Note: This week on the blog I am trying out a little experiment - writing on the first five (or so) subjects that popped out at random from a cool little app called Writing Exercises. The app provides suggestions for topics, characters, first lines - that kind of thing. I tapped the 'Random Subject' button a few times and will (try) to come up with something for each subject I was presented. It may be good, it may stink - who knows? But whatever the topic, I am taking like 20 minutes tops to bang something out. So here goes...
Today's topic: If you could pass a new (workplace) law, what would it be?
Quick disclaimer, the Writing Exercises app actually didn't include the work 'workplace' in the topic suggestion, but since I have been really running off the rails this week with these posts and I have no desire to wade into any kinds of issues that actually are important and that stir people up, I will keep my answers to this question limited to work and workplaces. I can think of three workplace 'laws' that I would enact once I am granted the title of Czar of Work. Here we go...
1. Email use would be subject to some strict conditions - I have an entire laundry list of edicts I would lay down with regards to workplace email use and practices. Just some of my proposals: No email on the weekend, designated 'email free' blocks of time during the week, and the auto-deletion of any incoming messages that you receive when you are out on vacation. And one more thing, any email that is flagged as 'Urgent' is immediately returned to sender with the question 'Really?' in the subject line. Under a Steve Boese administration, email would be dramatically different.
2. Meeting and Conference Call 'start' times would be taken much more seriously - Showing up late for a meeting or a Con Call would be just cause for termination. Maybe not on the first offense, but once a pattern of 'my time is much more important than your time' is established, then that person HAS TO GO. Show up on time, or decline the meeting in advance. Media outlets love to report on how much productivity is lost in workplaces from silly things like March Madness office pools. I bet the sums wasted on the combined amount of time people spend sitting around waiting for meetings and calls to start would dwarf whatever is wasted by workers chatting about their NCAA brackets.
3. Where, when, and how people work would be (mostly) up to them - Saving the obvious occupations (ER nurse, elementary school teacher, NBA point guard), who have to work at a specific place at a specific time, under Czar Steve's benevolent rule, most employees would be granted the flexibility to work where, when, and how they feel the most productive. We would stop 'asking' to work from home on Tuesday since the plumber is coming to the house or if could we pretty please have a couple of hours off on Thursday to see little Joey in the school concert. Workers would be free to make choices, like adults, and be held responsible for their performance and outcomes, (like they are anyway).
Ok, that's it. Those are Czar of Work Steve's three new workplace laws. What laws for the workplace would you enact if you had the chance?