This week’s conundrum...
As the owner of a business you will often be the last to leave the building, tidying your desk and taking your mug out to the kitchen. It’s at this point when you ‘see red’. The kitchen is an absolute mess with dirty cups and plates stacked on the side, the bin is overflowing and we won’t even describe the state of the microwave; suffice to say it probably represents a real health and safety risk.
You look askance and wonder why this is like this when you have bought a dishwasher and have a cleaner twice a week. Furious, you roll up your sleeves and clear up, muttering to yourself the whole time. Eventually it looks reasonable and you place a sign “Please clean up after yourself before you go home. Your Mother does not work here”.
Confident that your team will be ashamed and mend their ways, you arrive at work the next day to be greeted by one of the staff complaining that your sign is ‘extremely sexist’! This sounds familiar. Some helpful suggestions could be (short of going to each staff member’s house and leaving their dishes unwashed) each person taking individual responsibility (name the mugs) or arranging a rota which replaces your sexist sign. If all else fails take all the mugs away and install a coffee machine and buy a huge waste bin.
The author of this blog is Sue Tumelty, the Managing Director of national company The HR Dept. The HR Dept prides itself on providing local and personal HR support to small and medium size businesses
http://www.hrdept.co.uk/offices/south-east/south-east-london-and-north-kent
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