How to Successfully Roll Out a Policy
Policies, while not particularly exciting to most, are an essential tool for running a successful business, club, or other organisation. Policies are intended to make it easy to understand your responsibilities, articulate boundaries, set expectations, facilitate decision making and serve as a safeguard when something those expectations are not met.
Introducing changes is always going to be tough and the same applies when attempting to roll out new policies to your team. Whether it’s simply an annual review or to get a better grip on regulations, requirements, and compliance it pays to prepare for some level of resistance or even a lack of enthusiasm. There are a number of ways you can ensure your new policies or changes to existing policies are rolled out smoothly.
1. Identify Key Stakeholders
Not everyone may need to be across every policy your organisation has. Make sure the relevant people are being provided policies that are applicable to them and their role in the organisation.
2. Create a Plan
Look at the culture of your organisation and decide on some methods to best communicate the policy roll-out and make sure your team have a good understanding of what is being asked of them. You could host a team meeting, review them 1:1, or conduct a workshop. You could run a competition between departments or individuals using a training platform – a little incentive never hurt anyone, and you might be surprised by the result of the introduction of some healthy competition!
Is there a better time in the year where a roll-out would be more successful for you? For example, the end of financial year is going to be a poor choice if you’re an accounting firm.
Reading and accepting policies should be an annual activity among your team so schedule this activity during a quieter period or maybe on return to work after the long Christmas break. It is important to set a reminder to revisit the policies annually, so they don’t slip off the radar and start to gather dust as well.
3. Culture is Key
For a policy to be implemented, there must be a real need within your organisation, such as to comply with governmental laws, industry specific regulations or to keep your team safe. Do your team understand why this is so important? If your team doesn’t understand why a policy is in place, they aren’t likely to use it to adhere to the desired way of working. Getting this message across to your team is crucial to the policy’s success. Nobody likes to hear “because I said so” or that it’s mandatory or the law – find a way to make the need relatable and provide real purpose to gain commitment from your team and discourage bias. Talking to the benefits as well as individual or company success is a great way to encourage buy-in. Nominate an individual or team to champion the promotion of new policies or changes.
Policies level the playing field and set consistent standards and processes to follow and give your team a resource to turn to when they need it. Having buy-in from the top will make it easier to filter your messaging down through your organisation.
4. Communicate Effectively
How will you let your team know about a new policy or changes to an existing policy? Sending long emails will likely put the reader to sleep, tempt them to put it in the “too hard basket” or even hit delete without reading it. Get creative when spreading the word to your users such as posters around the workplace, attention-grabbing announcement emails titbits, share success stories, create a quiz or other fun events. A combination of various delivery methods will be the most effective and ensure everyone is in the know.
Make sure your policies are accessible to your entire team, so they can access them whenever the need arises, whether in an online repository, as part of an employee handbook or printed copies. It is also important to include the relevant policies during inductions and orientation of new starters to set them on the right path from the offset.
Providing a point of contact for employees who have any questions or to raise and address issues is a must. Having an open forum and asking for feedback reinforces the idea that policies aren’t just a one-time use document but are intended to be utilised as a tool and keep everyone in the loop.
5. Track Engagement & Follow Up
Everyone in your organisation should read and accept the policies at least once and best practice is to have a refresher annually or when changes are made. It is important to know who has read the policies, when they were last read, and that the reader understands what is being asked of them through the policy. Keeping a record of this can let you know who is up to date, who needs a refresher and who has not yet read your policies.