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Companies have a lot of policies that they want all the employees to follow in order to ensure everything is kept uniform across the organization.

What would you do if you were a middle manager at a large company, and you didn’t enforce many of the corporate rules on things like dress code and tattoos because you didn’t think they were good?

That is what the manager in this story was doing, but the other managers got upset because it meant his team had different rules than the others. He doesn’t want to change because his team performs well, but it is causing conflict.

Personally, I think he should follow the corporate rules and if they aren’t good, he should work to get them changed. Read through the full story below and see what you think.

AITA for trying to be a good manager, but creating an unfair disparity between my subordinates and other groups?

The operations of the companies I work for are divided into districts (semi-local), regions (parts of states), states, and national levels of management.

Middle management plays an important role in some companies.

I’m the regional director of the region I’m in, which means I’m over 3 districts.

The company as a whole has a pretty bad culture. Lots of unnecessary rules, unnecessarily inefficient processes, rigid structure, “dictator-like” managerial staff, high turnover, etc.

If he can make things better, he should.

As regional directors we have a lot of power to change that in our regions (despite a lot of unbacked pressure/threats from higher ups).

In the region I work for, we have some of the highest productivity among any region in the country or company operation in the world.

Getting rid of bad or outdated policies can help employees do well.

In my opinion, the only reason for that is I don’t enforce rigid and useless rules, I allow subordinates to change ineffective/inefficient processes, I defend my subordinates, I’m not finding it necessary to hire/fire people, etc.

As a small example, companywide policy doesn’t allow nail paint / tattoos / piercings, dress is super modest hyperformal – I don’t find that necessary for safety or working well with customers.

I can see how this would cause problems.

My policy is field operations are dress for comfort, office/customer-facing work is business casual, piercings are fine excluding when it becomes a hazard in the field, uncovered tattoos are fine unless there’s vulgarity, etc)

I’m getting push back from higher-ups about it, I’m getting a metric ton of attitude from other regional directors – basically saying that I’m creating an unfair disparity between us and them by not following company policies.

It isn’t right to tell other managers to break policy and put their jobs at risk.

I’m also in a position where despite how unliked I am by others it’d be incredibly difficult to get rid of me, and if they happen to, I have job security elsewhere.

My response is if they don’t want a disparity, use common sense rules and eventually the company as a whole will either have to give in or override us which would be a very bad business decision.

It seems odd that upper management doesn’t have any power here.

Of course the higher ups don’t like it, but aside from empty threats they, don’t have a lot of ability to do anything about it.

AITA?

A company as large as this will usually have corporate policies that everyone has to follow. If he doesn’t like them, he should work to get them changed, not just ignore them.

Read on to see what the people in the comments have to say about it.

Companies do hold on to outdated policies very tightly.

Maybe the company will change their policies, someday.

I agree with this commenter.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about a woman who is let go from a charity due to budget cuts, then gets blowback from the board over her severance.

Here is someone who says he is being a good manager.

This commenter thinks he is doing the right thing.

He is proving that the policy is ineffective, which is ruffling some feathers. That being said, part of being a manager is following the rules, so he should do that.

Going to upper management and trying to get the rules modified is the best way to handle this. Some companies, however, are very slow to change.