The Murder of Chaos: 3 C’s to Pulling Off the Perfect Chaos

© 2025 Image Design Credit: Simone McClellan, PHR, SHRM-CP, Tritrix HR Solutions

Read time: 8 minutes

Key Takeaways Link (Read time: 30 seconds), click here

Click, click, click  … tap, tap, tap are the sounds coming from the desktop keyboard. The office phone rings at the same time an email streams across the computer monitor.  The ring, ring … zzzzurp of an incoming fax begins while the hiring manager pops in to ask if orientation for the new employee was scheduled today.  A “yes” nod goes toward the hiring manager while reading an incoming email that asks:  “Where’s the Time-to-Hire Report?”  The office phone line that was ringing is answered.  It’s from Front Reception stating “Come to Front Reception, an Official is here for an audit on the Form I-9’s.”  The receiver goes into the cradle of the desk phone simultaneously when an employee stops by to ask about health benefits.  Next, the health and safety manager approaches the Human Resources (HR) office to discuss workers’ compensation.  Then, Payroll beeps over the office intercom, to confirm a meal time waiver.  Whew, when walking out of the HR office to connect with Front Reception, the chaos of the first half hour of the workday goes abruptly silent.  Ahh, the moment of the murder of chaos, a metaphor for halting chaos… at least, for the two-minute walk to Front Reception. Key Takeaway’s (30 seconds read):

• As a mental visual, chaos resembles stacked layers in a three-layer cake as Central, Crucial, and Critical with risk management spread over each layer as the icing or frosting.

• Chaos has a unique role within the workplace; it can convert from disorder and “just being busy” into a normality gauge to evaluate the pattern of data points for the work experience by illustrating possible areas of liability, known and unknown.  Chaos has the potential to be the highest, unidentified loss liability with maximum adverse effects, up to and including a fatality or fatalities.

• Pulling off the perfect chaos will positively affect efficiency and engagement. It merges support from: foundational statements, adherence to employment law, aligning project deployment with the bordering divisions of operations and organizational management, and preparedness and prevention plans, such as an Illness and Injury Prevention Program (IIPP).
  

Today, more than ever, chaos surrounds us in the workplace.  It is disorder, whether as part of innocent daily job duties or, in unfortunate scenarios, something more sinister.  As a mental visual, chaos resembles stacked layers in a three-layer cake surrounded by risk management as the icing or frosting.  Chaos has the potential to be the highest, unidentified loss liability with maximum adverse effects, up to and including a fatality or fatalities in the workplace. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics News Release USDL-24-2564 of December 19, 2024 revealed there were 5,283 fatal work injuries recorded in the United States in 2023[¹]!

Chaos is often disregarded as “just being busy” unless there is person-to-person violence or a natural disaster event.  It disguises itself in many ways, such as compiling paperwork, meeting deadlines, introducing a change, or acquiring a new system.  With its unique role within the workplace, chaos can convert from “busy” into three layers: Central, Crucial, Critical.  It can also be used as a tool to gauge the work experience by illustrating potential areas of liability, known and unknown.  

Consequently, pulling off the perfect chaos becomes a game of balance between bridging the three layers with how to best align each layer to strategic planning.  Central and crucial chaos layers are pertinent to administration and long-term forecasting while the third layer, critical chaos, has a higher risk for a workplace fatality or fatalities but training and preparedness will reduce or eliminate the fatality threat.

While all three chaos layers have diversions in the employee experience, central chaos is the most exposed to frustration and dissatisfaction due to the level of administration responsibilities that require executing, entering, processing, filing, etc. on a daily, weekly, or monthly basis.  Errors, then, are more easily and quickly noticed in the central chaos layer as that is the most straightforward connection between employees and the company.  An employee with a miscalculated pay statement (paycheck) will most certainly mention the discrepancy in wages (pay) on the payroll run day (payday). 

Fostering frequent reference to the company’s foundational statements (mission, vision, and core values) as well as maintaining adherence with any federal, state, and municipality laws will benefit the second layer, crucial chaos, when long-term planning scenarios and risk management coverage, such as cash flow forecasting models, talent acquisition metrics, and mergers and acquisitions are ongoing. 

A crucial chaos example would be pivoting from an old accounting system to a new one.  During the initial conversion, employees experiencing chaos may push-back with confusion, fear, questions, displeasure, etc.  Synchronizing the new accounting system isn’t typically a daily process like answering phone calls and emails but the planning and integration of the new accounting system involves multiple areas of collaboration. 

Crucial chaos, thus, aligns more with project deployment across several departments.  It borders with operations and organizational management.  Crucial chaos optimizes resources to create the most value for getting projects and tasks completed (operations), while adjusting to the people performing the work (organizational).  A best practice approach to pulling off the perfect chaos here, is having a firm grasp of software applications to trace business functions in operations and people services in organizational management such as using spreadsheet or computation software to produce graphs, tables, charts, etc. rather than attempting to use database software, which would be more applicable for collecting, organizing, and tracking large amounts of data such as with demographics information.   

Lastly, the third layer of the “chaos cake” is critical chaos. This is chaos that tends to happen unexpectedly and does not require an absolute fact or entirely known circumstance or situation.  To restrain critical chaos general safety training through an emergency preparedness plan, a Workplace Violence Prevention Plan (WVPP) and/or an Illness and Injury Prevention Program (IIPP), may be applied.  The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) refers to an IIPP as a “proactive process to help employers find and fix workplace hazards before workers are hurt.”[²]  This, however, may not be all inclusive in a critical chaos scenario of a mass shooting or natural disaster, which are maximum unknown, unstable events. Unfortunately, not all critical chaos can be 100% eradicated, although doing so would be the sterling award achievement in the workplace! 

In summary, the three layers of chaos are central, crucial and critical. Each layer has opportunities and challenges as well as ways or methods to approach efficiency and workplace experience.  Central chaos parallels administration-style or business function tasks.  Crucial chaos is linked to building revenue and application of long-term planning.  Critical chaos includes known or identified as well as unknown and/or unstable threats.  It also requires extreme attention to details.  Risk management and these three chaos layers, moreover, may resemble a three-layer cake with risk management representing the icing that spreads over each layer of chaos. Additionally, chaos has the potential to be a normality gauge to evaluate the pattern of data points for the work experience.  It can pivot from disorder and frustration to a planning tool for optimizing employee safety and satisfaction, revenue, and long-term objectives.  When you meet chaos in the course of your human resources and people services experience, pull off the perfect chaos by making the hard look easy!  

Thank you for your time in reading "The Murder of Chaos: 3 C's to Pulling Off the Perfect Chaos. The objective of this post has been to provide entertainment and/or edification that drives conversations that shapes the future of work.

About the Author: Simone McClellan, PHR, SHRM-CP, is the Chief Solutionist and HR Consultant at Tritrix HR Solutions, a California-based, USA entity.  She has 10+ years of human resources (HR) experience and holds both the Professional in Human Resources (PHR) and the SHRM-Certified Professional (SHRM-CP) certifications.  Simone specializes in helping people navigate the complexities of HR compliance obligations and employee experience.  Discover more at www.tritrixhr.com.

Works Cited:

[¹]U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics News Release USDL-24-2564 of December 19, 2024

[²]Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA)

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