The 10 Worst Corporate Practices
Forced ranking systems, love contracts, and anti-moonlighting practices all sour the way people feel about their jobs and employers.
Forced Ranking Systems
These are a pox on corporate leadership ideals. They're arbitrary and work against efforts to encourage teamwork and build morale.
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Stealing Miles
If my tush is in an airline seat 30,000 feet above the ground (or even worse, sitting on a runway for 11 hours), I deserve every frequent-flier mile those trips earn. Companies who steal their employees' frequent-flier miles do not deserve us as employees or as customers. Shame on them!
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Love Contracts
Because they couldn't come up with a more intelligent way to combat sexual-harassment charges, a few bone-headed companies have established “love contracts,” which they expect employees involved in romantic relationships with one another to sign. That's just goofy! We should be talking with employees and managers about appropriate boundaries and making it easy to report inappropriate behavior—not shoving contracts in their faces.
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Anti-Moonlighting Policies
I believe that we shouldn't compete with our employers. If I design kids' clothing for you, I shouldn't have my own kids-clothing design company on the side. But anti-moonlighting policies go further, preventing office employees from tending bar for a few bucks on Friday night or singing Ave Maria at a wedding for a fee. That's an outrage. Companies should manage the work we perform for them, not our free time.
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Salary Verification Requirements
Let me get this straight: You expect me to trust that you will provide a great work environment and the training I need and generally live up to what you promised me at the interview, but you don't trust me to faithfully report what I earned last year? Employees who demand proof of past earnings (in the form of last year's W-2) should hire the second-rate employees they deserve, not folks like you.
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Stitch-level" Dress Code Policies
Every employee should be made aware that your company expects professional attire in the workplace. No argument there. But overly detailed dress-code policies that delve into fashion terms (peplums and flounces) are an insult to intelligent adults. HR people should stay out of our closets and hire only people who wouldn't dream of dressing inappropriately for work.
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Outsourced Employee Relations
Outsourcing saves money, so I can't get too worked up when a company outsources dental plan administration, for example. But too many employers have outsourced employee relations so that when you have a problem with your manager, you have to call 1-800-I-Have-A-Problem-With-My-Manager. Employee relations is an on-site function, whether it's a part-time assignment of the boss's assistant (properly trained) or the responsibility of a roving HR rep. Nothing good can come of doing otherwise.
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Radio Silent Recruiting
I've written about the cold shoulder that many employers give job seekers. Do companies think that these folks don't buy products and services, too? One of the most obnoxious developments of the past 10 years is the horrendous way employers treat those looking for work. One hopes that the wheel of karma will turn quickly enough to set these companies straight.
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Internet Snooping Programs
In today's work environment, online activity is what personal phone calls were 20 years ago: a fact of life. Everyone indulges a little bit, and companies act like they're horrified (even though managers do the same thing). Internet snooping programs that track an employee's every keystroke and visit to eBay send the message: "We managers can't manage your results, so we'll manage your activities instead." If a great employee spends 20 minutes a day recharging his batteries browsing blogs, good for him or her. Maybe that's what makes that employee a star.
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Golden Parachutes for Non-performance
I don't mind if my CEO earns 400 times as much as I do if he does his job! Shareholders should push back against parachutes that generously reward the failures of departing leaders.
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If you want an example of corporate bone-headedness, look no further than the trend toward "love contracts," where companies require employees to sign legal agreements when they inconveniently begin romantic relationships with folks who happen to be employees of the firm. The idea is that once you've signed a contract specifying that the romance is consensual, the company is no longer liable for issues that might arise from the relationship.
This is one of those examples of a committee sitting around the conference room just long enough to arrive at the worst possible solution to the problem (the problem being sexual-harassment charges). For one thing, a person who signs a contract affirming the consensual nature of a relationship might balk at having to head back to HR to revoke that agreement a few weeks later. Besides that, a boss could make hiring or pay decisions based on being attracted to a subordinate, and there's no contract that will solve that problem. In any case, love contracts are intrusive and create as many problems as they solve. They represent the worst of corporate silliness, which is why they've made our list of the 10 Worst Corporate Practices this year, with some very good company. Read on!
