The Psychology of Compliance: Why Employees Ignore Rules (and How to Fix It)?

The Human Factor Behind Broken Rules

Employees bypass company rules every day, from a warehouse worker skipping a safety step to an office employee sidestepping a cybersecurity policy to meet a deadline. It’s a perplexing challenge: despite having rules and training in place, even well-intentioned staff sometimes choose convenience over compliance. In one survey, 87% of employees said they encountered situations in the past year where they didn’t know how to comply with a policy, and two-thirds admitted to not fully following security rules at least once in a two-week period. These lapses aren’t usually acts of rebellion or laziness. In fact, research shows that most rule violations are “intentional yet non-malicious,” driven by employees trying to get their work done under pressure. In other words, people often break rules not because they don’t care, but because something in their environment or mindset pushes them in that direction.

Understanding the psychology behind noncompliance is critical. It’s rarely as simple as “bad employee = breaks rules.” More often, deeper factors like organizational culture, stress, habits, or unclear communication are at play. Employees are naturally drawn to the path of least resistance, especially if they don’t feel a personal connection to the purpose behind a rule. To truly address compliance, companies must look beyond just enforcing rules and consider the human factors influencing behavior. Whether you’re an HR professional dealing with policy adherence, or a business leader fostering an ethical workplace, it pays to recognize why employees ignore rules in the first place. Only then can you apply the right strategies to fix it. This article explores the common psychological and organizational reasons employees ignore rules, and how to turn things around, from building a supportive compliance culture to designing better training and policies that employees will actually follow.

Table of Contents

• Why Employees Ignore the Rules
• The Cost of Ignoring Rules
• How to Fix It: Strategies for Better Compliance
• Final thoughts: Compliance Starts with People

Understanding why employees ignore policies or procedures is the first step toward improving compliance. It’s usually not that workers are careless or ill-intentioned, often, they have reasons (or rationalizations) for their behavior. Here are some of the most common factors that lead to rule-breaking in the workplace:

• Time pressure and convenience: Under tight deadlines or high stress, employees may cut corners, viewing certain rules as time-consuming hurdles. For example, a worker rushing to finish a task might skip a required equipment check because “it’s faster this way.” Studies confirm that time pressure is a top-cited reason for corner-cutting in safety and security practices. In one study of remote employees, 67% admitted failing to fully adhere to cybersecurity policies at least once over 10 workdays, often “to better accomplish tasks for my job”. In short, people ignore rules when following them seems to impede getting the job done quickly.
  
• “Everyone else does it”, social norms: Workplace culture heavily influences compliance. If employees see peers or even managers routinely bypass a rule without consequence, it quickly feels acceptable to do the same. New hires, for instance, will take cues from veterans. A 2024 study found nearly half of workers (49%) admit to breaking rules they view as impractical, especially when they observe others doing so. In these cases, noncompliance becomes “normalized.” The rule isn’t seen as a real rule anymore, it’s just red tape that everyone unofficially agrees to ignore. Social proof (“everyone else is ignoring it”) can overpower written policy.
  
• Lack of awareness or confusion: Some employees break rules simply because they don’t know them, don’t remember them, or find them confusing. Especially in large organizations, policies can change or new rules roll out without every employee fully understanding them. In a late-2023 Gartner survey, 87% of employees said they had faced situations in the past year where they didn’t know how to comply with a policy. Even experienced staff can miss updates or rely on outdated knowledge, one report noted long-tenured workers are more likely to underestimate certain risks, having grown complacent over time. When rules aren’t clearly communicated (or are too complex), uncertainty leads to mistakes or to employees improvising their own “workarounds.”
  
• Rules seen as burdensome or impractical: If following a rule makes an employee’s job significantly harder or slower, they might be tempted to bypass it. Think of safety gear that’s uncomfortable or slows productivity, or multi-step software login procedures that interrupt workflow. When compliance measures feel like obstacles, motivation drops. Often, workers ignore such rules not out of defiance but as a pragmatic choice, they believe they’re being more efficient or helpful. In cybersecurity interviews, employees commonly admitted they violated policies “to better accomplish tasks” or “to help others get their work done,” not to cause harm. In short, if a rule is perceived as impractical, employees will find a path of least resistance around it.
  
