This inflexibility phenomenon is most prevalent among mid-level managers who sometimes do not see the forest for the trees. Some of these managers forego common sense for easily applied, black letter standards. Others fear reprisal for failing to tow the company line. The downside management-created risk at the opposite end of inflexibility is failure to uniformly apply the manual's standards. While this risk always exists, a manual creates the presumption that standards will be uniformly applied.
Nothing angers a workforce more than management's failure to apply policies in a uniform manner.
Even more dangerous, an employer's failure to uniformly apply its handbook policies is often the reason an employee files a discrimination claim and the manual, in these cases, will invariably be used as evidence to support the claim. Accordingly, when an employer memorializes its policies, it must be prepared to follow them. The primary manual-created disadvantages are products of poor drafting. An imprecise or ambiguous manual is an ineffective tool. It confuses both management and the workforce and often creates divergent expectations between the employer and employees.