© Copyright ResourcefulManager
I’ll let you in on a little secret.
To keep great employees, all you really need to do is … stop creating stupid company rules, AND treat people like professionals!
Yep, sometimes it’s that simple.
A lot of companies, however, create rule-driven cultures that give executives and management a sense of control but crush creativity, enthusiasm and passion, and send the best employees packing.
Sure, you need rules. But you don’t need dumb rules.
How do you know what’s dumb?
Ask who it’s directed at?
If its aim is to control a few bad apples, but the entire company is made to suffer, it’s a dumb rule.
And then, of course, there are those holdover rules from the Mad Men era. Those are doozies, too!
Here are nine rules you need to seriously reconsider:
1) Strict Dress Code Policies
If you hire professionals, there’s no need for a formal strict dress code. Most adults are more than capable of dressing appropriately for work.
However, if someone does wear something questionable, the person’s manager needs to address the issue one-on-one immediately. You don’t need to drag the whole company through the wringer.
2) Dictator-Like Attendance Policies
This type of policy sends one message to your employees: “We don’t trust you!” And why would you hire someone you don’t trust?
Salaried professionals shouldn’t have their comings and goings hawked. They’re salaried which means you are paying them for their work, not the time they are sitting at their desk.
Chances are, if they leave early one day, they’ll stay late another day or worked on the weekend. Professionals know what they need to do to get their jobs done, and they do it.
If someone is consistently taking advantage of the company by not showing up, it’s extremely likely they’re failing in other aspects of their job too and need to be cut loose.
3) Barbaric Time-Off Rules
If there’s any company that still requires a doctor’s note when employees miss more than one day of work from being sick, it needs to be shut down.
Employees are adults, not children missing school. You should encourage them to stay home until they feel better and aren’t contagious.
As for personal days, employees have every right to use them for whatever purpose. Some companies stipulate what you can use a personal day for, and some employees feel they must lie about why they’re taking one.
Smart companies lump personal, sick and vacation time into one category – paid time off – for their employees to use as they see fit.
Requiring any kind of documentation for sick, personal or bereavement days again sends the message you don’t trust your employees. Treat them with respect and in turn, they will work hard for you.
4) Six Months Before You Can Get Promoted Rule
Here’s an oldie, but certainly not a goodie! The six-month rule dictates employees must be in their positions for six months before they can be promoted or transferred.
What’s so magical about six months?
This rule hurts companies. If someone is in a position he or she isn’t good at, why prolong the agony. Move the person to a more suitable job. The opposite is also true. If someone excels and there’s an opportunity for a promotion, why wait?
In today’s world, people won’t wait. If a better opportunity presents itself, they’ll jump ship in a heartbeat.
5) Stringent Bathroom Breaks Rule
Really? This rule is totally barbaric. If someone needs to use the facilities, why would you stop them? It doesn’t matter how many times they need to take the trip. You don’t know what’s going on inside their bodies.
6) Restricting Internet Use
If internet use is severely restricted, good luck enforcing the policy because everyone in the office will break it, including the people who created it.
Sure, there are the obvious restrictions, like pornography sites. But so many people need to use the internet to do their jobs, the line gets fuzzy after the obvious restrictions.
For example, restricting social media is a problem because human resource professionals use it to vet possible interview candidates, and many companies monitor chatter to make sure any negative press is taken care of right away. So, what can you do?
Hire professionals and trust them to do their jobs. And if there is an infraction of a policy, handle it on a one-on-one basis right away.
7) Banning/Restricting Mobile Phone Use
You have got to be kidding me. This is next to impossible, so don’t waste time or resources trying to uphold it.
Asking employees to be courteous about their cell phone use is one thing, forbidding them to take personal calls is another.
However, if you have a select few who are constantly on their phones, that’s a different issue. You have every right to call them on it.
8) Crushing Self-Expression
Believe it or not, some companies restrict what people can have at or on their desks, like water bottles, plants, photos, etc.
This is ridiculous when you consider a lot of people spend more time in their office/cube during the work week than they do in their houses.
Allow them to have things that make them smile and create a homey atmosphere. They’ll be happier and more productive because of it.
