What is malicious compliance?

There is no strict definition of malicious compliance, but it may be described as a case in which an employee follows policy rules thoroughly, but their employer discovers that they are doing so in a way that still has some detrimental effects on business operations. Usually, employees cause malicious compliance by following orders in ways that exploit their manager’s original intentions.

Malicious compliance is also known as ‘malicious obedience’: this wording may provide a clearer description of the issue. Employees are still obeying the rules, but despite this, they find ways in which to cause issues.

Why does malicious compliance happen?

It can be difficult to pinpoint motivations for malicious compliance, particularly if an employee denies any accusations of it. Sometimes, an employee may comply maliciously to make it clear that they believe certain workplace rules are inefficient or want changes to be made.

They may have made more professionally appropriate attempts to raise their concerns in the past and found that their point of view was disregarded. Or they may disagree with some actions your company has taken recently and want to express their unhappiness without breaking the rules.

Malicious compliance and employee discontent

Regardless of the intention behind malicious compliance, it can be a complex issue for employers to address. Malicious compliance could demonstrate a lack of communication between an employee and their management. 

Fundamentally, it shows employee discontent and a lack of commitment or at least ambivalence about their role. This could be due to a clear reason, such as frustration at a lack of opportunity, favouritism within a team or micromanagement. Some employees may cause malicious compliance due to personal issues that are unrelated to the workplace. Whatever the reason, this behaviour could damage productivity, company culture and your employer brand.

Raising complaints appropriately

In an effort to prevent cases of malicious compliance, it may be useful to outline your organisation’s complaints procedure and provide it to new employees when they join your company. You could include it in your employee handbook, for example. You could also make your HR and management teams aware of your policy and ensure that they discuss it with your staff.

There are cases in which you may need to act when an employee raises concerns, for example, if an employee is experiencing bullying or harassment. They can also potentially escalate pressing issues to an employment tribunal if they feel they have been treated unfairly.

Is malicious compliance a reason to dismiss someone?

Malicious compliance may be grounds to let someone go, depending on the situation. Not only does malicious compliance show a lack of respect for colleagues and management, but it may also have negative consequences on your company’s image, products or services. You may need to contact a legal professional for advice before dismissing someone from their role, and further information about dismissing staff can be found on the gov.uk website.

Can businesses themselves cause malicious compliance?

Yes, businesses can also be involved in malicious compliance and be the source of it. For example, companies might comply with regulations in a malicious manner because they don’t agree with government regulations. However, this may cause issues within markets and supply chains. It could also negatively impact a business’s success.

Examples of malicious compliance at work

Some examples of malicious compliance include:

• A team wearing their work uniform, but not in a proper or safe manner.
• A product team designs a new product which meets company and government regulations. However, it is still not of a good industry standard and doesn’t have features that make it competitive in the current market.
• An employee’s manager asks them to strictly follow working hours set out for them, so they do, but refuse to take any overtime.
• An employee starts prioritising meeting performance targets or commission targets over other equally important considerations.
• When asked to make a change, an employee sends a long, overly detailed explanation in response, detailing how they would make the proposed change.

Guidance on managing malicious compliance at work

The steps employers could take to manage malicious compliance at work depend on the reason it’s occurring in the first place. There are some steps employers may take to prevent malicious compliance. Let’s look at some ways to manage malicious compliance at work.

Avoid micromanagement

Sometimes an employee may use malicious compliance to oppose micromanagement. Micromanagement may occur when a manager doesn’t trust their employees to do their job well. This can have a negative impact on team relationships, as employees may be made to feel as if they are incompetent if they feel they are not trusted to do their jobs.

Fostering strong communication, a culture of innovation, conflict resolution and trust could help prevent micromanagement.

Keep policies up to date and logical

Employees can sometimes become frustrated by outdated policies that prevent them from doing their job efficiently. Perhaps their role could benefit from using new technology or approaches, which haven’t been thoroughly considered by their business.

Business policies may not account for the day-to-day reality of following them and may be more of a hindrance than a help for employees. If a business expects employees to follow policies without criticism, even when they aren’t working well for them, this could inspire malicious compliance.

Monitor key performance indicators and other metrics

Employees might find ways to meet their performance targets in a maliciously compliant way. In other words, they may appear to be extremely efficient and meet their targets while not being so productive in reality.

KPIs may be exploited as they measure the achievement of quantitative targets. For example, if a KPI is ‘number of customer tickets resolved’, then an employee could exploit this by responding to a large number of customer questions without providing the quality service or solutions required.

This approach is inefficient and keeps customers returning with further questions. If commission and pay is driven by key performance indicators, employees might be encouraged to start exploiting these targets instead of using them as a genuine incentive.

Therefore, businesses may benefit from looking closely at how their KPI tools work. Consider what aspects of a workflow they track and whether it’s sufficient to judge an employee’s performance on them. Businesses may also benefit from considering alternative performance measurement.

Malicious compliance can be difficult to detect. It generates frustrations for a business, management and fellow colleagues. It may also have negative consequences, such as disrupted supply chains, friction within teams and targets not being met.

Businesses may therefore do well do to uncover the reasons behind malicious compliance and address the issue with the employee in question. Sometimes, malicious compliance can result from deeper issues with team communications or employee satisfaction, so it may help to communicate with your employees to resolve any potential issues or areas of dissatisfaction.