What is malicious compliance
Imagine an employee is following policy rules thoroughly. However, their employer discovers that they are doing so in a way that is still causing some detrimental effects to business operations. Usually, employees get their revenge by following orders exactly, in a way that exploits the original intentions of their manager.
Malicious compliance is also known as ‘malicious obedience’, which wording provides a clearer description of the issue. Employees are still obeying the rules, but despite this they have found ways to cause issues. Overall, however, there is no strict definition of malicious compliance.
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 enact maliciously because they want to make it clear that they believe some workplace rules are inefficient, or they want changes to be made.
Perhaps an employee is disgruntled and is using it to cause problems for their management. Or they disagree with some actions their business has taken recently and want to demonstrate their unhappiness in a way that doesn’t involve 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 demonstrates 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 because of a clear reason, such as frustration due to a lack of opportunity, favouritism within a team or the result of micromanagement. Some employees may cause malicious compliance because they have certain undesirable personality traits and enjoy causing issues. Making them a threat to productivity, company culture and your employer brand.
The right steps for employees to voice complaints
Through enacting malicious compliance, an employee has not taken steps to discuss their concerns with their manager or human resources. If an employee is experiencing bulling or harassment, they may have grounds to escalate this with their business. They can also potentially escalate the issue with an employment tribunal.
There are clear routes for employees to take if they are dissatisfied with the way they are being treated at work. With malicious compliance, they are instead choosing the route of acting against the interests of the business.
Is malicious compliance a reason to fire someone?
Malicious compliance may be grounds to fire someone, depending on the situation. Not only malicious compliance shows a lack of respect for their colleagues and management, it also may have major negative consequences on a company’s image as well as product or service. Additionally, malicious compliance can have long term legal and ethical consequences.
Can businesses themselves cause malicious compliance?
Yes, businesses can also be involved in malicious compliance and be the source of it. Companies might comply with regulations maliciously because they don’t agree with government regulations. However, this may cause issues within markets and supply chains. It can also be hugely detrimental to the success of a business due to legal issues.
In the next step, we will explore some examples of malicious compliance at work.
Examples of malicious compliance at work
Some examples of malicious compliance include:
- A team wears their work uniform, but not properly or safely.
- 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 the meeting of performance targets or commission targets over ethical considerations.
- When asked to make a change, an employee sends a long, convoluted explanation in response detailing how they would make the proposed change.
How to manage malicious compliance at work
The steps employers can take to managing malicious compliance at work depends on the reason for it in the first place. There are also steps employers can implement to prevent malicious compliance from happening. We look at some ways to manage malicious compliance at work.
Micromanagement
Sometimes an employee uses malicious compliance to retaliate against micromanagement. Micromanagement can happen when a manager doesn’t trust their employees to do their job well. This can have a negative impact on team relationships as not feeling trusted can make employees feel like they are incompetent. Fostering strong communication, a culture of innovation, conflict resolution and trust can be key to preventing micromanagement.
Keep policies fresh and logical
Employees can sometimes become frustrated by outdated policies that hold them back 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 cause hindrance rather than help employees. If a business expects employees to be obedient to policies without criticism, even when they aren’t working well for them, this could inspire malicious compliance.
Keeping an eye on key performance indicators and other metrics
Employees might find ways to ‘game’ the meeting of their performance targets. This means that they learn how to appear ultra-efficient and meet their targets while not being as productive as they look. As KPIs measure the achievement of quantitive targets, this can be exploited. For example, if a KPI is ‘number of customer tickets resolved’, then an employee could exploit this by responding to a large amount of customer questions without providing the quality required.
This approach ticks the box but is inefficient and keeps customers returning with further questions. Or they could respond with a solution that’s inaccurate. If commission and pay is driven by the meeting of 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 into 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. Businesses may also benefit from considering alternative performance measurement.
Malicious compliance can be difficult to pinpoint. It generates frustrations for a business and its leaders. It may have major negative consequences such as disrupted supply chains, friction within teams and targets not being met. It can be useful for businesses to uncover the reasons behind malicious compliance and address the issue with the employee. Sometimes, malicious compliance can result from deeper issues with team communications as well as employee satisfaction. However, businesses might also look at whether it is appropriate to dismiss an employee on this basis.
