As a manager, can you have “global” policies and decisions?

Quick answer: yes.

Longer answer: there is a lot you have to do to make sure that “yes” is legal in all the places where you have team members.

Whether you are managing in a multi-state environment in the U.S. or have team members in multiple countries, you are at the mercy of all applicable laws: country > state/region > local.

Example: United States > New York State > New York City

If you are clear to make a decision in Texas, you also have to be sure it’s gucci in let’s say Ireland.

Which according to Irish courts, Elon Musk and team did not do in a recent ruling on a termination case. An email sent out company-wide with an ultimatum of: agree to the requirements listed or not doing so is a sign of your resignation.

In “at-will” land aka most of the U.S., while messy and not recommended, this approach seemed to fly. But the Irish said not so fast. So much so, they awarded the terminated employee the equivalent of about $600,000 USD. X’s determination that the team member resigned simply because they didn’t hit a “yes” button on an email violated law, a court ruled.

You might say this is on-brand for Elon, but broad sweeping decisions like this happen daily in the business world.

It’s important you understand the ins and outs of the laws where you have team members. You by no means have to be an expert if you are a front-line manager, but you do need to be informed, so you are operating within the right boundaries. It helps to have a great relationship with HR (or an external equivalent if no in-house HR team).

Most common areas where mistakes are made:

• Time and attendance including PTO - shoutout to California for their California Lunch Penalty law (CLP)
• Termination - like what happened with X
• Payroll taxes - most commonly putting someone somewhere new without setting up state/local payroll taxes
• Safety regulations - state OSHAs like to be different from federal OSHA, fun!
• Employment agreements - what people can/cannot/required to sign like sales commission, non-competitions, and EEOC rights

When I work with managers, compliance is part of every conversation in some capacity because it’s a fundamental part of managing people. It’s also the company’s achilles heel and in some cases can bring about criminal charges like timecard fraud.

It might be boring, but getting the fine print right from a legal/policy standpoint is critical for being a strong manager of people.