DESIGNING EMPLOYEE REWARD PROGRAMS
March 10, 2015
The 10 Cultural Practices that Will Cost You Time, Money, and Talent
March 11, 2015THE IMPACT OF MANAGING EXCEPTIONS
WITH
NEW RULES AND POLICIES
If you have ever been a leadership position, you will have memories of experiencing a “happening” by one of your team that provokes only one possible response:
“YOU HAVE TO BE KIDDING?!”
The activity is so out of the blue and over the top it that defies your logic and belief in the human mind. How could someone be so stupid! Well, welcome to the world of leadership. The most interesting thing about these “happenings” is deciding what to do about the activity. Sometimes, it is very easy and clarifying – as that person just needs to be removed from the organization. This may depend upon the amount of liability that the organization might be exposed to because of the action.
Most of the time these behaviors are just stupid and the question is how to make sure that the behavior will never happen again. This is where true leadership needs to take place – one of the easiest responses is the creation of a new policy or rule prohibiting this activity from happening again, or a clear punishment will be applied. Over time, this approach ensures that the organization will have a whole set of rules, and indeed a workplace culture, which exist to manage the exceptions, not the normal behaviors.
Organizations that have this Exception Management approach have implied to the vast majority of team members that they cannot be trusted to make solid choices, and employees are reminded more about what they Can’t do, versus what we want them to do – the focus is on the Bad, not the Good. The idea is to replace the humanness of the culture with rules intended to keep the organization safe. This concept is very clear with our country’s “War On Drugs”- Lots of rules and not much deterrence. Yet believing that creating rules will stop bad behaviors does not get to the cause of the problem. So this “Let’s Make a Rule” mindset creates more problems than it stops.
Some examples:
At the Bon Marche, we wanted to stop employee theft – so the rule was Employees could only leave through the employee doors. At the same time we were telling employees to give the customers Quality Customer Service. So, during our “White Sale”, accorded 2 times per year, customers would come in and buy several large bags worth of sheets and towels, and the policy would not allow a sales associate to help the customer carry the large bags of products to their car. Yes, we had a rule about theft, but we also had a rule that was terrible for customer service.
One of my favorites is when an organization creates a rule that there will be no “dating” of fellow employees. I don’t think I even need to explain the impact that this policy creates. Yes it may be stupid to have a love affair at work, but do you really think having a policy will not just create more soap opera environment than the possibility of just saying: “Please keep your personal relationship out of the work place”.
I have the solution for how to treat the concept of Rules and Policies: Create a one hour presentation that focuses on the critical rules and policies that are the most important for maintaining legal status – for sure things like “Conflict of Interest” and “Fraud” and “Employee Theft” issues. Make sure all employees are presented the information and sign a document that they attended this meeting.
Finally, talk about what you want them to focus on, how they can help grow the organization and how you want everyone to be treated as a member of this organization. Focus on the right behaviors and those policies and rules that are to never be broken. You will get what you focus on!
