even Oslo is hardly midtown Manhattan. The pace of life in those cities is decidedly more human. Indeed, Norwegian culture -- the prism through which Hydro's efforts at balance must be viewed -- takes some fundamental American attitudes about work and turns them upside down.

In the United States, for instance, working long hours is seen as admirable, even heroic. At Hydro, the standard workday, even for professionals, is seven and a half hours. If you're still sitting at your desk at 6 p.m., people wonder why you can't get your work done.

Work in Norway is also shaped by a tradition of cooperation between unions and management that's unheard of in the United States. Labor and management typically work together to change processes and structures for greater efficiency. Unions believe that higher productivity brings more jobs and higher pay. Management wants higher profits -- but satisfied employees aren't bad either.

All this allows -- and perhaps requires -- Norwegians to consider balance in fundamental terms. A rich life is a diverse collection of compelling experiences, some of which involve work. Work that is all-consuming is unhealthy -- for the individual, for the organization, and for the community. Time spent away from work is restorative. More to the point: Time spent outside work fuels work itself.

As she drives her blue Saab through the Norwegian countryside, Sohlberg nods at the passing fields. "Here," she says, "my mind is at ease. I never know what I might think of."