Is your Employee Communication Failing your Policies
When was the last time you reviewed how effective your employee communication is at sharing your company’s policies and procedures?
HR managers are tasked with more than just creating policies; ensuring those policies are acknowledged and adhered to is crucial for compliance, safety, and company culture. How do you make sure your employees aren’t just receiving information, but actively understanding and accepting it?
Let’s explore how improved employee communication can make a difference when it comes to policy acknowledgement and compliance.
Communication is more than email
Sending out an email to all staff may check the box of “distributing policies,” but how many of those emails are skimmed or ignored?
Effective communication means delivering information in ways that resonate with your employees, ensuring they remain informed. For HR Managers this also means being able to track non-responders so you can ensure those who don’t engage with you, are encouraged to do so.
Tracking: The Key to Compliance
Having employees read a policy is one thing. Knowing that they’ve read and understood it is another.
This is where tracking acknowledgements and understanding becomes essential. Not only does this allow you to identify unengaged staff, it also allows you to spot knowledge gaps.
Tracking is the key to compliance and helps protect your company from legal risks.
With Read & Sign, HR managers can track who has acknowledged each policy, ensuring no one slips through the cracks.
Two-way communication is crucial
Communication is not a one-way street. It’s essential to encourage two-way dialogue where employees can ask questions or provide feedback on policies.
Feedback helps clear up misunderstandings and ensures policies are fully understood.
Encouraging feedback also highlights areas for improvement in future communications, helping you continually improve.
Open communication is also great for building trust, preventing employees from ignoring policies out of confusion or hesitation to ask for help.
Keeping policies top of mind
Its not uncommon for employees to forget about a policy or miss the deadline to acknowledge it, especially when focussed on their own tasks.
Manually chasing them can be time-consuming, especially with dispersed teams.
Automated reminders help improve engagement, ensuring policies stay on their radar. This is vital for critical updates, like regulatory changes, that require prompt attention and understanding.
No one-size-fits-all
Not all policies apply to every employee.
Sending irrelevant policies to employees can actually reduce overall engagement. When policies don’t apply, they are less likely to be taken seriously in the future, leaving you with an uphill battle.
By tailoring distribution for specific groups, departments or policy topics, you ensure only the right people receive them.
Breaking distribution down like this also helps identify areas with low compliance, so you can address any gaps more effectively.
Secure, central policy storage
Policies shouldn’t be a ‘read once and forget’ deal. Employees may need to refer back to them later, and its unrealistic to expect them to remember everything.
Storing policies in a secure, central system ensures they’re accessible on demand, whether for onboarding refreshers or quick guidance when questions arise. This keeps employees informed and confident in following procedures.
seamless Employee communication
Getting employees to acknowledge policies can be straightforward. By enhancing your communication, tracking, and follow-up, you improve compliance and create a more informed workforce.
If you need a solution to simplify your employee communication and policies, try Read & Sign. It helps HR managers distribute policies, collect signatures, and maintain secure compliance records.
Ready to take your employee Communication to the next level?
