BHP is pinching IBM’s clean desk policy… and then some

This was originally published: 24 August 2011
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Yesterday, The Australian newspaper uncovered BHP’s tough new office etiquette laws, and they seem a bit… over-the-top, to say the least.

Here’s the graphic from the article:

See what I mean? It seems to me that BHP expect their staff to work in an office devoid of all soul and personality. It’s no surprise that the staff are up in arms about the whole thing.

This part of the article caught my attention though, which sounds just like the IBM clean desk policy that I’ve written about previously on Smarter Admins:

Workers are told in the memo that cleaners will inspect their desks each night and throw away anything apart from a monitor, docking station, keyboard, mouse, phone and “one framed picture”.

I wonder if the cleaners are going to get paid overtime? I imagine that removing the contents of everyone’s desk would be tad time-consuming — in the first week, at least.

I would hate to be the managers who will be responsible for ensuring these new rules are followed… “Smith, please take down that Dilbert cartoon from your partition wall”. Although I would dearly love to be responsible for telling staff to set their mobiles to silent. It’s actually something I have fantasised about for years.

But on the other side of the coin, I am assuming that BHP has implemented these rules because of a lot of problems.

Because staff insist on reheating last night’s stinky fish in the kitchen*.

Because staff leave coats on their chairs, the coats fall off and they trip on their own coats*.

Because the almost constant noise of colleagues’ mobile phone ringtones, email notification, SMS notifications and Words With Friends notifications could actually be considered as noise pollution*.

Because staff should be concentrating on doing their job instead of selecting which borderline-inappropriate posters of chicks in bikinis they should display in their cubicle*.

* I’ve actually worked in offices where these things have happened (actually, all these things happened in the same office).

Come to think of it, I’m starting to see where BHP is coming from…

Do you have office etiquette rules in your workplace?