It is exciting when we hear people speaking the company has an open-door policy where any employee can go to the CEO and meet them without an appointment or waiting. When we go through a difficult time in our career, we always wish to have an open-door policy. However, most of the startups fail with the open door policy followed in the organization.

Let us get to the basics about how a startup will work. We see the impact when a new company is formed and made its way through the desired market. Each employee’s work is measured. The job assigned to you is different than to the next person in the company. Every small work makes a difference as it is a small organization and managed by a small number of people around.

Why Open Door Policy fail most of the time in a Startup? Below are a few reasons why it would fail according to the research:

1. Time Management will be difficult for CEO and Manager: If you got an employee entering into your cabin and start speaking about things that are not related to you. What would you do? In this policy, we have to listen to employees’ concerns. There is no way to say I cannot talk to you now. The time managed by the senior leader for dedicated work is wasted listening to people. The plan for the day is mismatched. Productivity will go down.
2. Miss match in the department: The CEO would hire a Marketing Expert, HR, Finance, Operations expert to assign job according to the job role and work for the company. A single person cannot handle all the departments. So the idea, complaints are funneled to the wrong person at the wrong time. If a Finance subordinate goes to CEO and discusses the software issue, he has in his system. Is that CEO’s responsibility?
3. Lack of Motivation: If a company has a proper organization structure and then the employee knows their responsibility and will resolve any issue he faces. The policy here allows the employee to go to the CEO every time with silly problems that could be solved themselves. Now, once they are aware of a different option for their problems, they would always wish not to solve it themselves.
4. The decision-Making process: Each employee in the company is capable of deciding within the department. If the employee goes to the CEO without consulting the reporting manager and gets it approved. Now, the decision making authority given to the manager is of no use. The responsibility is drained or wasted in implementing such a policy.
5. Instead of a conversation, it will be complaining: Most of the employees want someone to gossip about what is wrong in their department. We see a very less number of people who would give a solution to a problem or situation than a complaint. The conversation with the CEO would turn to a complaint box policy than productive work.

The Open Dorr Policy would work in an organization that is bigger with the employee and, the Senior Management manages people rather than working with them. It is recommended to decide and think of the policy you adopt. The CEO of the company should be approachable, but not so much that everyone can go and sit in the cabin.