Corporate compliances are one of the most basic requirements to run a business. Following them is tedious and technical, and most of the time requires following rules and regulations down to the exact details. But what happens when someone follows the rules and yet somehow manages to break them because they followed everything word for word? That’s exactly what malicious compliance refers to. It’s when an employee follows a rule exactly how it is written, even when there is a known flaw, taking advantage of the rule in ways that the “rule writer” didn’t anticipate. They intentionally exploit the flaw, often leading to a negative outcome with no options to consequence the employee because they didn’t technically break the rule.

At what point does malicious compliance become unacceptable? Every business has to follow set guidelines to operate within the law. This article highlights the major factors about malicious compliances and how to avoid them.

What is Malicious Compliance?

Malicious compliance is an intentional act of causing outrage by following the orders of a superior knowing the result will be negative. This usually occurs in the form of an employee following an order in a way that undermines the order’s intent, while still following the order precisely as stated. One example of this is of two soldiers who were commanded to “paint the whole room white” by an overbearing superior. They did in fact end up following orders and painted the entire room white including the lights, furniture, windows and even the fittings.

This sort of behavior is often deemed to be passive-aggressive and is linked with other social traits such as poor relationship management, micromanaging tendencies, bad leadership skills and duplicative or dangerous operation. While malicious compliance could be seen in any aspect of life it is most often observed in employees as an act of rebellion who think a company policy is too restrictive or stupid. In reality, it is a corporate set-ups way to reinforce balance, control and consideration among the company. So pushing rules or breaking them might seem fun but it also reflects characteristics that may not be appreciated or looked up to.

How Does Malicious Compliance Affect Businesses?

Malicious compliance affects every industry differently. While a few domains can get away with it, others might fall into problems for not following the policies. Malicious compliance mainly occurs in a professional environment, often as a response to unfair policies being imposed by the company without considering the consequences. In such cases, the employees tend to get rebellious and take revenge against seniors or the company as a whole by following orders aggressively or even after knowing that doing so would result in damage. Some of the most evident effects of malicious compliance seen in businesses are:

1. Disfigured Professional Relations

Malicious compliance can cause a breach of trust and lead to reallocation of work and responsibilities. Not being able to trust employees with responsibilities can be exhausting and result in a lack of efficiency. This cycle isn’t healthy and ultimately affects your business functionality. It’s best to work out such cases rather than letting them hamper the work environment. Trust issues between the company and employees can be worked upon through various communication techniques, such as regular employee check-ins or implementing an open-door policy to encourage employees to openly discuss issues with management.

2. Policy Changes

Even though not all malicious compliance activities are always harming, what matters the most is the intention that drove the action. Instances of malicious compliance may or may not lead to legal consequences – regardless of the outcome, these actions are the result of strict rule-following, meaning that technically no rules have been broken.. However, even without legal repercussions, malicious compliance can damage your business, making employees uncomfortable, resulting in an immediate need to change the current policies. Once a loophole is exposed, your company or decision-maker might have to re-work policies so the same mistake isn’t repeated by anyone else. Regardless of what changes are needed, it’s important to remember that setting an example through passive punishments may not really be the most healthy way to deal with malicious compliance and can affect how employees feel about your company as a whole.

3. Brand Image

If the act of malicious compliance affects the work directly or goes public, it is reflected in the outcome of the work. This may hamper your business image and can influence the perspectives of your clients. The best way to deal with this would ideally be damage control, but the most effective way is to work through the issues of why it happened and what can be done to make the situation work in favor of your business without harming the reputation of the company or putting the employee at stake.

Purpose

Malicious compliance is mostly the result of imposing unfair orders on employees without considering the consequences. Employees act knowing that following orders will lead to negative outcomes for their supervisors or even the company as a whole. They don’t communicate about the defect in the order or the policy and instead follow the guidelines by the letter causing problems as an act of revenge.

