From Girl Scout cookie drives to workplace birthday clubs, non-work fundraisers have become a part of many company cultures. Should management be concerned?

There are no simple answers to this question. Most employers want to encourage a family-friendly company culture, but employee (and supervisor) solicitations often have a way of spinning out of control.  Left unchecked, onsite “selling” can go from a harmless activity to an unwelcomed one that causes tension and can actually hurt morale.

No-soliciting policy?

In one recent survey, 22% percent of employers said they have a policy against soliciting. In most cases, the policy limits the times and places (e.g., break rooms only) where employees can engage in the activity. Some employers have created bulletin boards where workers can post their fundraisers for interested co-workers.  According to the survey, about one employer in 10 has banned unapproved fundraisers entirely.

Another thorny issue: In some cases, the one doing the selling is a supervisor or an executive, even if the company bans rank-and-file employees from doing it. 

Unfortunately, this leaves HR/benefits in a real tough position. How can you be expected to enforce a policy that managers themselves ignore? It sets you up to be the bad guy, and also shows employees that the powers-that-be either don’t take the policy seriously or don’t think they need to follow the same rules.

Office sports pools: Harmless or harmful?

Odds are pretty high (pun intended) that your employees and/or supervisors have an office football pool going right about now and/or a March Madness pool during the college basketball tournament. If not, they’ve probably worked somewhere in the past where such activities have had the tacit — or open — approval of the top brass.

Is that a good or bad thing for your company culture?

Never mind the fact that the pools are rarely used for “entertainment purposes only.” Although wagering in office pools (and fantasy sports leagues) is technically an illegal activity in some states, the laws are rarely — if ever — enforced. In most states, the typical $5 to $20 office pool is legal.

A bigger, more practical concern: presenteeism.

Easy to spot, hard to stop

If you were to take a random walk around your office and glance at people’s computer screens, chances are you’d find more than a few folks who have game reports open in one Window and their work in another. Want to guess which screen the employee pays more attention to? Yup.

One estimate says March Madness costs employers nationwide $1.7 billion each year in lost productivity. During that time of year, many employees (and supervisors) are paid to do little more than check on how the teams in their office pool are doing in the NCAA basketball tournament.

Truth be told, even if your organization bans office pools, many employees will sneak glances at the scores, anyway. But people are more open about goofing off — and spend longer doing it — when they participate in a pool at work. Many supervisors simply look the other way.

Morale builder?

The typical reason given for allowing office fund-raising solicitation or sports pools is that the activity boosts morale and employee bonding. In reality, the morale-building advantages depend on your company culture and the demographics of your workforce.

One survey found that 30% of professional and business service employees eagerly look forward to participating in an annual March Madness pool at work. On the flip side, only 13% of employees in the hospitality industry expressed interest in the activity.

Gender also comes into play. Roughly 24% of male employees said they’re likely to participate in an office pool, while 11% of women do.

Bottom line: Some workplaces wouldn’t miss such activities if they disappeared. In others, the long-term morale boost cancels out the short-term productivity hit.

We’d be interested to see how you handle this challenge in your own organization. Do you have a policy banning solicitation and/or office pools? And if so, how has it gone over?

Companies have the right to decide what image to portray to their customers and prospective hires. Should dress-code enforcement be a top priority?

Many employers would say yes. But with alarming turnover rates among Generation Y employees (the 18-to-25 group is the most frequent offender), some firms are calling a truce.

Reason: Apart from educational benefits, surveys show that a flexible company culture is the single most coveted benefit among these employees — far more than health coverage, a 401(k) plan, or other big-ticket plans most firms consider their core benefits.  

Every employee defines company culture and flexibility differently, but for a large segment of younger employees, freedom to dress down at work is part of the equation.

Employers that go on a dress-code enforcement kick run the risk of winning the battle but losing the war, hurting employee morale and retention.  On the flip side, the inmates shouldn’t be allowed to run the asylum when it comes to dictating the company image that senior management wants to create.

In either case, people who handle HR and/or benefits duties at their company get caught in the middle of what the top brass demands and what employees want.

Setting limits

For employers, the problem becomes one of re-defining what is and isn’t appropriate dress for employees. Here are four questions many of your colleagues are grappling with at their companies:

• Are flip-flops OK at work?
• How about visible tattoos and/or body piercings? 
• Should your handbooks spell out examples of appropriate and inappropriate attire (e.g., shorts are OK, but short shorts are prohibited)?
• What is the disciplinary process – if there is one — for dress code violations? Alternatively, how heavily is dress code compliance weighed in employee’s annual reviews?

Consistency is key

Consultant Eric Chester, author of Getting Them to Give a Damn,  is of the opinion that it doesn’t really matter how your organization answers these questions, but it’s crucial to define these expectations to employees up front — and then drum home to supervisors that they need to be consistent in how they enforce or relax these rules.

I agree wholeheartedly.  As long as the employer sticks to its policies, the burden falls on the employee to conform or find another place to work.

Communicating these expectations upfront — and addressing questions or concerns right away — saves endless hassle down the road.

Example: It’s reasonable to spell out dress-code expectations to candidates during job interviews. This is also the time for would-be hires to ask questions about dress expectations. 

If your policies don’t match up to the job candidate’s preferences, he or she may not be the right fit for the job. Better to find that out up front. 

Flip-flop Friday

If you already find yourself in the middle of a dress-code war at work, there are still ways to regain control of the situation.

Here’s how one What’s New in Benefits & Compensation reader helped turn an area of discord into a win-win situation for management and employees.

She suggested an update on the old “Casual Friday” idea. Two days each month, the company relaxed the dress code to suit employees’ tastes: They had a “Flip-flop Friday” and a “T-shirt Tuesday.” Since then, morale is up and there have been fewer dress-code battles.

There was still a related, more contentious issue: a policy banning visible tattoos and body piercings.

No, the firm didn’t launch “Tattoo and Tongue-ring Thursday.” Instead, it created a compromise policy as a performance incentive for employees who felt strongly about the issue.

The deal: Keep productivity high and we’d relax the rule prohibiting their display at work.  But if performance slipped or customers complained, the privilege would disappear. So far, it’s worked out well, and the affected employees have lived up to their end of the bargain.

A similar strategy may work — or be all wrong — for your organization.  The only approach that’s guaranteed to fail, however, is to do nothing and hope the problem gets better on its own.