How to Create Work Rules

Business owners have to make sure that the workplace is one that institutes a positive company culture and one wherein all of its employees are able to work in peace. That’s the reason why they have to come up with different rules to ensure that order is maintained within their company. You may also see HR Templates.

• HR Rules Templates
• HR Notice Templates

But how are they going to go about in knowing what these rules should be? If they’re going to come up with these rules, then what should they contain? This article is going to focus on the kind of rules that you should make to ensure that your company should have so that there won’t be any problems in the workplace. You may also see HR Policy Templates.

The Workplace Rules

While you want to have company policies to protect the security of your business, you also want to create some general work rules that everyone has to follow. By giving them these rules, employees will have no excuse whenever they violate any of them. So here are a couple of examples of the different workplace rules as well as their violation level.

1. Rules that Count as Major Violations if Broken

• Safety Rules. The point of having safety rules within the workplace is to ensure that all your employees understand what they should and shouldn’t do in order to protect everyone and everything from all possible dangers. So, if an employee were to do anything against this particular rules and it has resulted in harming another employee or damaging and possibly even destroying company property, then this can be considered as a major violation.

• Rules regarding insubordination. You want your company to be one that fosters respect among your employees. So you want to be clear that all of your employees be respectful to one another, especially if they’re engaging in a conversation with someone that’s of higher rank within the company. If an employee were to break this rule, then this can be used against him/her upon their upcoming performance evaluation which could lead to possible termination.

• Rules on Information Sharing. Every employee is responsible for sharing accurate information with their managers, supervisors, or anyone that they need to report to. If it’s for confidential company information, then this rule is emphasized. If an employee were to falsify any information, or decides to share confidential information with anyone not involved in the company, then he/she will be on the grounds of termination. You may also see work resume templates.

• Rules Regarding company property. Items that are owned by the company must always be treated with care and they should only be used for their intended purposes. Any employee that’s caught abusing or damaging company property intentionally may be subject to immediate termination. If the employee is seen using company property for anything other than company-related purposes, then he/she will need to submit a letter which contains information as to why he/she used it for anything other than its intended purpose. If the reason is viable then no consequences will take place. If not, then the right disciplinary action shall take place.

• Rules Regarding Alcohol and Substance Abuse. You have to point out that no employee in the workplace must intake alcohol or any other substances during or before their shift as this could have a very negative effect on their performance. As always, employees caught will be subjected to the right form of disciplinary action.

• Rules on Fighting and Gambling. Remember that you want your company’s culture to be one that’s full of respect and you want to have a workplace that everyone is comfortable with. So it won’t exactly help if you have fighting and gambling going on in the workplace. If any of these two actions happen, then you will need to do an investigation wherein you follow all of the procedures before making an informed decision as to what you’re going to do with the people that have violated the rules. You may also see HR warning letters.

• Rules Regarding Vacation and Sick Leaves. There are some employees who abuse their vacation and sick leaves thinking that management will be okay with it. This is where you have to create a rule stating that if an employee has used up his/her leaves and continues to prolong his/her absences, then he/she will be terminated. Also, point out that if an employee were to incur absences without informing his/her direct supervisor or anyone from the company, then this will be considered as job abandonment and the employee will be subjected to employee termination.

• Investigation Rules. If you’re doing an investigation because you have received an accident or incident report within the workplace and it involves a particular employee, then this rule should point out that the employee must provide all information that he/she can truthfully. Any employee is shown to have withheld important information, falsifies them, or who refuses to hand them over will immediately be subjected to termination.

• Harassment Rules. This is where you point out that your company will not tolerate any form of harassment. Be sure that you are very detailed when writing down this rule as there are different types of harassments such as sexual, racial and much more. You may also see work agenda templates.

2. Rules that Count as Minor Violations if Broken

The following examples are rules are, when violated, will be considered as minor offenses but will become major problems if repeated on multiple occasions:

• Rules Pertaining Tardiness and Absenteeism. If an employee were to be late or incur absences often, then you have to point out with the rules that there’s a limit to how many times an employee can do so before this becomes too big a problem. You want your employees to know that you want everyone in your company to come to work on time and that they can only have a number of excused absences. You may also see employee write up templates.

• Rules on Work Performance. The reason why you hired employees is that you thought that they would be able to live up to your expectations. So after having a performance appraisal done and seeing that you have employees who aren’t exactly meeting your expectations, then you’ll have to make important choices in regards to what has to be done.

• Rules Regarding Break Time. It’s pretty obvious that your employees aren’t machines and that even they need a break every now and then. However, if your employees decide to abuse the amount of break time you’ve given them, then that would become a serious problem. Be sure that your employees know that they must only take the assigned number of breaks and nothing more. You may also like HR strategy templates.

• Using Company Resources for Personal Work. You may have a couple of materials such as stationery or anything of small importance that’s for company use. But remember that these are things for the company and that employees should only use them for their intended purposes. So if an employee is caught using these items for their own personal work, then you must have them provide you with an explanation as to how they planned on using those items. You may also see sample HR questionnaire.

• Smoking Rules. If yours is a company that’s fine with smoking, then you don’t really have to worry about this. However, if you want to make sure that all of your employees won’t have any problems in regards to this, especially those who are non-smokers, then you’re going to have to set up a rule which states that employees may only smoke in designated areas. Also, you should point out that employees can only smoke in these areas if they’re on their scheduled breaks. Otherwise, employees who decide to continuously violate this particular rule will have to talk with management. You may also see HR strategy.

Disciplinary Actions for Rule Violators

If anyone were to break certain rules, then they cannot go unpunished. However, the kind of disciplinary action that will be taken against violators will depend on the severity of the rule that was broken. So here are the different disciplinary actions:

• Verbal Warnings. This is for those minor offenses. So if an employee were to be late for at least 5 minutes during his/her shift, but it has been seen that this is a recurring problem, then his/her supervisor may point this out and even make suggestions to help the employee.

• Written Warnings. An employee is to receive a written warning if he/she fails to take heed of previous verbal warnings or if the employee has committed violations that would gain him/her one.

• Employee termination. If the employee fails to heed a written warning or does anything so severe that it has caused harm to either other employees in the company or the entirety of the company itself, then management will have every right to terminate the employee immediately.

If you’re going to set up rules, make sure that you provide all the necessary details so that they’re clear enough from the start.

If you would like to learn more on how to create rules of the workplace or anything related to this particular topic, then all you have to do is go through the site, find the articles that have the information you need, and utilize the information to help you and your business out. You may also see a request for a promotion at work.

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