Something happens in an airport or on an airplane every few months that makes us collectively lose our minds. In the past year, restrictions have been put on air travelers that are only slightly less obtrusive than being bound in straight-jacket while in transit.
At any given time there are literally hundreds of thousands of people in the air. Of all of those people, some tiny fraction of one percent want to do harm. Regardless of how small that deviant population is, all air travelers are subject to slow, invasive, and somewhat ineffective security measures.
Many workplaces manage their employees the same way. They put restrictive policies in place to thwart the occasional employee that may abuse a corporate directive. One example was a client of ours who had a proposal to put people on a per diem expense when they were travelling, and thus eliminating the need for the collection and auditing of hundreds of $10 lunch receipts.
Ultimately the proposal was turned down because there was some history of one or two employees abusing their expense accounts. Rather than properly discipline the offending employees, it was decided to stack policy on top of policy to eliminate any chance anyone could abuse their expense account.
In the process, they created an abundance of unnecessary work for countless employees, cost the shareholders more in compliance-related costs, damaged any atmosphere of trust in the organization, and ultimately didn’t stop dishonest employees from taking advantage of the situation. Not a very smart decision.
In the airports, we don’t have much choice; in the workplace we do. Managers need to be accountable for managing. If an employee behaves poorly, then address the behavior – don’t write a policy. In the example above, the offending employees should have been fired. They then could have instituted an expense allowance that is easier to administer and saves everyone time and money.
I can already hear the HR and Finance people objecting, but at some point pragmatic common sense must prevail.