Playing by the rules

Yesterday was a snow day in much of the USA.

My daughter's school was closed because the superintendent decided it was too dangerous to have the students come to class.

What about companies?

Many companies fretted about staying open or closing for the day. I've heard from friends whose companies failed to call a "snow day" yesterday and caused people to be stranded on the highway trying to get to work. Others closed the office needlessly because road conditions were not so bad that people could not get into work.

What a stupid process

Why not empower employees to make their own decisions about getting to work? When people control their own behavior, they can say: "Hey the snow is awful, I am working from home today." Or they can say: "It seems okay, I'm gonna go into work."

When companies establish rules and policies on things like snow (or social media), they are treating employees in the same way that schools treat children.

If your company employs adults, you need to treat them like adults.

One reason why good people who work at companies with a command and control mentality get frustrated is that they lose control of their own decision making power. The not so good tend to study the policy and do the minimum to satisfy the rules.

Eliminating rules at HubSpot

HubSpot, a company I admire, take the "treat employees as adults" mantra seriously.

"Because we started in the post-Internet age with people who live and breathe the Web, we run the business in a unique way," says Brian Halligan, co-founder and CEO of HubSpot. "Instead of command and control, we empower people at the edges, and that changes the way you hire, promote, the hierarchy, and so on. We have a very different sense of trust and autonomy than most companies. And it has big importance for leadership."

Since Brian runs HubSpot as an always-on, real-time enterprise, the lines between "work" and "private time" blur to the point that the vacation policy was eliminated—people just take time off when they need it.

"In my father's era, people worked 9-to-6 every day in an office," Brian says. "It was very structured, and he had to be in the office to get the work done. But our people have iPhones, and they are always online even on the weekends. It seemed very silly to us that people who sometimes worked for a few hours at home on a Sunday needed to formally request time off on a weekday. It just seems ludicrous to have this whole vacation policy so we said, 'Take whatever vacation you want; we trust you.' It's not command and control. Instead, it’s very much about trusting and autonomy and pushing the decisions down so people can react in a real-time way."

What about abuse of trust?

When I talk about eliminating rules such as vacation policies and social media restrictions, people always ask about violation of trust. What happens when people take too much time off for example?

Simple. Fire their sorry ass. (You can give them a warning the first time if you want). The rest of the team already knows they are slackers anyway and will applaud your decision.

+++++++
UPDATE February 3, 2011 at 11:12 am -- Brian just sent me the actual HubSpot snow policy. Click the image to enlarge. It is three words: "Use Common Sense."

Image: Shutterstock / Zurijeta

Disclosure: I am "Marketer in Residence" at HubSpot.

Comments

[Ryan Stephens]

It's such a simple concept that works, and yet so few companies have embraced similar strategies. I'm a marketing coordinator at a hospital that employees 19,000+ employees and I have more flexibility now than when I worked at a digital agency with 8 people. Guess what? People work significantly harder here.

Granted, it starts with hiring the "right" people, but if you do that and then empower them history shows they'll respect the companies time significantly more than the organizations that say 9-6, no breaks, et al.

Good post David!

[David Meerman Scott]

Thanks Ryan. Isn't it interesting that trust makes for good workers? Many people think the opposite works - control.

[GIna]

It seems like such a simple concept: hire good people that you can trust, then trust that they'll deliver. While there are more companies creating flexible schedules, I'm not sure how comfortable they really are, since good talent is demanding it.

Seven years ago, when my first baby was born, I negotiated a plan that allowed me to work at home two days a week. I'm convinced peace negotiations would've been easier and included less paperwork.

Have we come a long way, baby?

[Paul Flanigan]

David,

Have you heard of ROWE (Results Only Work Environment). It was created by two women at Best Buy while I worked there. Best Buy adopted the initiative for the corporate side. It basically acts the same way: We're all adults. Getting work done is more important that HOW it gets done.

Overall Best Buy claimed that work production went up because we were empowered to manage our own time. I have a ton of personal opinions about it, but the general approach was spot on with your sentiments here: We're all adults.

[David Meerman Scott]

Gina - Yes indeed, baby.

Paul - I had not heard of ROWE before. I'll check it out. Thanks.

[Jobhunting in MA]

Excellent snow policy! A very practical and mature way to treat the entire staff. Sadly not all companies are willing to consider flex schedules. I proposed coming in 30-60 min early to leave 20 early and avoid a daily day care fine. Micromanager canned that plan and all future discussions pertaining to schedule negotiations.

[Bret Simmons]

Love it, David. The process can work best if you start by hiring trustworthy employees. Don't take that for granted - it is a reasonable expectation that a business can ask a potential employee to demonstrate a proven track record of being trustworthy. And if I were an employee and wanted to work for an employer like Hubspot, I'd be building that track record so that if the opportunity ever arose I would be prepared to prove that my claims were not just BS.

