When was the last time you, as an employee, consulted your company’s handbook of rules and procedures? Did you ever even read it in the first place?
If you’re an employer, when did you last bother to look at said tome? Or, heaven forbid, update it?
And between both employers and employees, is there some subtle PR to be had in the humble employee handbook? A little give and take which might work to both sides’ advantage?
Perhaps. Certainly, according to this Texas lawyer, it’s time that employee handbooks caught up with the early 21st century. As Michael Maslanka, the managing partner of Ford & Harrison in Dallas, writes, “employees understand out of necessity they can no longer be just fungible cogs … [while] … workplace cultures of the future will focus on autonomy and not rules”. But, citing “Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us” by Daniel Pink or “Linchpin: Are you Indispensable?”by Seth Godin, Maslanka says that the architecture of employee handbooks is more suited to the 20th century than the 21st.
Here in the UK, we might add that some handbooks we have seen are better suited to the Victorian era, but be that as it may, Maslanka’s point is, essentially, one of interactivity. In the modern, social media era, employee handbooks need to be more in the nature of a two-process than a series of edicts and stipulations.
For example, under a company’s ‘integrity policy’ (which in itself is not exactly an everyday occurence on these shores), Maslanka avows that the employee handbook should be drafted to be helpful rather than prescriptive. He puts it thus:
“What should an employee new to a department do if she sees possible unethical conduct but wants to fit in? That’s the scenario in Mary C. Gentile’s article in the March 2010 Harvard Business Review, “Keeping Your Colleagues Honest.” She suggests the employee treat the possible ethical conflict as a business conflict, and stick to the facts. The employee should stay away from the high-horse approach of telling others they are unethical and she is ethical. Employers’ lawyers easily can incorporate these simple, cutting-edge ideas into company policies. Yes, retain the rules and policies, but link them to underlying values and provide help with how to deal with them.”
That sounds eminently sensible, with upsides all round, but wait a minute – what if you’re an employee and, having perused your company’s employee handbook, you find it wanting, perhaps even unethical?
You should take up the cause – with due diplomacy – remembering that you may not be alone. Maslanka’s rallying cry ends thus: “Let’s have an employee handbook revolution - now.”
Image of a revolution for display purposes only courtesy of TaranRampersad.
