Unusual Employee Handbook: 'Use Your Best Judgment'
The parent company of major newspapers in California and Illinois has taken an innovative approach to the revision of its employee handbook under the leadership of a new owner. Forgoing the usual detailed prohibitions and explanations, it hits employees straight on the chin with plain-language rules.
Open the handbook—which is approximately one-third of its former length—and you will see a lighthearted list of rules, reports the Wall Street Journal Law Blog, based on a Los Angeles Times report about the newly revised employee manual that applies to its own operations. At the outset: “Rule #1: Use your best judgment; Rule #2: See Rule 1.”
The Tribune Company’s new handbook is perhaps likelier to be read and remembered in its new format, and clearly encourages employees to think about the pros and cons of what they are doing at work. It was developed by Randy Michaels, Tribune CEO for interactive and broadcasting, who says “we’ll have fewer legal problems with plain English and common sense than with pages and pages of rules,” reports the Times.
However, it remains to be seen whether encouraging employees to use their own judgment and discretion, rather than comply with detailed rules, is a recipe for increased and perhaps unsuccessful litigation, says Mark Schickman, a San Francisco lawyer who represents employers.
Core values listed in the handbook, for example, encourage employees to “Take intelligent risk” and “Question authority and push back if you do not like the answer. You will earn respect, and not get into trouble for asking tough questions.” But if a worker is terminated for being argumentative and insubordinate, these corporate goals could prove problematic, he predicts.
Tribune Co. also owns the Chicago Tribune.