9) Idiotic Frequent-Flyer Mile Rules
First, this makes your company look like Scrooge. It’s bad for your image, recruiting and a hassle to monitor. And does it really save the company money?
Let’s look at the frequent-flier mileage issue from the other side.
When employees travel for work, they disrupt their personal lives. The company wasn’t inconvenienced.
Especially, with all the security restrictions at airports, think how much time employees lose.
Look at it as a no-cost reward for their sacrifices – a morale booster.
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I have worked in different types of organizations. Rule-bound organizations tend to be that way because members of management could not or would not hire professionals or coach employees on their behavior without causing huge disruptions. They also amde certain supervisors apply the rules and others were allowed to circumvent the applications of the rules. I agree that it is a corporate/organizational culture that sometimes takes a long time to change.
Fantastic post! I would humbly submit #10 as “Excessive rules in place governing the ordering of basic office supplies.” If a team member has a legitimate reason for requesting it and they can explain why it will increase their efficiency or productivity, why not move forward with the purchase? Rules like “we only purchase yellow highlighters here” or “our company does not purchase hand sanitizer” send a really poor message and morale can really take a hit.
Dale, that’s a great one!!!
I really enjoyed this article, except for one rule. I disagree with lumping all off days together as PTO. My company does this and it’s something I’m working to change. With an upcoming vacation I was forced to drag myself into work, incredibly sick, because I didn’t want to lose the PTO time I was planning to apply to my vacation. In turn, I was sent home early and docked 4 hours of my PTO.
I believe that if someone is sick they should stay home without it becoming an HR issue. If you notice someone in your company taking advantage of unlimited paid sick day then it should be addressed one-on-one. But for the most part professional adults will only miss work when necessary. Let PTO be for your vacation, like it should be!
This article does address some of the most mundane of corporate policies. Like the frequent-flyer issue, mileage reimbursement has become another issue. Mandating the route one must take & only paying for the shortest route. A professional is going to take the route that gets them to their location in the least amount of time. If one has to avoid an accident of excessive traffic, they may go another route. Why should it be such a big deal about a few miles. Especially at .533 cents a mile, regardless of gas prices.
Good point, mileage reimbursement has become a sticking point. Thanks for sharing!
Great post Renee! I think there’s also a place for sales KPis in here too (at least at some level) Surely it’s the end results that count, rather than the route to achieving them? If I see someone improving month on month, having quality interactions, then I really couldn’t care less if they’ve made their call quota – ridiculous rules around (often made up) KPIs are often a huge reason for demotivation and attrition
That’s a good point. Thanks for sharing Christina!
Jackie, I bet there are a lot of salespeople reading your comment wishing you were their boss! I agree with you. It’s probably a big reason for attrition. Thanks!
What a great read! So very true.
Patrice, I’m glad you like it!
Great article, there was this rule in my previous company regarding lunch break, if you are late getting back you have to write a letter explaining why you were late, if got caught up in work and you missed the lunch break hour then you can’t go after the designated time. It was really frustrating.
Thank you Renee sharing
Elhassan, wow that is a horrible rule! Hope you don’t have to deal with that any more. Thanks for sharing!
I couldn’t agree more!!! As a consistently high producer for our company, I view our KPI as an insult and even feel as though it not only stresses me out but takes the spontaneity out of my sales day. Many of my sales came from completely unplanned stops along the way that were never included in my KPI!
I love the article. Though I am disagreeing with the mobile phone use. In F&B, they have a strict rule on no phone during a shift as we are serving the guest. It is not appropriate for the staff to use their phones. but I do agree that the manager must take charge if they found that their staff is using the phone excessively.
I agree with the comments about travel rules, the worst I have had to deal with….
Only using certain hotels, on the surface that may be fine but when the only hotel on the list is dirty and run down why would my employer want me to stay there? Am I not worth an additional $50.00 a night in order to stay in a clean safe hotel?
The other issue was sharing rooms, why would anyone think that was a good idea!
I agree Joe. I am very picky about hotels I stay at, so that would be a deal breaker with me! And the room sharing thing, no way! It’s never a good idea!