[Dr. Janet Civitelli]

David, I'm a workplace psychologist and I agree with you 100%. It baffles me why companies implement infantilizing policies and then wonder why even their best employees lose motivation, initiative, innovation, etc. When you have a culture of mistrust and policies aimed at the lowest common denominator, you get LCD productivity and results. Great post!

[David Meerman Scott]

Hi Janet - thanks for jumping in. So cool to have these ideas validated by someone with your credentials!

[Randy Clark]

I believe there is a fine line between treating teammates like adults and leading people. I have observed too many potentially good teammates ruined because they were not given the direction they needed. The answer from their leader is usually something like, "I treated him/her like an adult, and I expect them to just get the job done." No, too often this was because the person in charge didn't want to take the time to give direction, share a vision, or train. I believe managing is about leading people not about invoices, and if it is about leading people, and we leave it up to them, why would we need managers? I recently overheard a conversation between a manager and an employee about an employee who had posted, on facebook, about a bad day at work. The employee was given a corrective action and her pay was cut. I asked what the companies SN policy was? What training was offered? When was SN use discussed? It was never discussed, or trained. And the manager’s answer was, “I treated her like an adult, she should know what to do.” I asked and learned this was a responsible long-term employee who had a bad day. How is this fair, or good leadership? You are right about one thing - they might as well fire her ass because cutting someone’s pay in this circumstance will not promote anything positive. My point is don’t confuse treating someone as an adult with leadership and direction.

[David Meerman Scott]

Good point on leadership, Randy. I agree. Thanks for jumping in.

[aluminium kozijnen]

Its correct.. I agree this one.. I think work from home is best because that environment..

[Keith at KendallPress]

I used to work at an organization that fretted over closures and would strand employees for the sake of a mantra of '__ is never closing' Using Common Sense and technology is so much more productive and invigorating. We have a common sense weather guide here that carries over into and is applied to work needing to be done. A happy and productive crew does more and brings more smiles to clients faces.

With snowstorms every Weds so far this year, there is still time for others to get your message and apply it. My blog the other day got created from the comfort of a bus 'snarled' in gridlock- but I never noticed it. That blog post is here if you'e interested. We're starting to sound a bit like you, David. Better yet, we're adopting much of your good guidance. Thank you. http://bit.ly/eO8umk

[Eric Linden]

I could not agree more. Treat people like children. They will act like children. Awesome post. It is a new world! The unfortunate part of this is it seems like in this letigious society of ours... it is hard to FIRE someone!

[Invention Marketing]

Holidays are for the enjoyment if you are follows a rules during the time of enjoyment then it spoils the mood of holiday so i am not agree with this post.

[Materials Handling]

Rules make for an organized and structured work environment. Of course some rules are, as you put them, not that sensible. While rules are meant to be followed, it’s also good to have room for flexibility. As long as they get the job done, I believe it's perfectly fine to allow employees to control their work schedule every now and then.

[vancouver website design]

Thanks for sharing with this beautiful blog. In my opinion its good giving the employees the rights to take decisions at their own. This thing will make them comfortable and reliable with the work and if they demand the work being done from homes then there is nothing wrong.

[ucka]

i used to work in an jewellery company and they are very big in the market. they never trust their employees. to saying even "Hi or good morning" to their employees is hard for them but when its snowing the owner of the company goes every single room in the building and check who is on time and who is not there! if you are not there you are in trouble. the next they, they say "Everybody was here but you werent..." it isnt that much easy to say this for your employee... Its really disguasting... if you dont trust, dont work with them... im glad to change my job and my life :)

[mbt online]

All this time I was wasting,Hoping you would come around

[Easyrack]

I would agree that if you empower people and treat them like adults they will work harder for you. Just look at the googleplex and their philosophy on the employees environment. Also I think unfortunately if you have one employee that wants to be a kid about things then you have to end up with rules for all or get rid of that person.

[Chaotic Motorsports]

I think what Hubspot is doing works great for an internet based business but for a small local company I am not so sure that this model would work. When you have 9-5 hours and need the coverage its hard to let employees come and go as they see fit. Not saying their model is a bad one I just believe its harder to make that work in a brick and mortar operation.

[Rack Express]

Just randomly stumbled upon this post. The 'No Rules' policy just seems too idealistic to me. Granted, I have not researched this very much and I know many companies have success with it.

The vast majority of people I think only work the 9-6 shift (or 8-5, etc) because they have to. However, if you take this structure away, people will absolutely abuse it.

You say 'fire their ass', but employees are smarter than that. Employees will figure out a way to work as little as possible, while making it seem like they are doing so much more.