Many executives would shudder at Ricardo Semler’s suggestions: Let employees set their own hours and pay — and choose their bosses. List everyone’s salary on the company’s intranet, let workers review managers anonymously every six months, do away with mission statements and corporate headquarters, virtually abolish the human resources department.

But Semler has made those ideas a success at Semco, a Brazilian company with more than 3,000 employees that has seen its revenue skyrocket from $35 million to $212 million in six years. In his latest book, “The Seven-Day Weekend: Changing the Way Work Works” (Portfolio, 256 pages), Semler argues that too many managers are preoccupied with relatively minor issues such as scheduling and making sure employees aren’t wasting time.

“Twenty percent of our time is spent on these boarding school issues,” he said in a telephone interview from Massachusetts, where he is a visiting scholar at Harvard University. He also has spoken to Sloan Foundation fellows at Stanford University in the San Francisco Bay Area. “They are totally irrelevant to the business.”

The traditional workplace model is backfiring because businesses aren’t taking advantage of technology the way they should and workers face the strain of more personal demands and longer commutes, said Semler, whose first book was the million-seller “Maverick,” which outlined some of Semco’s innovative strategies.

“People are really in a bit of madness out there,” he said. “The whole architecture isn’t working anymore.”

But before any employees lick their chops at the prospect of six-figure sloth, be warned: Semler is hardly advocating a $200,000-a-year civil service gig. He’s just explaining how the right employees can thrive in groups of 10 or 12 and manage themselves, and are even able to move between groups to find more rewarding work.

“The corporate control disappears,” he explains, “but the peer control does not.”

Semco emphasizes openness, communication and agility, which might explain why the company is in everything from machinery to professional services to high-tech. Sure, employees set their own salaries, Semler says, but everyone’s salary is posted on the intranet. So are the evaluations of managers, market data, the company’s financial results, customer surveys and even salary surveys for competitors.

Every six months, the small groups within Semco outline the projects they want to work on, determine budgets for themselves and list which people are needed to succeed. So if you want to set your salary at 200 grand and list your main skill as cultivating nose hair, don’t bet on getting chosen for any team. Bet instead that you will have to adjust your sights — or see yourself collecting unemployment checks.

The same goes for managers who attract nasty comments on performance appraisals from their employees. If no one is willing to work under you, it’s kind of hard to be a manager.

When you operate with small groups, you create the potential for more trust and more freedom, Semler explains. People know they have to get the job done to stay employed, but they also have chosen peers and managers that they trust and respect. The results are what matters — not whether someone is sitting in a cubicle or on a beach from 2 to 4 on some Monday afternoon.

Semler says some of his workers do lounge on the beach during weekdays, but more than one-quarter of Semco employees can be found online at 8 p.m. on a Sunday, so they are hardly goofing off. They are finding ways to balance work and life, and reduce some of the daily nuisances like traffic and long lines.

“Freedom given to a responsible adult,” Semler says, “is zero risk.”

For rank-and-filers stuck in a traditional workplace, Semler suggests taking small steps with your boss. As a group, ask management to give you a role in screening your potential manager.

Individually, as you perform well and impress your boss, push for more flexibility in your work schedule and ask for chances to work away from your office, if that’s what you want.

“I think everybody is willing to exchange performance for freedom,” Semler says.