• Complacency and low risk perception: Humans are prone to underestimating risks if an adverse event hasn’t happened recently (or ever). If ignoring a rule hasn’t yet led to visible harm, people can develop a false sense of security. An employee might think, “I’ve skipped this step before and nothing bad happened, so it’s fine.” This complacency is dangerous. For example, in safety contexts, when a workplace goes a long time without an accident, some workers start believing “no one gets hurt anyway,” which leads them to slack off on precautions. The same happens with data security (e.g. not seeing an immediate breach after bending a protocol leads employees to believe the risk is negligible). In reality, the absence of immediate consequences reinforces the risky behavior, until a disaster eventually occurs.
  
• Poor engagement or morale: Disengaged, unhappy employees tend to care less about following rules. When people feel alienated or unappreciated at work, compliance becomes a low priority. Recent Gallup research showed only ~31% of U.S. employees are engaged at work, the lowest level in a decade. This matters because disengaged workers are far more likely to overlook safety procedures and ethical guidelines, whereas engaged employees are “more focused, attentive, and proactive” about such things. Low morale or mistrust in leadership can foster cynicism, employees may think management itself doesn’t truly care about the rules (especially if enforcement is lax or leadership doesn’t follow the rules either). In such an environment, rule-breaking becomes routine. Additionally, if an employee feels the company isn’t loyal to them, they’re less inclined to be loyal to company policies.
  
• Lack of accountability or follow-through: When employees see that reporting issues leads nowhere or that violations go unpunished, they lose faith in the system. A culture of “no accountability” breeds further noncompliance. For instance, if someone reports a safety hazard or a policy gap and management fails to act, employees learn to stop raising concerns. Why bother following rules or alerting anyone if “nobody follows up anyway”? This was highlighted in a safety context, a lack of follow-through from leadership can break trust and eventually lead to more unsafe behavior. Similarly, if a few individuals constantly ignore rules and face no consequences, others will feel it’s unfair or pointless to comply themselves.
  
• Fear of speaking up: Ironically, fear can both discourage compliance and hide its failures. In some workplaces, employees are afraid to question a rule or flag a problem. They might notice that a procedure is unworkable or that colleagues are cutting corners, but they stay silent out of fear of retaliation or embarrassment. This means management loses the opportunity to learn about issues and improve policies. It also means bad practices continue in the shadows. When people “don’t feel safe speaking up,” minor noncompliance can snowball into major incidents. A lack of open communication, an absence of psychological safety, thus indirectly encourages rule-breaking, since nobody discusses or corrects the underlying issues.
  

Rationalization (and the rare malice): Finally, there’s the classic human tendency to rationalize one’s own behavior. An employee might internally justify a violation: “This rule doesn’t really apply to this situation,” or “I know the policy says X, but my intention is good so it’s okay.” In the Gartner survey, 77% of employees admitted to rationalizing that noncompliance was “not wrong” in certain contexts. People can mentally reframe a bad choice as acceptable if it serves their immediate needs or seems harmless. This overlaps with many of the reasons above (pressure, convenience, etc., all make it easier to rationalize). On the other hand, a small minority of employees do ignore rules with malicious intent, for example, to retaliate against the company or for personal gain. Thankfully, this is far less common (only about 3–4% of cases), but it does occur. Such “bad actors” are a concern, yet most compliance problems are not due to rogue employees, but rather everyday people trying to balance rules with real-world job demands.

Failing to address noncompliance isn’t just a theoretical problem, it has real and often hefty consequences for organizations and their people. When employees ignore important rules, the risks can range from human injury to financial and reputational catastrophe. Here are a few ways noncompliance hits hard:

• Accidents and safety incidents: In physical industries (manufacturing, construction, healthcare, etc.), ignored safety protocols can literally be life-and-death. In 2023, U.S. employers reported over 2.6 million workplace injuries and illnesses, and noncompliance with safety rules was a major contributing factor. Each bypassed lockout procedure or forgotten piece of protective gear increases the chance of an accident. Besides the human toll, these incidents also cost companies in workers’ comp, lost productivity, and legal liabilities. Many seriously injured employees never return to work, forcing companies to recruit and train replacements. In short, cutting safety corners to save a few minutes can result in consequences that last years.
  
• Regulatory penalties and lawsuits: Organizations that don’t enforce compliance may find themselves on the wrong side of the law. Regulators impose steep fines for willful violations. For example, OSHA (the Occupational Safety and Health Administration) can levy penalties over $160,000 for a single serious safety violation, and that’s per incident. Data privacy regulators, financial authorities, and other regulators are similarly tough on noncompliance. Beyond fines, there’s the risk of lawsuits. If an incident occurs because an employee ignored a procedure (especially if it’s known to be a common issue), the company can be deemed negligent. Legal costs, settlements, and judgments can quickly soar into the millions. And even if a company wins a case, the legal fees and negative publicity still hurt. In one infamous compliance failure, for instance, Wells Fargo faced $185 million in fines and a massive reputational hit when employees, under intense sales pressure, violated ethical rules by creating fake customer accounts, a scandal that reverberated for years (reference[^1]).
  
