Thought Leadership from the World of Work

Most employees come to work intending to do a good job.

That isn't a wish. It's what I've seen play out over nearly three decades inside corporate HR — across recruiting, performance, employee relations, and the day-to-day reality of running people operations. The overwhelming majority of people I've worked with showed up intending to do right by their team, their customers, and themselves. Day in, day out.

I call this The 95% Rule: roughly 95% of employees come to work intending to do a good job — and far too much of what we build around them is designed to control the small minority who might not.

The trouble with building for the 5%

The problem usually isn't people. It's the systems we create to guard against the people who might abuse them.

Think about how most organizations actually operate. Attendance trackers that assume nobody can be trusted to manage their own time. Approval layers that exist because somebody — somewhere — once took advantage. Policy manuals thick enough to read as binders, written mostly to cover the organization's back rather than to help people do their best work. Performance processes built around documenting problems instead of developing potential.

Each rule on its own seems reasonable. A few bad actors caused it, right? So we add a safeguard. Then another. Then another.

But here's what quietly happens: every safeguard aimed at the 5% gets applied to all 100. The employee who has never once taken advantage of anything now has to justify their time, clear their schedule through layers, and work inside a system that started from a place of suspicion. Over time, that's what people begin to feel — and behave accordingly.

Distrust breeds exactly the disengagement it fears

This is the trap. When leadership assumes people want to do good work, teams respond with ownership, judgment, and effort. When leadership assumes people are looking for an angle, teams respond to that too.

Slowly, a workplace built to control the 5% teaches the 95% that they aren't trusted. And that — not the handful of bad actors the rules were invented for — is what drains engagement, slows decisions, and pushes good people toward the exit.

A better way to run a workplace

None of this means being naive or abandoning accountability. It means flipping the default. Build the workplace around the 95%, not the 5%.

Trust as the default. Start from the belief that people want to do good work, and let them prove it. Accountability lives happily next to trust — most people respond to responsibility by taking more of it.

Policy that protects, not punishes. Rules should exist to support the majority who do the right thing — not to police the few who don't. Every policy is worth revisiting: does this help the 95% work better, or is it really aimed at the 5%? If it's the latter, it probably deserves a close look.

Performance management that develops. Systems built around catching problems short-change the people doing the work. Build practices that coach, develop, and recognize — not just document and discipline.

Culture as a promise kept. Culture isn't a poster on the wall. It's whether the workplace actually believes people are the asset — and behaves like it every day.

Your guide through the world of work

None of this is abstract theory. It's the practical reality of leading people, built on years of doing HR the messy, human way. When we stop designing workplaces around the 5% and start designing them for the 95%, work gets better — for everyone.

If The 95% Rule resonates, you can go deeper: hear it on The HRKyle Podcast, bring it to your team as a keynote or workshop, or read it in Kyle's books. It's a lens for a growing body of writing, speaking, and training on leadership, culture, and the future of work.