We all have seen elaborate HR manuals and policy documents specifying strict rules / procedures / systems around what an employee should do or not. Enormous amounts of time, money, and human resources are being used to set these systems in place and to efficient execution and strict adherence. But do we really need these?
Can we not ‘trust’ the people we
hire? If that’s the case, are we hiring
the right set of people? And if either is not true, then why waste humongous
resources to act like watchdogs over them.
Some simple examples:
- Leave – Most organizations have a standard range of Privilege Leave, Casual Leave, Sick Leave, Maternity Leave, Paternity Leave, Study Leave, etc etc. Why not treat your employees as mature adults and let them decide when and for what they want to take leave?
- Work Hours – Does this concept exist anymore? With technology and mail-on-the-go, the ‘seven day weekend’ can also be read as the ‘seven day work-week’. With almost all of us being available for office work during our waking hours, and work interspersed with our personal lives, are we not eligible for time-off during the so-called work hours. Are your mature and adult team members not smart enough to figure what and when something is important and needs to be completed?
- Attendance – Organizations have evolved biometrics, mobile check-ins, swipe cards, and lots of ‘sophisticated’ technology to track this. Why not have the default as the employee being ‘present’, and have systems to let employees inform only if they are absent.
- Travel & Stay – All Policy manuals have specific limits defined as per the level in the organization. Why not have the employees themselves decide how they want to travel and where they want to stay.
- Performance – Months and months of employee time is spent on assessing the performance and documentation of the results. Most of the times, the results are in your face and everyone knows where they are in the ‘normalized’ curve. Should this not be an ongoing exercise and a developmental one rather than focusing on the ‘rating’ and the related increment / promotion.
I admit that you will have 5-10%
of the population taking advantage if you do not have the ‘watchdog’ systems in
place. But I’m sure these 5-10% employees will be visible to everyone over a
period of time. Does it then warrant subjecting the other 90% to painful
approval processes and impediments for simple things? Is it fair to not ‘trust’
them? Think for yourself.
