While attending a Great Place to Work Institute annual conference an organizational consultant told the story of a client who prominently displayed posters throughout their offices with the message, “Our valued employees are always treated with trust and respect.”   Yet the consultant noticed employees underwent exhaustive and intrusive security searches when entering and exiting the offices each day.  It was obvious the employer did not really trust their people.  The consultant observed the employees were quite uncomfortable with the invasive nature of the security process.

Considered a highly unusual practice for a civilian organization with very little security concerns, the consultant questioned the leaders about the conflicting message of “trust and respect” while employees were subjected to daily body searches. The organization stopped the security searches.

Avoid Conflicting Messages

In this case, the leaders were oblivious to the conflicting message of building trust and the ongoing practice of their security measures. That’s why business leaders should carefully consider the environment they want to create for their employees.  A well planned and executed people strategy will help you avoid these big, hairy contradictory messages that create barriers between employees and management.

Since corporate culture flows down from the top, determine in advance what message you want your employees to receive through your leadership team’s actions.

People Strategy is Mission Critical

When preparing your business plan, seriously consider the people strategy component of your enterprise.  People strategy is as important as your marketing strategy or finance statements. Many CEO’s will boast in their annual reports, “Our people are our most important asset” because that is what a CEO is expected to say in print or on camera.  But in reality do most CEO’s develop a Great Workplace strategy where employees are treated as whole persons and where leaders are measured on their soft skills? Based on the vast numbers of unhappy, unfulfilled, disengaged and burnt out American workers across this great nation, my educated guess is a resounding “no!”

A business owner should seriously consider their written and unwritten people strategies and make room for this subject in their business plan, whether you have ten or ten-thousand employees.  Even solo-practitioners rely on other people, including business associates, partners, affiliates, vendors, and other professionals, to accomplish their goals.  A well-developed people strategy is critically important to any businesses long-term viability.

Most Successful People Like People

First of all, it helps if you like people. To some leaders, overseeing people is like dealing with the IRS: they avoid them at all cost.  I cannot count the times leaders have told me they hate dealing with people issues.  However, many leaders allow the people component of their business to be formulated by chance.  It is difficult to succeed in business if you don’t like people.  It is not a good idea to outsource your people function to uncaring, unattached outsiders.  Even if you outsource merely the transaction components of human resource management, a leader cannot outsource the employee relations component without disastrous consequences.

If business leaders are not involved in corporate life, the company’s culture becomes a process of evolution, mutation, and happenstance in an uncaring environment.  These are great ingredients for stirring up a prison riot, but not such a great way to develop a great working environment.

Sometimes the temptation is to ignore people problems altogether and hope the problems magically disappear.  However, poor decision-making, or lack of decision-making, can lead to a toxic work environment and a multitude of people issues.

Positive People Practice Questions

When developing or evaluating your business plan, ask and answer the following Positive People Practice (also known as P3) questions when creating a People Strategy section in your business plan:

• Company Culture - Every company has one and no two are alike.  What type company culture do you want for your enterprise?  The culture will typically mirror the personality of a strong leader or CEO. It is good to establish in writing the foundation of the company’s personality.
• Flexibility - How flexible will your company be with employees?  Will you automatically say “no” to reasonable requests or seriously consider and evaluate employee requests for work/life flexibility?  Flexible employers are known to be more productive and profitable.
• Results Only – Are you prepared to base employee performance on results rather than the outdated practices of brown-nosing and face time?
• How Results Happen – How results happen are as important as the results. Will employees and leaders be accountable for their behavior in getting work accomplished?  Make sure results at any cost is not condoned by your leadership.
• Telecommuting – Will employees have the flexibility to work away from the office as long as they get their work done on time and with the quality expected? Today’s technological advances have made telecommuting a practical solution for a number of positions.
• Recruiting by Cultural Fit – Will you carefully screen each new hire to determine if they will live and work according to your company culture? Potential new leaders should also be subjected to a culture fit analysis since this is where many problems crop up.
• Dress Code - How are employees expected to dress for work? Business, business casual, casual, beach attire? Make sure leaders dress like your employees too.  Opportunity seeking leaders will be tempted to dress up in a dress down environment to gain a psychological advantage over other employees.
• Corporate Values - What are the values and guiding principles of your organization?  These guidelines communicate a great message to job applicants and help existing employees and leaders make decisions when faced with difficult circumstances?
• Code of Conduct - How are employees and leaders expected to act during the work week?  What is considered acceptable or unacceptable behavior? Is business ethics taken seriously?
• Jerk-Free Workplace – Will you consider instituting an anti-bullying and jerk-free workplace policy where workplace terrorists are terminated after one official warning? Unfortunately the incivility of our society is creeping into the workplace and business leaders need to stop hiring jerks at work.

Seriously consider these people strategy issues when developing your business plan and your chances of outlasting, outperforming and outmaneuvering the competition will increase exponentially.

CEO’s find the truth hard to handle at times.  Especially regarding employee relations issues, and their resulting effects on morale, quality and productivity.  For example, the CEO may have a hard time believing one of their top performers is a certifiable asshole who is damaging the company’s morale and causing a deterioration of trust in leadership.