• Cybersecurity breaches and losses: In the digital realm, one employee clicking a malicious link or using a weak password (in violation of security policy) can unleash havoc. A dramatic example was the Colonial Pipeline cyberattack in 2021: an employee’s compromised credentials led to a pipeline shutdown and a $5 million ransom payment, disrupting fuel supply on the U.S. East Coast. Similarly, the world’s largest meat processor had to pay $11 million after a ransomware attack. Many such breaches start with an employee ignoring security guidelines, such as falling for a phishing email or storing data insecurely. The scope of damage can be enormous: in 2024, over 1.3 billion people were impacted by data breaches or leaks, showing how widespread and severe the fallout can be. Companies suffer direct financial losses, ransom payouts, regulatory fines (for data protection violations), and long-term loss of customer trust when these incidents occur.
  
• Reputation and trust damage: Publicized compliance failures (whether a safety accident, scandal, or data breach) erode trust among customers, partners, and employees. A company known for ignoring rules or having a “whatever it takes” culture can quickly lose its reputation for integrity. This can drive away business and also hurt employee morale, people generally don’t want to stay at a place that doesn’t value their safety or ethics. Internally, when rule-breaking is tolerated, it can breed resentment among those who do follow the rules (why should they bother, if others get away with not following?). Over time, that cynicism can poison the culture. In contrast, organizations with strong compliance and ethics tend to earn more trust and loyalty from stakeholders.
  
• Operational inefficiencies: There’s also a less obvious cost: when policies aren’t consistently followed, operations get sloppy. For instance, if each employee “does their own thing” instead of following standard procedures, you get inconsistencies and errors. One team might handle a process one way, and another team a different way, leading to confusion, quality issues, or duplicated effort. Additionally, when policies are neglected, employees often waste time searching for clarity or reinventing the wheel. One study found the average employee spends over 3 hours a day searching for information they need to do their job, often because guidelines aren’t clear or accessible. All this hurts productivity. In short, ignoring rules might save a few minutes in the moment, but it creates far more costs down the line, in accidents, fines, breaches, poor quality, and lost efficiency. The “price” of noncompliance, both human and financial, far outweighs the perceived short-term gains of cutting corners.
  

(^1: The Wells Fargo example is provided for illustration; see references for a detailed account.)

If employees are ignoring rules for various psychological and practical reasons, how can organizations turn things around? The solution isn’t simply “enforce the rules harder.” As we’ve seen, compliance is as much about culture and human behavior as it is about checklists and penalties. Here are several strategies, rooted in psychology and good management practices, to encourage employees to follow rules willingly and consistently:

1. Lead by example and build a compliance culture: Change starts at the top. Employees take cues from leadership and experienced peers. If managers bend the rules or treat compliance as unimportant, employees will likely do the same. To counter the “everyone else does it” mentality, leadership must model the behavior they expect. That means visibly following the rules. Consistent messaging from leadership that “this is how we do things here” helps shape norms. Building a culture of compliance also involves emphasizing why the rules exist, tying them to core values like safety, integrity, and respect. Encourage veteran staff to mentor new employees in proper procedures (making it clear that shortcuts aren’t the norm). Importantly, cultivate an environment of psychological safety where employees feel comfortable speaking up about concerns or near-misses. When people can raise issues without fear, you catch small problems before they become big ones. Research by Harvard’s Amy Edmondson found that teams with high psychological safety report more errors and concerns, not because they make more mistakes, but because they feel safe to speak up, leading to proactive fixes. Similarly, Google’s famous “Project Aristotle” study identified psychological safety as the number one factor in successful teams. In a strong compliance culture, people hold each other accountable as a sign of respect and care, not as punishment. Over time, doing the right thing becomes instinctive, “just how we do things.”‍