There’s really no difference, Christine, as long as you are getting the same number of days lumped together as PTO (for sick and vacation). Separating them doesn’t address you issue. If your company’s policy is or was 10 days vacation and 5 days sick per year, the PTO would just be 15 days.)
If we were given all the time at once, it wouldn’t be an issue. However, my company makes you accrue all PTO (including holidays). So at the time I was sick I had not accrued enough time off to feel as though I could afford to miss work.
When sick and vacation time is separated it’s standard policy to start the year with 5 sick days (or however many) and then accrue your 10 days of vacation throughout the year. As it stands now I’m screwed if I get sick leading up to my vacation.
This article is great and I have seen more than my share of unfair or ridiculous rules. The current organization that I work for has an unfair “sick day” rule, made for those that are abusers, I’m sure. Some of the staff work 8- hour shifts, some work 12-hour shifts. If you are sick, you do not receive sick pay until the third shift missed. So, the employees who work 8-hour shifts miss 16 hours of work time before being paid, but those that work 12-hour shifts miss 24 hours of work time before being paid.
Amelia, that rule totally stinks! Seems very unfair to me.
Rules can provide structure for an organization, but they have to be reasonable and flexible. “Rule-bound organizations tend to be that way because members of management could not or would not hire professionals or coach employees on their behavior….” AGREED! This was one of my workplaces exactly. My boss refused to address issues until HE could longer take it, even when supervisors would bring things to his attention early on. This is too late, and meanwhile the rest of the staff had to suffer with it. Issues need to be addressed appropriately and as soon as possible. Personnel issues were not his cup of tea and so he ignored them as long as possible which just made things worse. I also advised not to hire one particularly challenging employee, but he did it anyway, and then we had all kinds of problems with the employee. My boss later said he didn’t care if the employee quit. Really, why did you hire him in the first place then? He also “made certain supervisors apply the rules and others were allowed to circumvent the application of the rules”. So one supervisor was looked upon as a ‘ fair friend’ and the other as the ‘mean supervisor’ – not productive nor fair.
Found this article through a very similar article. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/nine-stupid-rules-make-great-people-quit-dr-travis-bradberry/
Renee, I think you nailed it.
Let me break down my career path for you and tell you why I agree so vehemently.
2001-2007 – Public school teacher with a stint in corporate (large popular retailer).
2007-2008: 1 year in PhD program at Ivy League on scholarship
2008-2013 – Back to public school teaching after leaving PhD (wasn’t for me).
2013-2018 – A stint in corporate sales while building my current business in which I now work (translation).
In each and every environment in which I worked, I suffered from all of these.
These policies are the draconian, outdated, and foolish product of small-minded people in the 55+ crowd who believe that certain elements of the Industrial Revolution are still relevant. Policies such as having to “punch a clock”, thereby causing employees to suffer through 8 or 9 hours or more in a cube.
My entire company is remote. There is no office. When I first started working, people in my generation already know that the non-physical, remote office would work. After all, the network is invisible. Why does a physical building matter?
In true Baby Boomer style. our pleas for reason and rationality were eschewed and ignored. We had to do it their way. I questioned a few bosses throughout my career in teaching and corporate, mainly from the 55+ crowd on this point. Their answer was always the same: this is the way it’s always been done.
Little did those ignoramuses know that 2018 and beyond would prove to be a world in which “doing things they way they’ve always been done because they’ve always been done that way” is total BS reasoning.
Another completely useless policy that most Boomer leaders adhere to like flies on fly paper is that even if you finish your work, you have to keep working.
My response to this was always: “Why?” Why is it that if I am assigned, let’s say, 10 “units” of work that are supposed to occupy 8 hours… Why is it that if I start at 9 AM and finish those units by 12 PM, how come I cannot leave to handle other things in my life like grocery shopping, pet/child care, visiting older relatives…
WHY?
I never got an answer to that question. Just shrugs and looks like I was this obnoxious little whiner who wanted to go from the classroom to recess.
In my company, which earns my partner and six figures each, I work about 20 hours per week. I have PROVEN beyond a shadow of a doubt that a remote office with team members from all over the world can produce solid revenue with no direct management and no direct oversight.
