Driving and HR: July 2011 Archives

After driving around visiting family and clients this week and putting about 700 miles of driving on my car in just a few days, I witnessed a troubling epidemic on the roads.

Apparently, we have an issue with drivers who suffer from injuries to their left hand that prevent them from using turn signals appropriately. Maybe we need to start a charity to assist these people so that they can use blinkers without the use of their left hand, or educate them on the ability to use them in the event they can use their left hand while driving.

At the workplace, there may be "signals" that we neglect to use like telling people we are leaving for the day, logging off a computer at the end of the night, punching a time clock appropriately and so on.

Learn to use signals properly, in the car and at work!

Few people know I am fueled creatively by my intense hatred for Angela Lansbury due to her portrayal of Jessica Fletcher in "Murder She Wrote". Lansbury and the writers of Murder She Wrote fooled my grandmother and many other unsuspecting viewers into believing that somehow this character just happened to show up anytime a murder happened and wasn't the perpetrator. I find it hard to believe, and also feel that the show should have been called "Murder She Did".

All kidding aside, sometimes seeing the same situation pop up over and over again with the same cast of characters can lend people to believe that its the people and not the system that are to blame. Whether its poor customer service, poor sales, or lack of consistency, it's easy to point the finger at your employees, when in actuality it may be the result of poor training, poor management, or a poor system run by otherwise competent people.

The next time you rush to judgement that your people are to blame, think about what you can do to improve your marketing, management, or training.

I was making my horrific holiday commute from exit 1 to 7 in Danbury, CT yesterday to visit my family for the holiday weekend. Making sure I finished up with my last client before 4pm so I could avoid the holiday rush, I nonetheless was caught up amongst some of the most insane and incompetent driving I ever see on the planet.

What always baffles me is why people go about 70 miles an hour and then go to a dead stop behind cars without regard for the people behind them or in front of them. Thankfully, the drivers around me followed my lead and drove a steady 10-20 miles per hour through all of the mess to avoid having these stops and starts when possible.

Sure enough, there was no accident on the road, but it took 30 minutes to get through this stretch because of all the stop and go traffic.

About 20 years ago, I remember there being signs saying "No Stopping" along this stretch, but to this day, I have yet to hear of someone who has received a ticket for speeding into traffic and coming to a dead stop in the highway.

If laws like this were enforced, these type of issues on the roads would be avoided. Similarly, in the workplace, if simple rules that aren't thought of enough were enforced, we'd have a more productive workplace.

What's your equivalent of the "No Stopping" law in the workplace? Think of internet usage, unauthorized breaks, lateness, and others that hamper productivity, and see how you can enforce them to ensure that the workplace is a place of value to everyone.