Target audience:
Decision makers of organisations, business strategists, and curious people.
Reading time:
5-10 min.
Business leaders generally motivate employees to give their best shot and provide an exceptional customer service. This often includes references to examples from important case studies where customer satisfaction was an important metric for repeat orders or for lead generation.
In the same context, it is extremely important handle situations when rules are broken at work by employees. As per the “2023 Global Business Ethics Survey”, about 65% of employees across the world mentioned that they had witnessed wrongdoing at work. Prior surveys mentioned much lower levels of misconduct.
As per Michael J. Gill, University of Oxford, one can classify such bad behaviour into four buckets:
- Self-interested (personal gain, destructive),
- Prosocial (to help someone or a committed customer, constructive),
- Corrupted (pressure from colleagues and for organisational gains, destructive), and
- Edified (pressure from outside the organisation and to help clients, constructive).
Gill also mentions that most organisations treat such deeds with a negative approach and overlook the situations when breaking the rules may have been beneficial. Before penalising the violators, it would be wise for leaders to consider two crucial questions:
- Was this behaviour constructive or destructive?
- Was it driven by individual choice or the situation?
Firstly, when leaders are to have a difficult conversation on discipline with the wrongdoers, it would be sensible to have the one-to-one conversation with an open mind and with a sense of curiosity. The tone of speech matters the most—it can either help the employee open and share their viewpoints without a feeling of being judged or they may completely shut down.
Secondly, one should know the intentions behind the incident—was it to help a loyal customer (with a good history of purchases) or was it for self-gain of monetary nature or for political growth (within the organisation)?
Thirdly, the management should look for patterns of wrongdoing—was it due to an outdated rule (company’s restrictive policies) or something else (delay in approvals from managers)?
Fourthly, managers should read between the lines to discover the hidden messages—were the employees scared of punishments for challenging the restrictive policies or sensed that delay in a response would displease customers?
Finally, you can set things right by uncovering the real causes of misconduct that forced good employees to make wrong decisions. It may require a systemic fix to make sure outdated policies are addressed appropriately. Another feasible solution could be to set up a channel for employees to openly share their candid views on policies or regulations that hold them back from their peak performance.
It is important to note that some policies should not be broken at all costs, if it’s one-off case, the best decision for leaders would be to educate and coach.
In cases where the employee was fully aware of the consequences and still chose to break a rule, management can demonstrate a zero tolerance towards the employee, though feedback would be beneficial.
If a person chooses to break the rule even upon repeated coaching and support, managers can choose to let go of the employee. The goal is to ensure that the rest of the team understands that management is patient and expects a change after repeated trainings—when warnings don’t work, it’s best to part ways.
On a concluding note, each management team is expected to train the next set of business leaders for the growth and prosperity of their organisation. That includes, to treat colleagues as family members—some may be smart to catch things fast, some could require repeated communication to get aligned, and unfortunately sometimes parting ways with some would be in the best interests of all parties.