I totally agree that how one communicates influences corporate culture, and the second email is a better communication than the first. They both suggest to me, though, a company which reaches for a broad, expensive technological (+) solution to solve a narrow, cheap people problem.
+ There might not be code involved, but you're imposing a state machine, so it's tech even if it is taught in the business school.
How you communicate policy changes is important, but if your communication includes "How do we massage the fact that we know this is going to inconvenience everyone in our organization regarding one of the core benefits they perceive from working here?", communication is not the problem. The only corporate culture problem there is that the hypothetical CEO did not say "As custodian of the corporate culture, I think that working-from-home is too important to us to touch. What other options do we have?"
(One possible solution: If three people with different managers are routinely ducking meetings that have to take place, have three quiet conversations. Another possible solution: if three people with different managers are routinely ducking meetings, have three quiet conversations with their managers about how any person who can be optimized out of a meeting should be because their time is valuable.)
[Edit: It occurs to me that I glossed over the point in the blog post where they actual business rationale is presented: "Company X has been having trouble with abuse of work-from-home privileges. Managers are finding that more and more people are getting less accomplished and a primary suspect is a lack of coming into the office." I had gotten my understanding of the problem, like employees, from the second email. If that is indeed the business rationale, I revise my opinion of the second email: it is terrible because it is lying to me, in a way which makes the policy seem insane. Hilariously, when I read it now I find myself actually distrusting the hypothetical problem statement -- which is dicta for the purpose of this exercise -- because in light of being lied to I find myself thinking "Management, who we have established are liars, are probably too incompetent to actually measure people's productivity. I wonder what the real reason for this is?"]
The meta-meta issue here is that the 'policy change' (in the example) is a way for some (maybe all) managers to avoid an actual conversation with folks who work for them about what they are getting done. But that is what managers are supposed to do, have those hard conversations, its part of the reason the job is 'different' then being just a technical leader.
The hypothetical CEO has a real problem, things that need to get done aren't, or they aren't being done in a timely fashion. The managers that work for them (in a small company it might be one layer in a larger company two) need to talk with their teams about what they are doing and how they are doing it. And if someone on the team is spending a lot of time at home, and the manager isn't seeing them getting stuff done, then they need to have a talk with that person. Another scenario is that you talk to one of your people and they keep getting road blocked trying to get something done and the person they need to work with isn't in the office. That discussion is also straight forward, you tell the person who works at home that they either have to make it as easy for the people in the office who depend on them to work with them as if they were in the office, or they have to be in the office.
Most employees get that the company is a 'for profit' concern, and if you are straight up with them about these things I find the ones you want to keep respond the way you would hope they do.
I realize this isn't the point of the original article, but I couldn't get around the fact that either way the theoretical CEO phrased it he was basically saying "Because of a few people abusing a privilege and our management team being too spineless to confront them individually, now everyone at the company has to be penalized. kthx bye."
It's also a permanent change in response to temporary problem.
If the email said we have a significant problem with X, we are considering our options, but it a big problem so for the next 3 months we are going to do Y, and while we work out a better long term solution.
And then 3 months from now they say: Core work hours are 11:00am-3:00pm and you are expected to be online and available then even while working from home. Each team is expected to come up with a mandatory 1 or 2 days a week where everyone is expected to be here for core work hours. You no longer need specific permission to WFH on non mandatory days.
Then yes, it's a big change, but it's more likely to seem reasonable AND it seems like people spent a while deciding on a reasonable solution vs. someone randomly sending a quick email.
Exactly. The reason policy changes like this kill morale is because there are only two outcomes. 1) The problem in the email was not caused by me, yet I am being penalized for it, so I am resentful towards management and the policy abusers. 2) The problem in the email was caused by me, and my coworkers are probably aware of that fact, and now they resent me for bringing about this policy change.
I've been a victim of #1 a number of times and it sucks. It breeds annoyance at anyone you suspect of abusing the policy and every level of management.
If you approach your immediate supervisor with the reasoning of "that's not me, how closely do we need to follow it?" you've put them in an awkward position of "punishing" you or not enforcing it closely and you being an exception. Generally, exceptions are not good and complicate things further.
