I have to spend time just to understand what's happening, how code is laid out and why (too often it is just personal preference). I imagine other employees hav

I have to spend time just to understand what's happening, how code is laid out and why (too often it is just personal preference). I imagine other employees have the same problems too, and it affects overall effectiveness - a lot of time wasted on unnecessary cognitive load. All of that is necessary cognitive load. It's hard, and that's why you get paid. Maybe not enough, but that's a different matter. Anyway, there needs to be a business case for creating, distributing and enforcing guidelines. Usually there isn't and your question doesn't make one. Beyond that there needs to be an established workplace culture where people take engineering guidelines seriously, production staff follow them, and compliance is a way in which leadership measures individual contributor performance. If there isn't organizational buy-in, guidelines are pretend work. They look like work and are easier than the actual work. Just doing the hard work is the simplest thing that might work. Good luck.