She was a manager who wanted a policy for everything and if we didn’t have one, she asked me to create one. She loved policies because they created rules for her to manage her staff, identifying what they could or could not do. It was simple for her to point to a policy and say, “there it is in black (ink) and white (paper).” She struggled if the policy wasn’t definitive enough to cover a situation she was dealing with, or when there was no policy to cover it. I thought she was rigid or if that’s too strong of a word, let’s say inflexible, because there was no in-between for her, it was either okay or not okay. She believed she was helping the organization because she was consistent, but her staff wished she would look beyond the policy. I’ll admit to being challenged in working with her because she couldn’t see the gray in the world, where circumstances and context matter in decision making related to employees.
I don’t know what your experiences have been working with other human resources professionals, but it isn’t our responsibility to tell you “No”, unless it is against the law or directly violates an organizational policy. Instead, we should help leaders navigate the gray in each situation, because rarely is it black or white. If I’m honest and all decisions were that simple, we wouldn’t need managers. Amid the gray, how do we do what is right for the employee and the organization.
I once worked with a department leader, Beth (not her real name), who wanted her sister Debbie to be hired within the same division, but reporting to someone else. It didn’t violate any policy, and she was extremely qualified, but it was gray because Beth had significant influence and often dealt with the staff and leader where Debbie would report. To me the optics weren’t good, and there was potential for big problems. I pushed back, which put me in a meeting with the Division director who clearly wanted Debbie hired, so they did. All went well for a while, until there was a complaint from a family about Debbie’s conduct. The mother in the family wanted to meet with Debbie and someone from management to voice her concerns. The manager who took the call and walked into the room was Beth. The fireworks began a few minutes into the conversation when the family member noticed both women had the same last name and pointedly asked if they were related. Once the word “yes” came out, I heard it became like the 4th of July and continued to the Division Director. After the incident, we never had family members of any leader hired within the division.
Another gray situation was when we had a supervisor wanting to fire a staff member for using bad language toward her, slamming the door and walking off the job. A witness confirmed her language (which was very bad) and actions. What seemed black and white became gray when we learned the witness was a close friend of the supervisor and what precipitated the bad language and actions was the supervisor’s conduct and choice of words toward the employee, essentially baiting her to react as she did. We then had an employee issue, a supervisor issue and a witness issue and no policy covered it all.
I also remember clearly a situation where inappropriate conduct was observed and reported by a female staff member between a female and male co-worker. All three co-workers had been employed for over 5 years and had excellent work records. As we investigated further, it turned gray upon learning there was some truth to what the reporting employee had witnessed, although she embellished the situation in her reporting but also discovering the reporting employee had been dating the male worker in question, and he recently (within 2 weeks) ended their relationship to begin dating the other female co-worker. No policy completely covered those issues.
If you love things to be “black and white”, don’t go into leadership, because it rarely is.
Every day there are gray situations for you to deal with, and it’ll be important to ask enough questions to gather all the information before deciding. Good luck with the gray.
Getting wisdom is the wisest thing you can do! And whatever else you do, develop good judgment. Proverbs 4:7 (NLT)
