by Sue Bingham
Recently, one of my colleagues left our firm to make significantly more money at another company. We wanted to keep her, but the commission-based salary offered by the other company was more than we could match. She hadn’t realized how long her new commute would be during rush hour, however, and after three days of long, round-trip commutes during rush-hour traffic, she asked to shift her schedule an hour earlier to spend less time in unproductive gridlock.
Her manager denied her request, saying, “If we did it for you, we’d have to do it for others.”
It was good news for us; she was back with our team the following Monday.
Too many companies’ HR policies are overly restrictive. Such policies are often convoluted and overly paternal, and attempt to control the behavior of regular people through rules designed to rein in the “bad apples.”
Having consulted with hundreds of company leaders on how to create high-performance workplaces over the past 30 years, I’ve seen this firsthand. Although a small percentage of employees may try to take advantage of more flexible or generous policies, designing your HR policies with such people in mind isn’t the answer. It won’t help boost the performance of the majority of employees – employees who have the organization’s best interests at heart. It will only make them feel distrusted.
Most employees who work for you are intelligent adults. If your employee handbook or HR policy manual is large and prescriptive, consider the following:
Read the rest of the article at Harvard Business Review…
About the Author: Sue Bingham is the founder and principal of HPWP Group. She works closely with company leaders to analyze their organizations and facilitate the implementation of commonsense systems that have a positive impact on their organizations’ bottom line. She has a passion for helping companies embrace and transition to high-performance work environments. Sue is the bestselling author of Creating the High Performance Work Place.