Congruence Matters
I regularly have a conversation that goes something like this:
Who cares about a staff handbook anyway? It’s not worth spending time on. Just get ChatGPT to write it.
What I think is missing from this perspective is the importance of congruence - and the cost to your organisation of incongruence.
The challenge that I pose in response is this:
How does it work, if you say that you are a nimble and entrepreneurial organisation, but when people turn to your staff handbook they find that it’s written in a risk-averse, corporate way? Do you want people to take initiative or not?
When the two are not aligned, you are undoing with one hand what you are doing with the other!
This is partly about tone, but it’s also about behaviour, which matters a lot because culture follows behaviour follows structure.
Your policies and procedures require people to behave in certain ways in order to use them. Those behaviours are part of your culture. Things like your staff handbook are a chance to shift people in the right direction - or a way to undermine your organisation-building project. This is why it matters to do them the right way.
And OK, you could say “policies are just blah blah blah - everybody ignores that and knows that’s not who we really are”.1
But, everybody has to book holiday at some point. What is that process like? Does it treat people like responsible adults? Do you make it easy for them to see how much leave they have left this year - so they can manage the allowance? Can they see when their colleagues are on holiday - so they can co-ordinate their time off? Is it clear who to ask and how - and in what sort of situations a request might be turned down? Or is it all left to your discretion (in other words: vague)?2
This - booking holiday - is people’s real experience of your organisation. It is more real than what you put in your statement of values. After all, what should you believe about someone - the things they tell you about themselves? Or how they show themselves to be in practice? If someone says “I hate being late” but they’re never on time - what matters more to you, the friend trying to meet them for coffee? Their value statement, or their actions?
Take a look at your staff handbook. Does it reflect the organisation that you say you are - and the organisation that you want to be? If not, it might be time for a refresh.3
Some policies certainly do exist on paper, purely for compliance. Even then, there is still a way of writing these that avoids patronising people. “We condemn terrorism” - I mean, no shit… and I don’t?
You may have reasons to turn down a request that are not obvious or compelling to the person making it - but don’t also have them be opaque. Teaching people more about the business reality is part of your leadership role.
This also applies to your employment contract. This is the first document somebody deals with as an employee of your organisation. Use it to set the tone for your relationship.