These rules are nothing new. Every company seems to start this way and then eventually each of these principles die with a little regulation here and a little adjustment there.
The opposite is happening at our company, twelve years in. Many employees determine their own working hours and schedule, and the more of us do it, the more people realise it's better and join the movement. I have no idea how our company will work 5 years from now, but I guarantee those principles won't have died.
It's possible to keep improving in this area, but you need a strong culture to support it, and inspiration from companies that show you that it can be done. In our case, the Valve handbook was enormously motivating: if a 300+ person company can operate with so few rules, what is our 50 person company really complaining about?
That's why we have a "Bill of Employee Rights" (called something else that only makes sense in our culture) that require a majority vote (contemplating 3/4th majority) of the company to change. If someone changes them outside of this scope, there would be a revolt.
Policies that can be changed willy-nilly by some higher-up are really just meaningless platitudes (redundancy for emphasis).
To clarify, not every policy and procedure (of which there are precious few) are in there, just the big ones that that shouldn't change without everyone agreeing (results only work environment, unlimited vacation/sick, profit sharing, etc.).
Departmental ones, like "test coverage should be > n%" or "we should answer every customer service request in under n-minutes" are totally up to each group to manage as they see fit.
I think it's not about new, all businesses have positive values they hold and want to spread across the organization.
It's very empowering as an Employee when an employer codifies these rules and says yep they are real , here they are in writing and you can hold me to them also.
That I think is the fascinating part, because in my experience writing up this stuff and then actually brining it into play is notoriously difficult.