The good news is there is a five step program for ridding your company of corporate assholes who have burrowed themselves inside your organization.

Step #1 – Admit assholes are bad for business. Recognize that assholes are bad for the organization. Yes, take that truth syrum and walk over from the dark side to the light.  Believe it or not, there are some CEO’s who think a few assholes scattered throughout the organization actually increase productivity. If this is the case, why not give those assholes some chains and whips to help their cause and instill greater fear.  If fear really works, why not increase the fear for greater effect? Nonsense!  You know it and I know it; assholes must be terminated.

Step #2 – Understand assholes are expert kiss-ups. Understand that assholes are masters at managing up, kissing up and brownnosing, all while causing terror down the corporate ladder.  While you are feeling good about your asshole, he is instilling fear in your organization. As the CEO, the asshole who is your direct report typically makes you feel good when you are around them.  It feels good to have your back end massaged by these clever manipulators.  They are experts at massaging your backside in order to protect theirs.

Step #3 – Adopt, model and promote your company’s code of conduct. I recommend your company also adopt an Anti-Bullying and No-Jerk policy.  Why?  The Workplace Bullying Institute and Zogby research indicate that 37% of American workers have been bullied at work.  That is almost 4 out of 10 employees.  Bullying is four times more prevalent than illegal harassment, yet most companies overlook it.  Because this has become such a prevalent workplace problem, a number of respectable companies have adoped No Jerk Hiring Policies:

“No Jerk Policy” Hall of Fame Companies

Barclays Capital | SPM Communications | Lloyd Gosselink Attorneys at Law

IDEO | Sterling Foundation Management | Gold’s Gym | van Aartrijk Group

Robert W. Baird | The Wine Buyer | Mozilla | Washington Mutual | SuccessFactors

Arup | Goldcorp | Hamilton Canada

Step #4 – Require thorough investigations and no cover-ups. Make sure human resources completely investigates claims of workplace bullying by corporate assholes.  The typical response will be for HR to conspire with or feel pressure from the asshole manager and eventually assist in the firing of the targeted employee or employees.  This allows the evidence to be terminated and walk out the front door.  In other words, assholes like to eliminate their dirty laundry.  Require HR to document the behavior, obtain witness accounts and submit a full written report to the CEO office.  Identify patterns of behavior and provide support to human resources when they recommend bullies and assholes undergo counseling.  Finally, terminate jerks if they don’t straighten up, regardless of their position in the company.

Step #5 – Communicate to stakeholders your company is a Jerk Free Zone. Communicate to employees, applicants and stakeholders your company is a Jerk Free Zone.  Don’t even permit customers to treat your employees terribly.  If you want to create a high-performance team environment, protect your employees.  Sure, develop lofty goals for your team members and create high performance expectations.  Driving out fear in the workplace will almost ensure your organization will be successful. Do this and success will follow you wherever you go.

Before taking a position with a new company, how does one avoid a toxic company culture? Applicants are well within their rights to interview current employees to obtain honest feedback on the company culture. If you are not allowed to interview existing employees of your choice, this could be a sign your future employer is hiding a toxic workplace. For those in the job market, the following are potential clues a workplace has a noxious work environment.

1. Employees are not allowed to voice their honest opinion on workplace issues.
2. Employees fall in or out of leadership’s favor without explanation, and as a result, are included or excluded from company events, projects or meetings.
3. Employees with opposing viewpoints are not welcomed visitors to the executive suite. \
4. Employees are fired without warning or explanation, nor are they given the opportunity to address the real issues leading to their departure.
5. Receptionists and assistants tend to be beautiful, attractive eye-candy for chauvinistic executives.
6. Overweight people are routinely urged by leadership to exercise and made to feel inferior to their slender coworkers and leaders.
7. Employees are expected to assume heavier workloads and work excessive overtime while legitimate requests for headcount increases are denied, all while the company is promoting the importance of work/life balance.
8. Employees with excellent reputations are abruptly fired or transferred because their performance is suddenly unsatisfactory.
9. The human resources department is viewed by leadership as an administrative function or transaction facilitator rather than a partner in developing great people and work environments.
10. The human resources department merely follows orders from leadership and is afraid to question company practices.
11. Rude behavior is routinely allowed.
12. Employees who treat people with trust and respect are considered weak and not management material.
13. Tough, no-nonsense supervisory behavior is rewarded.
14. Executives are assigned reserved parking spaces.
15. The CEO and his/her executive team rarely walk around the office to visit with employees.
16. Company information or news is not consistently shared with the entire workforce.
17. Employees routinely read breaking news about their company in the local newspaper or online news services rather than from internal company publications.
18. Press releases are distributed to public media outlets prior to employee distribution.
19. Political views of the leaders are expressed to employees, and the employees are expected to blindly support and/or vote for those causes.
20. Executives have their own restrooms.
21. The company has a code of conduct policy but does not provide regular training to leaders or employees.
22. Employees are expected to intuitively know what is expected from them without explanation and can be disciplined for not following these unwritten rules of conduct or performance.
23. Employees who raise legitimate company issues are summarily terminated without cause.
24. Executives hire C-level and professional staff outside the approved recruiting process and do not carefully consider the recruit’s management style or their potential impact on company culture.