The desired outcome of communicating policy is to have employees make the right decisions in a range of situations. Just making policy manuals required reading or establishing compliance training programs may not get the job done. Whether it’s chemical hazards in a manufacturing facility, social media guidelines for an entertainment brand or cyber safety in a financial setting, human error due to low awareness of policy can pose a huge risk to the business — and sometimes to employees themselves.
Here are five ways to help employees internalize policy:
The lawyers naturally want to make sure each policy includes enough language to cover various scenarios. But the average employee did not go to law school and will quickly glaze over after a few too many legal clauses. Keep the legal language but add a layer of short summary statements to make it easier for employees to understand what to do and not do.
In addition to posting the complete policies and covering them in annual compliance, try communicating policy via internal communications throughout the year. Add brief reminders to digital signage decks, use boxed comments in publications, and signage around the workplace. For larger topics, like cyber security, you might think about developing videos or screensavers.
Instead of just telling employees not to open phishing emails, show examples of actual phishing emails that look legitimate. Rather than warning them not to talk to the media, give them a scenario where a reporter reaches out in a friendly way, says they’re on a tight timeline, and asks the employee to quickly confirm something. (Oldest media trick in the book.)
Communicating policy doesn’t have to be boring. Make it more interesting with true-false questions on digital signs — with one slide posing the question, and the next slide giving the answer. Create a video that takes them through a decision tree, maybe poking fun at the wrong answers. Although policies address serious issues, games can be helpful in engaging employees.
A policy guide with wall-to-wall copy can be a tough read. A talented graphic designer can make policies a little more palatable by developing a hierarchy of headlines and subheads, adding white space and interesting visuals, and breaking up pages of copy with boxed comments and sidebars. If the goal of communicating policy is to raise employee awareness, stronger design can help.
