The policy that any employee could walk into a manager's office emerged from postwar corporate culture.
The open-door policy as a management practice gained prominence in American corporations during the 1950s, alongside the human relations movement that followed Elton Mayo's work and Douglas McGregor's Theory Y.1 The concept was straightforward. Any employee, regardless of rank, could bring a concern directly to any manager's office, including senior leadership.
The practice codified an assumption about corporate hierarchy. It implied that the default state of a manager's door was closed, and that special permission was needed to cross the threshold. Announcing an open-door policy acknowledged the barrier while appearing to remove it.
Hewlett-Packard formalized the idea as part of the "HP Way" in the 1950s and 1960s, describing open communication between managers and employees as a core value. Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard promoted accessible management as an alternative to rigid command structures.2
IBM, Procter & Gamble, and other large corporations adopted similar policies through the 1960s and 1970s, often enshrining them in employee handbooks.3
Research on the effectiveness of open-door policies has been mixed. Studies suggest that employees rarely use them, particularly for complaints about their direct supervisors, because the power dynamics that the policy claims to dissolve remain intact.4
The open office removed doors entirely. Remote work removed the hallway. The open-door policy remains listed in employee handbooks at organizations where most employees have never met a senior executive in person.