2. Design clear, practical policies (and involve employees in the process): One major reason for noncompliance is that policies can be confusing, overly complex, or impractical in real-life scenarios. To fix this, organizations should simplify and clarify their rules wherever possible. Use plain language and concrete examples in policy documents and training, remove legalese and jargon. Make sure employees know exactly what is expected and how to comply in day-to-day terms. It’s also wise to involve employees in developing and testing policies. The people on the front lines often know which rules work and which don’t. By soliciting their input, you not only create more feasible procedures, but you also gain buy-in, people are more likely to follow rules they had a hand in shaping. As one set of researchers put it, managers should “incorporate employees in the process of developing and user-testing security policies” (or any type of policy, for that matter). This might mean forming cross-functional committees to review new policies, or piloting a new procedure with a small team to get feedback before a company-wide rollout. Address uncertainty directly: if there are areas where employees often feel unsure how to comply, provide decision guides or Q&A resources. Gartner’s analysis found that improving the quality of policies, training, and communication had more than double the impact on reducing employee uncertainty than just trying to push a “compliance culture” alone. The takeaway: make it easy to do the right thing. Provide job aids (checklists, quick reference cards), and ensure tools or systems support compliance (for example, if you want people to dispose of sensitive documents properly, provide plenty of shredding bins, a classic “nudge” to encourage the desired behavior). When rules are clear, accessible, and aligned with actual workflows, employees have less excuse and less inclination to bypass them.

3. Educate and engage employees (make training meaningful): Traditional compliance training, long, boring slide decks or videos once a year, often fails to change behavior. To truly fix compliance issues, companies should revamp how they educate employees about rules. Training should be engaging, relevant, and ongoing. Instead of treating it as a checkbox task, frame it as an essential skill-building opportunity. Experts suggest a few key elements for effective compliance education: Explain the “why”, adults learn better when they understand the purpose behind a rule. If employees know that a certain data handling procedure is in place to protect customer privacy or that a safety rule exists because it prevented injuries elsewhere, they’ll be more motivated to comply. Link policies to real-world outcomes and values, so people see compliance as aligned with their personal and organizational goals. Next, move beyond dry lectures, include interactive and practical components. This could mean workshops, role-playing scenarios, or simulations where employees can practice handling ethical dilemmas or safety situations. Research shows people are more likely to change behavior when training involves skill practice with feedback, not just theory. Also, make training continuous rather than a one-off. Short, frequent reminders (like monthly micro-learning sessions or “safety moments” at the start of meetings) help keep rules fresh in mind. For example, a brief quarterly quiz or discussion about a policy can reinforce retention better than a single annual marathon training. Collard, a compliance evangelist, notes that creating a compliance culture is “a continuous dialogue”, it needs ongoing reinforcement as part of the organization’s identity. Finally, tailor the content to your audience: use scenarios from their actual job context (IT folks get cybersecurity simulations, sales teams get ethical sales scenarios, etc.). When employees see compliance as relevant to their daily work, it stops feeling like abstract rules and more like common sense.

4. Align compliance with rewards and priorities: Employees often ignore rules when they feel that performance and productivity are valued above all else. If someone thinks they’ll get rewarded for hitting a target even if it means skirting a policy (or conversely, fears they’ll miss a bonus if they take time to follow a rule), guess what choice they’ll make? To fix this, organizations must align incentives and evaluations to support compliance. This could mean including safety or ethics metrics in performance reviews, or at least explicitly acknowledging and praising employees who do things the right way, not just the fastest way. For instance, if a team meets their project deadline and has a spotless compliance record, celebrate that achievement, send the message that both results and process matter. Research in cybersecurity suggests that security compliance should be “incentivized alongside other performance metrics” so that employees aren’t forced to choose between being productive and being secure. Moreover, try to reduce unnecessary stress and workload that drive people to cut corners. If employees are chronically overworked or facing unrealistic deadlines, no amount of training will stop them from occasionally bypassing rules to survive the day. Leaders should identify major sources of stress and bottlenecks, and where possible, adjust workloads or provide more support. By designing jobs and schedules that allow time for compliance tasks (like inspections, documentation, etc.), you remove the perceived “time penalty” of following rules. Another idea is to implement small rewards for compliance: some companies run safety incentive programs (rewards for X days accident-free, for example) or recognize employees who report security threats. While you must be careful not to incentivize under-reporting (people hiding incidents to get a reward), when done right, positive reinforcement can make a difference. Even simple recognition in a team meeting, “shout-out to Alice for consistently following our new quality checklist, it’s helped us avoid rework”, can powerfully reinforce desired behaviors. Ultimately, ensure that the company’s message is consistent: doing the right thing is part of job performance. When employees see that “how” they achieve results is as important as the results themselves, they’ll be far less tempted to cheat the system.

