We all believe our workers are creative and brilliant people who can deliver the best work if given the right conditions. To allow them to flower we need to get rid of bureaucratic blocks that hinder creativity and are not particularly human.

At Gruppo La Meridiana we looked at top policies that block workers in delivering their best performance. Here are the results:

1. Sick days

It is crucial that employees are allowed enough sick days. If somebody is sick, he or she should be allowed to take their time off. They may work from home, or – if that’s not feasible – they shall use paid time off. Being able to take time off when you are sick is essential if we want to be a human leader and have productive employees. Also, it goes without saying that coming sick to work makes other employees at work sick, so it simply is inefficient. Therefore, we need to get rid off those attendance policies that consider too many sick days ‘unexcused absences’, as they simply are well outdated.

2. Dress code

Detailed dress code is a thing of the past. Truth to be told, it is offensive to employees to be told in detail how they should dress, they are not children and most of them have a pretty good feel for what’s appropriate. If somebody’s way of dressing is inappropriate, it will bring much better results to be a human and simply talk to them in person about their manner of dressing. A detailed dress code policy is something few employees read anyways and with ever-changing fashion you won’t be able to keep up with all the allowed/not-allowed items anyways. So getting rid of the dress code policy is highly recommended.

3. Personal calls and emails

Employees need to be allowed personal calls and emails during work hours. It is clear that some of their personal matters need to be attended to during business hours and besides that, nowadays, it is clear that the lines between work and life are blurred. Many of your employees think about work when they are at home, come up with their best ideas while under the shower, so why not allow them to make some necessary calls during work hours. If you wish, you can advise your employees to arrange personal matters early in the morning, so they are not bothered by them during the day. Forbidding employees to make personal phone calls at work is not only inefficient, it’s unrealistic.

These are just three of many policies that are not only outdated, they simply are inhumane and so they cannot allow your employees to bring the best results they can to you. Today’s HR focus not that much on how to manage people, make sure they do their work on time and efficiently, as they focus on bringing the best out of people. In order to do the later, you need to be human, sensitive, considerate and simply treat your employees as mature adults and not as misbehaving children needing a reprimand. At Gruppo La Meridiana, with our team of qualified HR experts, we are willing to help you streamline your HR policy and rid it of those aspects that hinder your employees’ brilliance and creativity.