A direct example of malicious compliance would be a restaurant where the security guard sends in a guest who sneaks in alcohol despite careful security checks. The manager calls out the security for not checking the guests properly and he reasons with the manager stating that he did but, it isn’t possible to be stringent which will make the guests uncomfortable. To this, the manager doesn’t give any importance to his explanation and rather humiliates him saying he’s supposed to be thorough with his security checks. In retaliation, the guard starts checking all the guests aggressively asking them to empty their purses or being strict with them. This results in the security check process being slowed down and the guests leaving because they were upset. This is malicious compliance by the security guard because he followed the orders word-for-word with the wrong intention of harming the restaurant’s publicity and treating its customers in a way that would jeopardize the customer experience.

Now the question that arises is how do we deal with such instances of malicious compliance and what can be done to prevent it?

Prevention

Dealing with employees who engage in malicious compliance can be tricky. It may require patience and consideration of the situation before you can determine if and how to reprimand the employee in question. Something that needs to be kept in mind is that irrespective of the position of the employee, they are still humans and have self-respect that needs to be kept intact. With this in mind, the best way to handle malicious compliance is to stop it before it ever happens. So, how do you prevent malicious compliance without hurting an employee? Here are a few ways:

1. Listen to Your Employees

For almost every situation that comes up, there is a reasonable explanation. Don’t be aggressive with your approach the very first time something happens. Understand what happened and give your employee a chance to explain what happened and why they acted the way they did. This allows them to discuss a problem openly, providing you with the opportunity to help them think of a better approach to deal with the situation next time it arises. This can also be seen as an opportunity to understand and learn about both new challenges and those that come up time and again in a business environment. Being aggressive with your employees will only result in making the situation worse.

2. Review And Revisiting Your Policies

There is a fair chance that there might be loopholes in your rules and regulations. It is best to keep revisiting them regularly. This will help maintain a good work environment, keep your policies updated and avoid any act of malicious compliance. Once someone finds a loophole in the policies, it is easy for others to keep exploiting them. The best practice is to revisit policies at regular intervals as well as when new loopholes are found. This will slowly and steadily seal your policies leaving no room for errors.

3. Show Trust in Your Employees

When a situation arises, it is important to show faith in your employees. There is a possibility that their behavior might be justified depending on the situation, but doubting their instincts won’t help you have a productive conversation. Instead of doubting them, you could hear them out and make them understand what would be a better approach that they can take in the future. This way, you can constructively handle the situation and work as a team towards solving the problem. Remember, it is you and them versus the problem, not you versus them.

Managerial Avoidance

As the phrase in “Spider-Man” goes, with great power comes great responsibility. As a superior in a work environment, it falls upon you to avoid complexities from arising, as much as possible. There are things you can do as a manager to avoid your business from malicious compliance. Some of those things are:

1. Clarify Policy

As a manager, it falls upon you to make sure you explain the terms and policies of the company to your employees in the beginning and be willing to re-explain as needed. Deliver your policies with as many details as possible; short and to the point policies create room for errors. Make sure you are as clear as possible and be sure to address even the smallest of doubts when discussing the policies. You could use examples and personal learnings to explain how each policy affects the company, helping employees understand the outcome of following each policy properly.

2. Determine Causes

Another common reason for malicious compliance is vague and non-specific policies. Make sure your policies are clear and communicated well. Discuss the reason for each policy and the cause and effect of not following them. This will help each employee to understand what each policy stands for and the importance of following each. When you deliver the reason and causes for following the policies, remember to deliver the effects of policy breach as a piece of precautionary information and not a warning.

3. Encourage Communications

Despite clarifying policies, there is a possibility that employees may doubt some of what you say or still be confused about the rules. Encourage your employees or team to reach out to you and communicate in case they are not sure of what would be the right way to go about in a given situation without causing damage. This could be one of the ways to avoid any unforeseen damages and develop an open path of communication for all employees.

Key Takeaways

In summary:

1. Written rules are bound to be imperfect and may have flaws.
2. People tend to push boundaries when rules are involved, especially when they’ve found a flaw.
3. Co-designing, co-development and co-production while formulating rules with the people who are subjected to follow them may generate better results.
4. Do regular compliance checks or audits to re-evaluate the existing rules.