Political Correctness in Business

A few years back I was doing some work for a large manufacturer with a 150 acre campus as they called it. Major worldwide corporation and a good one. One day the HR department, at the behest of Division headquarters, announced to the 4,000 or so workers, industrial workers, that the entire facility would soon become 'no smoking'. That meant you had to walk off corporate property, no easy task, and stand along the street to smoke, ala 'off campus'.

Now I'm not a smoker and am not a supporter of smoking and I'm not a rocket scientist either - but I did know this was going to be a problem. It is the fashionable thing to do these days, ban smoking, but in a large plant of 4,000 workers? Seemed a little too political correct to me.

There were three or four nearby plants and the ban lasted maybe a week or two when the plant I was working at announced a 'change' to their ban. You would only be aloud to smoke off campus as in the beginning ... but with a new twist. They had a very large tent between two of the three or four buildings and HR used their considerable power (and stupidity) to declare this area, under the tent, 'off campus'.

So although it was in the middle of the 150 acres it was 'off campus' and you can imagine how the cynacism and respect of the workforce for management tumbled yet further after this debacle. Where have all the leaders gone?