Pitch Your Policy Manuals

What do you think will happen when someone posts a sign that says, “PEOPLE ACTUALLY LIVE HERE…SO PLEASE DON’T BANG ON MY WINDOW!!!”? Do you think fewer people banged on the window in this house on 4th Street in Philadelphia? Hardly. Heck, I wanted to see the cat and almost knocked on the glass myself.

So what makes you think your policy manual is any more effective than that sign?

People know how to do workarounds. And for every policy, there is someone ahead of the curve figuring out how to game it. The Dutch introduced a workplace re-integration policy a few years ago to help employees get back to functional employment after an extended illness. The Poortwachter Law, as it’s called, was designed to get people back to work. You know what happened, right? At some point, over 9 percent of the Dutch population realized it was okay to be out of work for up to 2 years and they could get a job back. People took time off for hangnails and “job stress.” What was worse than low performance is what I used to call “Being Poortwachtered.”

Throw away your policy manuals. Write some big statements about what you value and what’s out of bounds. Let everyone know what’s expected and don’t tolerate what you won’t stand for. The rest of your policy manual is silly, the equivalent of saying, “Don’t bang on the window.” You just know they’re gonna. Whatcha gonna do about it?

NB: We don’t have a policy manual at our shop, but I can guarantee that everyone here knows what’s what. We’re unambiguous about customer service and creativity. People who don’t understand that are set free to achieve mediocrity elsewhere.

Summer Hours Make for Happy Employees

Memorial Day is Monday in the U.S., and with that holiday comes the commencement of good old summertime. When I first started working, the company I joined had summer hours — and I loved it. We worked nine hours for four days, and half days on Fridays. It’s not like we got out of there every Friday at noon, but the possibility was there.

I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that companies with summer hours have happier employees. It’s based on a sample size of one — me. If you’re in charge of work policy, why not try summer hours? You can buy a lot of good will for the sum total of zero dollars.

A Little Musical Interlude with a Player Piano

How to Relocate Employees During an Economic Downturn

We’ll get back to happy-happy, joy-joy next week at KnowHR. Meanwhile, this is economic reality weak, and by that I mean “economic bummer week.” Times are getting tough, especially in the housing market.

I met yesterday with a senior exec who worked in housing derivatives at one of the big houses . That business has dried up. Companies are calling their equity loans. And she says that we won’t see the bottom for another 18 months. So what’s a company to do when they want to relocate employees during an economic downturn?

Fortunately, Bill Strahan at HumanMarkets offers a solution. In a post titled Loss on Sale, he writes about the housing downturn and the need to move employees:

One issue of concern for everyone involved is what to do for an employee who is asked to move for a new job and has to sell their home in a down market. If someone bought a house for $300,000 and can only sell it for say $225,000 before they have to pick up and move, should the new job/employer pay the difference?

His solution after considering input from many professionals around the country? A multi-tiered approach. Click here to read Bill’s proposed solution (and some pretty dang funny side observations).

Workplace Romance

I got quoted today in Brian Moore’s excellent Taking a Chance on Love: Rethinking Office Romance in the New York Post. Check it out.

What Are You Doing with Your Dollar-Paid Expats?

Several years ago, when I was with a a big consulting firm, I had a job in Europe. I was based in Amsterdam and spent my time flying all over Western Europe doing work. Things were good. Then the idea of a long-term assignment came up.

Expat assignments are messy no matter how you slice it. They can be good, but the odds are not on the side of the expat. It’s easy to bargain when you’re getting a job in your home country. You know the place and you know the risk. Plus, you don’t have to know currency arbitrage.

In my situation, the firm wanted to fix my pay in U.S. dollars. At the time, the exchange rate was 1 euro to $0.85. The euro was at a discount and life seemed pretty good. But I asked around to many people I knew who were expats. They all told me the same thing: Get a currency exchange guarantee. Without it, they told me, you’ll regret it.

Well, for any number of reasons I turned down the long-term assignment. One of them was the unwillingness to offer a currency correction. And when I saw the news this past week that the dollar was at its all time weakest against the euro — trading at 1 euro for $1.40 — I breathed a sign of relief. Can you imagine the price of goods increasing 65% and your play staying flat? Now that’s some kind of inflation!

Note to companies offering expat assignments: Your expats aren’t currency arbitragers, but they can read the newspapers. Do it right, and provide currency fluctuation protection. Your expats are working hard for your company and you would never ask your local employees to take a 65% percent haircut and expect them to stay, would you?

Next Page →