Overcommitting

Beginning Of The MonthThere’s a fine line between setting the standards of behavior and practices that you want your company to follow and how you articulate these goals in your handbook. Saying that the company “will do…” something and that it “will occur monthly / quarterly / annually…” are solid goal statements, BUT dangerous handbook statements. If you commit to a specific timeline or occurrence, and then fail to meet it, you may open the door for a claim by a terminating employee. The message here — use more words like “may”, “expect to…”, “normally will…”, and so on. Qualifying that it is your intent to meet a timeline is far better than definitively saying you will…and then don’t.