Improving Employee Adoption of Company Policies
As news outlets contemplate the possibility that America will continue to work remotely even after the pandemic ends, HR managers are behind the scenes working to set up the structures necessary to support long-term work-from-home environments. Electronic processes are more important than ever, and HR departments across the country are drafting new policies for their fully remote employees.
Employee policies are the backbone of the HR world, and the reasons are obvious. A well-documented, well-organized employee policy program offers a multitude of benefits for companies of all sizes:
Safety: Solid company policies keep employees safe, particularly in high-stress or manual jobs. They also protect company property, client data, and more.
Compliance: Many industries are required to adhere to strict standards for safety, health, privacy, accreditation, etc., and employee policies streamline compliance with these protocols.
Consistency: A consistent approach to conflicts that may arise in the workplace ensures fairness, helps avoid claims of bias or favoritism, and offers a solid defense against litigation.
Employee culture: Good policy management positively impacts your company culture. Productivity and morale increase, employee retention improves, and your staff knows what is expected of them.
Despite these obvious benefits, many HR managers have experienced the same frustration: after outlining a new company policy, working hard to write a word-perfect draft, soliciting opinions from relevant executives, and rolling the new policy out to your entire team...you find that no one is following the new regulation.
Let’s dive into why your employees might not be following company policies and the strategies you can take to improve policy adoption.
Why Employees Don’t Follow Policies
To implement strategies that improve employee policy adoption, we must first understand why the policies aren’t being followed in the first place. Often, the root cause comes in one of a few potential categories.
Employees are unaware. Even if the company policies were signed at hire or during employment, many employees might be unaware of the specifics of these protocols. While they’re a big part of an HR manager’s day, employees are focused on getting through onboarding or quickly signing the paperwork so they can get back to their day-to-day tasks. To put it plainly: everyone is busy.
Employees don’t know where to find company policies. This is a big one. After signing policies during onboarding, many employees never see them again. Hardcopies get lost in messy desk drawers or emailed files are accidentally deleted. With the policies out of sight, they quickly become out of mind.
Employees don’t understand the need. If the purpose behind the policy was not well communicated, employees might not comprehend why the policy was put in place. Without a full picture of how it impacts the company as a whole, some may feel the policy overly complicates processes, for example. A lack of ownership hampers policy adoption.
Employees believe no one notices. We’ve all taken a shortcut in our lives, and our employees are no different. If they believe company policies are just a piece of paper they need to sign, some of your team members might assume no one at the company really cares if it’s followed to the letter.
How To Improve Company Policy Adoption
With an understanding of why company policies go ignored, now we can look toward strategies for improving policy adoption. Ultimately, communication and accessibility will be your best allies.
Make company policies accessible. As addressed above, one of the biggest problems you might be facing is that your employees simply don’t know where to find company policies. Whether it’s an entry-level employee who wants to check their performance against the company’s expectations or a manager who needs to reference company policy before logging a case in your case management system, accessibility simplifies processes for everyone. Policy management software makes it easy to store company policies in a place that the entire workforce can find them and it empowers HR managers to collect electronic attestation. This type of technology benefits any company, but it’s particularly helpful for work-from-home employees or workforces spread across multiple locations.
Integrate company policies into your culture. Rather than allowing company policies to just be a piece of paper we sign on our first day, make these important procedures an integral part of your company culture. Regularly remind your employees how to access your policy management system so that they know where to go to find the documentation. You might consider mentioning it at employee meetings or sending out a helpful email reminder once per quarter. For companies willing to go a step further, offer mandatory or optional refresher training on company policies every few months. Here, you can express why the policies are put in place and the data the supports them.
Adopting any of these strategies will help ensure that your company policies don’t become an afterthought after attestation. Ready to make that a reality? Learn how ETHIX360 simplifies compliance.
The ETHIX360 blog brings you weekly updates on all things human resources and compliance.
MEET THE AUTHOR
Kristin Hassan is the Chief Human Resources Officer of ETHIX360. Kristin spent six years as the New York City SHRM’s executive director and is a board member of the Human Resources Management Association - Princeton SHRM Chapter and a member of the Peer 150 HR Group.
ABOUT ETHIX360
At ETHIX360, our goal is simple: to provide an affordable, flexible, and comprehensive answer to employee communication, policy management, corporate training and case management on issues related to corporate ethics, code of conduct, fraud, bribery, and workplace violence.
