If I were to call you today and ask about your sick pay, sexual harassment, or other employee policy, would you know what to tell me? Or would you trust yourself to do what’s right in the moment?
As an employment attorney, mediator, and coach, I see a lot of you who go with your gut more than the written policies in the employee handbook template you said you adopted.
Remember Cliff, who I’ve talked about in several videos? He’s one of the kindest, most generous employers I’ve ever met, and this detachment from his own policies was another cause of his employee conflicts.
Cliff was too busy doing the work of his business, side-by-side with his employees, to learn what were supposedly his business’ policies. He often forgot he was the boss because he spent much of each day doing the same work as him employees.
When they requested time off, told sexually-inappropriate jokes, or make mistakes on projects, he tried to be cool and let things slide. They did.
Here’s what we did to get him back on top of his business and in his industry:
- Review current policies
- Customize all policies and align them with the business’ values, industry, and goals
- Create systems to remind and reinforce policies