Granted, my team members are incredibly talented people, and there are those that need to have their hands held to do their work. Our style may not be for those folks. However, I think that anyone is teachable/coachable and if the desire is there to truly liberate themselves from the corporate hellscape as my team and I did, they can. They have it in them.
Which leads me to another excellent point you made, namely that our elders forever treat us as children. At this stage in American political history, it is safe to say that the Boomer agenda is an abject failure. Most of their leadership as well as the rank and file would disagree with my generation’s scathing indictment. They see themselves as heroes because they squeezed every last dime they could out of America before packing it in to Florida. This sort of “shut up youngsters while we steal your future” attitude has caused a massive wave of anger, the severity of which most Boomers fail to grasp at their own peril.
I am quite certain that the Boomers will be pushed aside as rapidly as possible both in policy and in the work place. They scream “ageism”. We reply: “We are sick of your -isms and labels, old man. You cannot use the damn computer correctly, so move out of the way so the job can get done. You had your turn. It’s our turn now.”
Boomers are a generation who think they are immortal. They believe that their values will live on.
This is an illusion, of course. My generation is taking over in ways that were never dreamed possible. My personal take, as one of the 250-member Small Business Leadership Association, is that we need massive regulations to ensure health and well-being among corporate workers who have stressed themselves out into the bottom of pill and whiskey bottles.
These regulations would include elements such as: laws preventing employers from contacting employees after work hours. Most corporate jobs are not involved in life-or-death emergencies. It CAN wait for tomorrow, especially given the speed by which technology moves communication. No, Grandpa, no one cares that the stockholders lose .000025% of their year-end revenue. No one at all.
Another regulation would be set work hours that must be followed. If a job says you work 9-5, then that’s it. You never come in early. You never leave late. An employee cannot expect much loyalty from an employer, who will fire them at will, so why should the citizens of this country be forced to display loyalty to the people who run the company? Just be honest. Have realistic policies. It is not rocket science.
A third regulation worth mentioning would be salary caps for CEOs. I am a CEO and I would welcome salary caps. I do not need $750,000,000 to be happy. No one does. Greed has killed America. Time for leaders to be leaders and share the wealth with their employees. Money is not the only measure of a human being’s skill and worth. It is time we started acting according to that immutable law of the universe.
In short, Renee, I simply cannot wait for the Baby Boomer leadership in the world to die off. That is the only way, barring some violent uprising a la Arab Spring, that my generation will ever take real power and see our values enacted. For their parts, Richard Branson, Jeff Bezos, and Warren Buffett speak often on these topics. These grizzled business veterans who are worth more money that you, me, and our whole families and networks combined know how business must change in order for it to remain profitable while attending to both social justice issues and employee health.
Folks like you need to keep writing, speaking, and sharing on this topic. That is how a culture changes: through the written word and through sharing ideas.
These ideas are ideas whose time should have come in 1995.
But change is slow in America, as we know. We are lucky that we have started the conversation, even if it was almost 25 years late.
Wishing you all the best,
A CEO who wishes to remain nameless
My previous company used to give points to non-exempt staff if you were late or called in sick. Once you reached 3 points, you were given a verbal warning. If you reached 6 points you were terminated. Any points in between were written warnings. The company issued 5 sick days at the beginning of each year for non-exempt staff (exempt staff received 10 with no points punishment rule). The only way to avoid these points was if you were out on disability/FMLA; however you weren’t really avoiding them because if you were out for 5 consecutive days, you received 1 point since it was considered one “incident” instead of 5.
We were located in Manhattan so we had many people commuting from the outer boroughs, Long Island and New Jersey. If their train was late, they would be issued points for being tardy.
I was the HR Specialist for the office at that time. I hated the points system because it was so unfair but being part of the HR Department, I had to stick to the policy.
With the new PSST policies popping up across the country, I’m hoping they had to change this crazy policy!