If people on your team aren't getting things done, go to them directly. We're (mostly) adults.
I mostly agree with Patrick, and to supplement his post with one more suggestion, I think most of these category of "behavior" memos have no business going to all employees. They should stop at X level of management, which should be entrusted/empowered/delegated to make the necessary changes within their purview. One of the biggest reasons these generic communications suck is because they're generic.
Fix the management problem and you largely fix the communication problem. For the rest (benefits changes, business strategy, etc), the exec whose name is at the bottom would be well served to be as transparent and honest as possible, and for sensitive topics to include formal feedback/Q&A paths to clarify any uncertainties. There is a huge perception gap between levels of employees and it's literally the case that individuals at different levels in the hierarchy (or different LOBs/divisions) have no idea how to relate to one another; what usually happens is that they freeze and avoid engagement, which only hurts the company.
You really get at the crux of this for me, that these emails are kind of an abdication of responsibility. They are leapfrogging over (what I assume is) discomfort at actually dealing with people in favor of tasking the employee. Why have managers if they aren't responsible for the productivity of their underlings? Why make this an all-hands piece of information? It's passing the buck.
The two emails are two extremes of this: the first uses authority, the second uses information. "Tell us why we shouldn't hate you," vs. touchy-feely Lumbergh-ism. Both are too much. Tell the bosses of the people slacking off and let the employee's manager deal with it under pain of their job being at risk. Isn't that what a management hierarchy is for?
Rand should have headed this off by drafting an email for a policy that was clearly pants-on-head retarded[1], instead of only somewhat thick. The topic of this blog post is communication and culture; judging it by the content is wrong-headed. Yes, in this particular instance communication is not the biggest problem, but there's still a lesson to learn about communication.
Since we're on the topic... you're right, that the solution is not addressing the problem. He states that what he wants from the policy is just information, so he can decide on an appropriate action. That requires sending information to your manager, it does not require that your manager have the ability to deny request. But somehow managers gained that ability. That's a misfire.
[1] "Our CFO informs me that the biggest threat to our company's continued solvency is our monthly water bill. Starting Monday, staff may not use the lavatories without first submitting form 27B/6 describing their intended usage, for approval by the managers. Employees seen entering the Taco Bell across the street will be reprimanded."
You can't take a bad policy (in this case a passive-aggressive, reactionary attempt at micro-management due to the inability to have effective conversations with individuals directly) and transform it into a good policy just by making the words more soothing and less distressing.
I've seen this thing a lot in businesses and this way of doing this is always the worst way of handling things. One person makes a mistake or misbehaves and the result is a new policy or a mass email that dances around the issue and makes everyone's lives more difficult.
You can't engineer a functional workplace through crafting just the right rules, you have to interact with human beings as individuals in order to make sure everyone is getting along, working well, etc.
+ There might not be code involved, but you're imposing a state machine, so it's tech even if it is taught in the business school.
How you communicate policy changes is important, but if your communication includes "How do we massage the fact that we know this is going to inconvenience everyone in our organization regarding one of the core benefits they perceive from working here?", communication is not the problem. The only corporate culture problem there is that the hypothetical CEO did not say "As custodian of the corporate culture, I think that working-from-home is too important to us to touch. What other options do we have?"
(One possible solution: If three people with different managers are routinely ducking meetings that have to take place, have three quiet conversations. Another possible solution: if three people with different managers are routinely ducking meetings, have three quiet conversations with their managers about how any person who can be optimized out of a meeting should be because their time is valuable.)
[Edit: It occurs to me that I glossed over the point in the blog post where they actual business rationale is presented: "Company X has been having trouble with abuse of work-from-home privileges. Managers are finding that more and more people are getting less accomplished and a primary suspect is a lack of coming into the office." I had gotten my understanding of the problem, like employees, from the second email. If that is indeed the business rationale, I revise my opinion of the second email: it is terrible because it is lying to me, in a way which makes the policy seem insane. Hilariously, when I read it now I find myself actually distrusting the hypothetical problem statement -- which is dicta for the purpose of this exercise -- because in light of being lied to I find myself thinking "Management, who we have established are liars, are probably too incompetent to actually measure people's productivity. I wonder what the real reason for this is?"]