Building a Culture Focused on Execution

An Easy Way to Encourage Employees to Follow Company Rules

To improve compliance with organizational rules, create more variety in the order in which employees perform tasks.

Martha E. Mangelsdorf

January 17, 2017

Organizations set rules for a reason — whether that reason is safety, ethics, fairness, quality, or efficiency. Unfortunately, previous research has found that employees often break company rules, and that can have negative consequences for their employers.

However, a new study suggests that a surprisingly simple technique can improve employees’ compliance with organizational rules. The secret? Creating more variety in the order in which employees perform tasks — even without changing the tasks.

Rellie Derfler-Rozin, an assistant professor ...