Laws, Rules, and Procedures

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MTL: The Professional Development Programme
Laws, Rules, and Procedures
LAWS, RULES, AND
PROCEDURES
Why compliance may be essential

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Attribution: All images are from sources where a Creative Commons license exists for commercial use. All icons are on subscription
from thenounproject. All clipart is from free sources. The MTL Professional Development Programme is copyright of Manage Train
Learn.
Laws, Rules,
and Procedures
Introduction: Just as in society at large, where laws are necessary for people to live
together, so, in the microcosm of society that an organisation is, codes of conduct
are necessary for people to work together. In this topic, we'll look at 7 kinds of
conformance requirement.

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Statue of Lex, law, at the US Supreme Court, Washington
1. LAWS OF
THE LAND
https://freerangestock.com/photos/12436/seated-statue-at-us-supreme-
court.html
Just because you work in an organisation does
not mean that your behaviour is not still
regulated by the laws of the country where you
live. In fact, the nature of your work may impose
additional laws on you. There are business-
related laws such as employment laws, company
laws, and finance laws as well as safety laws,
environmental laws, and work-specific laws
depending on the nature of your work. People at
work are of course also subject to criminal laws
just as they are anywhere else.

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2. RULES
Rules are the "musts" of an organisation, the
things you must do for the organisation to
function properly and fairly. But for rules to be
fair, they should also be...
a. relevant, realistic and enforceable
b. agreed by those they affect
c. expressed in terms of required behaviour
d. expressed with the reasons behind them
e. as few as necessary
f. brought to everyone's notice.
You can’t win the game unless you know the rules
https://pixabay.com/en/referee-professional-football-1544532/

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https://pixabay.com/en/sign-forbidden-rules-metal-warning-1438605/
Standards of work indicate levels of performance
3.
STANDARDS
OF WORK
Standards of work are the levels of performance
that you expect people to reach. They should
always relate to a business need, such as
customer service or organisational efficiency. One
way to devise clear standards is to use the SMART
mnemonic, which stands for Specific, Measurable,
Achievable, Realistic, and Time-Bounded. An
example could be, "All staff should be at their
workplaces ready to work at their starting times
each day."

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4. TARGETS
Some jobs use targets instead of standards to
measure work performance, eg sales and
production workers. The difference between
targets and standards is that targets measure
outputs while standards measure inputs. Targets
can also be set using the SMART mnemonic, as in,
"Call centre staff should complete a minimum of
20 customer calls per hour."
Target: resolve 20 customer calls per hour
https://freerangestock.com/photos/21485/call-center-agent.html

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5. NORMS
https://freerangestock.com/photos/70224/photo-details.html
A norm was originally a carpenter’s tool
The word, "norm", comes from the Latin word,
"norma", which originally was a carpenter's tool
for measuring right angles. "Normal" comes from
this root, meaning "according to rule" and "not
deviating from standard". The norms of an
organisation are the way things are normally
done. In stable times, they are likely to be strictly
enforced; but in less stable times, different norms
may have to apply.

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6. CULTURE
"Culture" is the overall pattern of norms that
describes how an organisation works. Terrence
Deal and Alan Kennedy discovered that an
organisation works best when it has employees
whose personalities and natural preferences are
suited to the culture of the organisation. They
defined 4 types of organisational culture, based
on the degree of risk and feedback in the
organisation.
You can measure culture by levels of risk and feedback
https://freerangestock.com/photos/39914/businessman-adding-golden-
coins-with-a-young-plant-in-the-final-.html

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Your procedures should be in line with your culture
7. CULTURE
TYPES
https://freerangestock.com/photos/39672/hand-sketching-green-globe-
in-the-sky--ecology-concept.html
Deal and Kennedy's 4 workplace cultures are:
a. "work hard, play hard" cultures which look for
quick results, eg sales environments
b. "process" cultures which are slow to change,
and procedural, eg local authorities
c. "tough guy" cultures which favour fast
fortunes, such as the advertising industry
d. "bet your company" cultures which are high
risk with long paybacks, such as the energy
industry.

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This has been a Slide Topic from Manage Train Learn
AFinal
Word
Being fair to your employees means spelling out the laws, rules, standards, targets, guidelines, and
norms of your organisation. When you do that, you create a basis for building an effective
disciplinary structure.

Laws, Rules, and Procedures

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