To go or not to go, that is the question

NaeNae55

Here's some light reading appropriate for the rest room.

[url]http://www.nbcnews.com/business/business-news/hell-no-you-cant-go-teamsters-dont-bathroom-rules-n158431[/url]

Celeste Blackburn SPHR

There's so much in this one article that it's hard to figure out where to start--the terrible policy, the bathroom humor, the puns!

1. It's HR's job to hand our rewards or discipline based on bathroom behavior. It's like the cliche' of HR being middle school hall monitors come to life. I'm sure the HR team was super excited to find out this would be added to their list of duties.

2. A dollar a day for not using the bathroom for too long? It sounds like a weird adult potty training. Also, I wonder if this is counted as a bonus and figured into wage and hour calculations? If I were in the union, I'd be making that case.

3. Employees are to "refrain from 'malicious gossip.'" Again, it's hard not to think of middle school. But more seriously, it seems this could be infringing on the employees' Section 7 rights to protected concerted activity. Here's a recent HL article about a similar issue [URL="http://www.hrhero.com/hl/articles/2014/06/13/nlrb-rejects-common-handbook-policies-barring-negativity/"][I]NLRB rejects common handbook policies barring 'negativity.[/I][/URL]'

4. How does is this not going to be an ADA issue? Now HR is going to have to go through the ADA accommodation process with anyone with IBS or taking medication that has side effects leading to more than 6 minutes a day outside of regular breaks. Sounds like fun.

5. I thought this quote was particularly telling, "Ha, I'd like to see them try to require an engineer swipe his badge to use the bathroom." So the white collar workers across the street can hang out in the bathroom as long as they want. While I can understand that the Waterworks employees are probably working on a line where it could cause problems for someone to be gone while the engineers don't have that issue, setting up that kind of us vs. them within an organization is never good for morale.

6. Finally, if I found out that my bathroom time was being monitored, I would know it was time to start looking for a new job. Seriously, that's got to be a sign that things are really going downhill or that management has no respect for its workers.

NaeNae55

The management team at this place appears to consider workers as children who are not to be trusted lest they get cheated out of 2 minutes a day. Let's face it, 2 minutes a day can add up, but I have always believed that happy/content workers are more productive.

I found them absurd to the Nth degree, and not worth a roll of TP.