Many, if not most, organisations have a lot of rules with which their employees need to comply, such as fixed working hours, clear separation of professional and private activities, ethical codes of conduct, etc. These rules serve a clear purpose: ensuring that employees are productive and do not shirk while cashing their pay check. The need for such rules is all the more apparent when employers or HR officers cannot easily monitor the direct productivity of their employees. In today’s economy, where many employee activities are interrelated with those of others, assessing individual performance is oftentimes particularly hard. Therefore, the elaboration of clear sets of universal rules for all employees is understandable to grapple with this opacity.
The problem is, though, that these well-intended rules often do not meet their goal. In fact, there is a nasty trade-off between enforcing strict rules and boosting employee productivity. Why? The crux of the problem is that clear and universal rules may be easy to understand and enforce but are typically counterproductive in complex, dynamic, and differentiated working environments. Employees become focused on rule compliance, thereby forgetting the very goal such rules are meant to serve. For instance, employees may rush to arrive on time and relax once they have arrived in their offices, thereby overshooting the intended goal of rendering employees productive during assigned hours. Standardized show-up not only creates the illusion of productivity but is also at odds with flexibility requirements in a 24/7 economy. For instance, organisations with customers in different time zones may benefit from employees who communicate (from home) during the evening. Furthermore, practices that are effective in certain contexts may fail elsewhere, as myriads of multinationals can testify. Remuneration structures, secondary benefits, employee relations, etc. may need to be filled in according to the country or region of operation, rather than imposing a ‘one size fits all’ format.
While the trade-off between enforcing rule compliance and achieving employee productivity is inherent in opaque working environments, employers and HR officers can take some measures to mitigate this tension. First, they should adopt a systemic mindset. Rules that duly consider both direct and indirect consequences are more effective and preclude the typical waterbed effect of specific cause-effect rules. Second, employers and HR officers should stimulate the internalisation of organisational goals. Regular training and bonding events are instrumental in having employees align their goals with those of their organisation. Third, rules should fit with the context in which they are applied. While a basic set of rules may apply to each and every employee, additional niche rules, tailored to the (geographic) context in which employees operate, enhance the intended productivity. And, in passing, boost employee satisfaction and well-being.