There are so many great points made in this comment feed! I worked at an online retailer that forbid employees to work remotely. Why? Because the Draconian mantra of the Company Owner and the second-in-charge was that “employees would take advantage of us”. In fact, that was the mantra for nearly everything. Employees just “want, want, want”, was what the top leaders would claim. They would routinely tell employees that they were lucky to have employment and were privileged to work for the company. Yes, in 2018, and in a geographic location with incredibly low unemployment. When employees requested stand up desks, the second-in-charge decided that if he could find used desks, ie Craigslist, used furniture stores or curbside throw-aways, they could be purchased/obtained. With that, of course, the employees had to make written pleas as to why they desired a stand up desk.
Additionally, the company would occasionally close for business, generally on the day after Christmas… employees would have to use PTO if they had it available for that day. No choice to come in and work, you either took PTO or you went without pay for the day.
I worked in HR at this organization and was exempt. However, all employees, regardless if you were exempt or non-exempt were required to use the online time clock. I routinely forgot to do so, and at one point, the second-in-charge who wasn’t my immediate manager threatened to discipline me for failure to clock in and out. I reminded him that I was not an hourly employee, and the organization’s routine practice of treating exempt/salaried employees like hourly ones was not only demoralizing (yes, the practice was to dock PTO by the hourly increment for non-exempt employees, but also for the exempt employees!), but potentially a liability. I fought this for years and explained that if the company was challenged by a former or current exempt employee that they were treated like a non-exempt employee, in fact the company could owe substantial back wages for over time. This finally got through to the top.
Regardless, the second-in-charge believed that employees needed to be at their desks at least 9 hours a day. If he caught you talking with a colleague, you were wasting the company’s money. Regardless if it was a brief watercooler chat or a business-related discussion. Raises (as paltry as they were) were based on the number of hours an employee worked rather than the contributions made by the employee. In other words, the moron who mismanaged time and spent 55 hours a week was rewarded more handsomely than the energetic superstar who generally put in 38-42 hours each week. To which I recommended a different strategy-can we help the superstar continue to grow and give additional projects if they’re interested? The second-in-charge’s response was that this employee was simply taking advantage and should not be ‘rewarded’ with further opportunities for growth. Right, that makes sense.
But, my absolute, absolute favorite–when the minimum wage was about to increase in our state, and there were several employees earning the current minimum wage, I communicated to the second-in-charge that the company would need to increase their pay to at least the new minimum wage rate of pay. His response? That I needed to draft a proposal and a presentation to the Company Owner discussing why I was communicating a request for increase in pay for the employees. I scoffed at him and said, “I’m not drafting anything. I’m giving you the courtesy of letting you know I’m submitting to Payroll the increases in pay to ensure the company is paying its employees at LEAST minimum wage. Because it’s essential that we are in compliance with wage and hour laws.” And this anticipated charge by the way, had been included in the budget for the year many months ago. As a side note, I had previously recommended to increase all employees’ pay to at least a competitive rate, but was told that if employee wages were increased, the owner would actually deduct these increases from MY wages.
The company has continuously lost many talented employees and the second-in-charge and owner simply scratch their heads and say, “well that employee wasn’t that great anyway!”. I’ve never experienced anything quite like it in my life as far as an employer treating its employees so poorly and doing what they could to degrade morale and empowerment in the workplace.
Everything tends to be relative. I suspect that when you are part of that 55+ crowd that you now view as draconian, you will be telling the 25 year olds “that’s the way we have always done it”.
Love the article and I could add some more that I have encountered in manufacturing. However, being a Baby Boomer, the CEO who replied probably would not deem it necessary to consider my point of view. I stay in touch with changing technology and love interacting with Millennial co-workers. I interact not to tell them how to do things “the way they always have been done” but work with them to help solve problems. Manufacturing is losing many Baby Boomers to retirement. Not all jobs can be done remotely – some need a physical presence.
This might be the reason: “Money talks, B___S___ walks”. Those “55+” employees that got to retire earned it by performing dedicated work performance regulated by company rules. I won’t be distracted by personal opinions and will continue to perform my utmost best for the company I work for. A school mate has his own company. He works 24/7. I appreciate the 9-5 vs. 24/7 with mega buck liability insurance.
Wow, it sounds like an Emerging Markets workplace in the heart of Manhattan.