5. Strengthen accountability and feedback loops: A robust compliance environment catches issues early and demonstrates that rule-following is non-negotiable. This doesn’t mean fostering fear, but it does mean there should be fair consequences for willful noncompliance. Employees should clearly understand what happens if rules are ignored, and see that management will follow through. Consistency is key: if one person is allowed to routinely break a policy with no response, others will lose their discipline. Have a graduated enforcement approach (e.g. coaching for a first lapse, additional training or warnings for repeat issues, and serious repercussions for deliberate or harmful violations). Equally important, close the feedback loop when employees voice concerns or suggestions. If someone reports a hazard or a flawed procedure, acknowledge it and act on it if possible. Nothing kills morale faster than feeling like one’s concerns go into a black hole. Show employees that every compliance concern is heard and addressed, even if a fix takes time, provide updates. As one safety leader put it, “show your team that every concern counts… Even if a solution takes time, provide updates”. When people see that raising a compliance issue leads to improvement (rather than retaliation or apathy), they become more engaged in the process. This turns employees from passive rule-followers into active participants in strengthening compliance. Also, consider implementing anonymous reporting channels for those hesitant to speak openly, a hotline or digital suggestion box can encourage reporting of issues or unethical behavior without fear. By actively listening and responding, management builds trust. Over time, this creates a self-reinforcing cycle: employees feel responsible for upholding standards and confident that leadership has their back, and leaders can rely on employees to be the “eyes and ears” of compliance on the ground. In the best environments, compliance stops being about policing at all, it becomes a shared responsibility and even a point of pride among team members.

In essence, fixing compliance issues is about treating employees as allies, not adversaries. Instead of asking “how do we force people to follow the rules?”, the mindset should be “how do we enable and motivate our people to want to follow the rules?”. This means applying psychological insights, making desired behaviors easy (through clear policies and nudges), socially supported (through culture and leadership example), and rewarding (through recognition and aligning with personal values). It also means addressing the root causes like stress and confusion, rather than just addressing the symptoms with punishment. By taking a people-centric approach, organizations can transform compliance from a box-ticking exercise into a natural part of “how we work here.”

Ultimately, the heart of compliance isn’t a rulebook; it’s the people expected to uphold those rules. Employees ignore rules when they feel rushed, disconnected, or unconvinced of the rules’ value. That means the solution lies in engaging those human factors, not just tightening enforcement. If you take one thing from this discussion, let it be this: fostering genuine compliance is about building a workplace where following the rules is the logical, supported, and valued thing to do. When leaders champion the cause and listen to feedback, when policies make sense and training resonates, employees respond. They move from seeing rules as obstacles to viewing them as part of professional excellence. In such an environment, people follow procedures not because they’re afraid of getting caught, but because they want to do what’s right. Compliance becomes a shared responsibility; everyone plays a part in keeping the organization safe, ethical, and efficient.

For business leaders, the task is clear. It’s not enough to write policies and mandate training. You have to win hearts and minds. By appreciating the psychology behind why employees ignore rules, you can craft strategies that address those underlying reasons, be it uncertainty, social influence, or stress. Yes, you should enforce rules, but you should also empower employees to embrace them. The payoff is huge: fewer incidents, fewer crises, and a stronger culture of trust and accountability. In the end, compliance isn’t just about avoiding negatives (fines, accidents, breaches); it’s about creating a positive workplace where everyone knows the right thing to do and feels motivated to do it. That’s the kind of organization that not only stays out of trouble, but thrives. And it all starts with understanding your people. Compliance is, after all, by people and for people, get that part right, and the rest will follow.

FAQ

Why do employees ignore workplace rules even when they know them?

Employees often bypass rules due to time pressure, workplace culture, unclear policies, or seeing others break the rules without consequences. These behaviors are usually driven by the need to meet deadlines or simplify tasks rather than intentional defiance.

How does ignoring rules impact an organization?

Noncompliance can lead to workplace accidents, costly regulatory fines, cybersecurity breaches, reputational damage, and operational inefficiencies. Over time, it undermines trust, safety, and productivity.

What role does company culture play in compliance?

A workplace culture where leaders follow rules and encourage open communication fosters better compliance. Conversely, if rule-breaking is normalized, employees are more likely to follow suit.

How can organizations make policies easier to follow?

Policies should be clear, practical, and relevant to daily work. Involving employees in policy creation, providing training with real-world examples, and offering decision aids can make compliance more intuitive.

What are effective strategies to improve employee compliance?

Organizations should lead by example, create clear and practical policies, make training engaging, align incentives with compliance, and establish strong accountability with consistent feedback loops.