Change is coming, but probably not too soon. So for the 55+ crowd, it’s already too late.
The future of work will be remote, whether Generation X and Y like it or not.
Instead of working to change the PTO, you need to argue for giving you the PTO hours at one time, say, on your anniversary date. That way you can manage your vacation and if you take too many vacation days, you may be short sick days. But then its up to you. As everyone has said, “we are professionals” let us manage our earned time off as we see fit, not the company. Thank goodness, I work for a company that does PTO this way.
I can’t agree with you more on the sharing a room process. My company made us do this one year and I thought to myself “never again”. I don’t deal very well sharing a room with someone I really don’t know and then have to see their dirty laundry in the middle of the hotel floor…underwear and all! You better believe I never did this again!
We all see them. And yes it’s so simple but like a small lie, it becomes a large problem when not dealt with at the start. The lack of up front work and understanding is what makes these rules like the warning labels you read and say to yourself, “who in their right mind….?” These rules arise because someone took advantage of something that should be professionally assumed. It’s why we read this list and say, “well…duh!”
What’s funny is that when you see one of these rules, they are actually a failure in management not once, but at least twice. First, a manager did not MANAGE a situation from the start by not consulting with one or a few individuals that may be pushing that envelope or perhaps fully crossing the line. Managers of people sometimes forget that they are also managing a culture. You can assume that most of your professionals will understand how to do their job effectively and on time, etc without excessive absences or internet use or smoke breaks, you name it. You can feel comfortable that you oversee an already established culture. But you have to understand that you will always have a small percentage of yes, professionals, that you will have to “remind” or discuss the expectations from time to time, regardless of if they are a new employee or tenured.
Then, either because of lazy management after the first infraction or inability to stop a growing wave of issues, the next poor response is to then create the new RULE! Some of these rules end up like a bill signed by congress. Taking time from managers, lawyers, HR, and then having to rewrite/amend a company manual or “memo” and then be sure to funnel that down to the masses. I have often joked that a company I’ve worked for only follows protocol written since the last screw up. Sometimes even seeing this “reactionary protocol” circling back to the ORIGINAL RULE FROM TWO YEARS AGO!!!
Company culture and handbooks should be simple. And built off of that solid simple base. It should not be written like a flow chart with amendment after amendment.
Excuse me, but I’m far beyond 55+, and don’t believe in any of the old style ridiculous rules you ascribe to people my age. I manage a remote team, I manage by results, I don’t beleive in ‘face time” or any other outdated rules. I could go on & on. While certainly some of your points are valid, please consider that not everyone from the Baby Boomer generation is evil and backward. Your sweeping generalizations do a disservice to both you as a writer and to us as a generation.
Guess what, I’m far over +55 and I embrace working remotely and encourage my team to WFH, along with other modern management practices like managing by results. I even had one employee who said she needed to quit because she was moving to another continent. I asked WHY do you need to quit? let’s work out a remote work plan. She continued to work for us for several more years. It isn’t a person’s age that restricts learning and embracing new ideas, it’s stupidity and rigidity, and these traits aren’t dictated by age.
You can see the generational divide (chasm) between anyone pre-millenial and the Millenials. Sure, some of each generation does not act professionally, which in past times would create a rule-bound organization because of a lack of management leadership. If there is good leadership, respect and trust are also there. If, however, one has the horribly prejudicial views of “CEO” (earlier post), the employee knows that they are not respected, and the workplace becomes even more draconian than a rule-bound one. An employee in “CEO”‘s world knows that they will be hired & fired based upon their “component parts” (age, sex, personal characteristics that the employee has no control over) rather than on their abilities.
Second, the discussions here seem to be almost exclusively for an office environment. Little recognition is given to those of us working in Manufacturing, Utilies, and other careers which, for the most part, requires staff to show up. The “Spacely Sprockets” manufacturer of George Jetson fame does not exist. It never will, even though some Millenials want to will it to be so.
Finally, “CEO” doesn’t recognize the experience and wisdom that comes with age; s/he just sees another worthless being ready to be made into Soylent Green. I thank every higher power there is that I will never walk into a company made like that of “CEO”.