Change is inevitable in business. Whether there is a new strategic direction for the company, new systems are implemented or new legislation affects your industry, company policies and procedures will inevitably be updated and changed.
When your business policies and procedures change, communicating these with employees is essential to avoid costly mistakes and errors. Depending on the nature of the policy or procedure that’s being changed, there could be legal and financial consequences if your organization does not comply. Examples of policy change in the workplace might include health and safety requirements, governance and disclosure policies or behavior and conduct policies.
Determine who is going to be affected by the new work policies. It might not only be your employees, but also stakeholders such as clients, partners and the wider community. This will help you determine how and when to communicate your company policy and procedures changes.
Table of contents
How to communicate policy changes to employees
Communicating a new policy to employees via email
Other ways of communicating policy changes to employees
Once you’ve established that change is necessary, you need to turn your mind to how you will inform staff about changes to your policies and procedures. These are the essential steps you must take to ensure that people are informed and understand the changes, and the implications of not following new protocols.
Download a free Workplace face mask policy update communication sample
When communicating policies and procedures in the workplace, it should be clear, concise and easy to understand.
Be straightforward about why the change is necessary, exactly what is changing, what is staying the same, and what steps need to be taken by all employees to make sure they comply with the new requirements.
Also spell out clearly what the consequences are for the company if corporate policies are not followed.
If possible, and if the business policy and procedure change warrants it, hold a meeting or a webinar with senior management in attendance to explain the need for the policy change and any consequences.
Face-to-face communications on important issues often feel more authentic and help to build trust with employees.
Even if changes are announced via email or in writing in other official channels, it’s still a good idea for managers to speak directly to their employees about them in team meetings or even individually to ensure compliance.
The easier you make it for employees to find your changed work policies, the easier it is for them to implement and adhere to them.
The worst thing you can do is put any new employee rules in a place they can’t easily locate them. This means if it lives on your intranet, for example, they have to search through many pages to find the information… and that’s if they even know to look for it in the first place.
You should have a clearly labeled and easy to find and navigate employee rules section on your intranet site that sets out all company policies and procedures. In effect, this is a soft copy “company manual”. Your internal communion policy should include steps for this.
Whenever you make changes or updates to this company manual, you should outline communication of changes to policies and tell employees where they can find the information.
Some policy and procedural changes have major implications for the entire company… or just specific sections of it. A good way to communicate a new policy to employees is by tapping into the leadership resources within your team and appointing passionate employees with a solid understanding of the changes to be a “champions” among their peers who can advocate the importance of the changes and also assist others to implement them.
Employees are more likely to successfully “buy in” to change when it is being championed by a colleague they respect and trust.
Sometimes policies and procedural changes will be complex and require a complete new approach to work practices. When concepts are difficult to grasp, just writing them down and hoping for the best isn’t going to cut it. You need to ensure that employees are given appropriate training in new procedures so that they can carry out tasks in the way that is expected of them.
Depending on the changes, you may need to roll out company-wide training at the beginning of the new initiative, or just as required. Refresher and follow-up training should also be factored in if necessary.
When you’re updating your employee policy handbook, it can be useful to get feedback and assistance from employees to ensure you hit the right mark. You can do this by communicating the proposed new policies and procedures and providing them with a sample of what it will look like.
Involving employees in the process provides them with the opportunity to ask questions and to give honest feedback about how easy your employee policy handbook is to understand and follow from their perspective.
You can also draw on their experiences working at the coal face when writing company policies to ensure that any changes you are proposing are practical and realistic.
People are often resistant to change, particularly when they’ve done something a particular way for a long period of time. They may have an emotional reaction to change, and they may also feel that the changes aren’t practical.
Just as you need to clearly communicate the need for change, offering opportunities for employees to provide meaningful feedback can help to keep them engaged throughout the process.
One of the simplest ways to communicate policies and procedures to staff is by email. Sending an email about a change of policy to employees helps you to have a record that employees were informed, in writing, of the policy change. This way you can maintain some discipline around the new policy.
You should try to adopt a neutral tone, and always thank employees in advance for their cooperation. See our sample email to employees about new policies that we created that you can use and adapt to suit your own organization.
Update to physical security policy
Dear staff,
[Company name] is committed to protecting its people, information, facilities and other assets. We achieve this through following certain physical security controls. Our security policy has been updated to reflect new systems that have been installed and new protocols that we now require staff to follow.
New systems include:
These systems will be installed on [date].
The policy has been updated following a review that recommended best-practice actions be implemented to keep our data secure and to enhance the physical safety of our employees.
With the introduction of these systems, staff will be issued identity cards that must be worn at all times while in the office or other company facilities. You will be contacted by a representative of the security team in the coming weeks to arrange for your photograph to be taken and for your card to be issued.
Going forward we will also be introducing a visitor management process that will require all official visitors to our office to be signed in and accounted for at all times while on premises.
You can read the policy in its entirety here [insert link]. Any questions can be directed to [contact name]
Of course, email isn’t the only way to go about notifying employees of policy changes. Other methods of communicating policies and procedures in the workplace can include:
There are, however, some limitations with these communication methods when you’re considering how to inform staff about changes to policies and procedures. They rely on employees paying attention to emails, actively looking at intranet and other internal channels or being present at a meeting if it was discussed.
Even if you are communicating a new policy to employees using a template, email as a communications channel has become increasingly unreliable – many people don’t open emails because they receive too many each day, meaning important information is missed.
DeskAlerts is an internal communications software system that sends pop-up notifications to desktops and push notifications to mobile devices. The messages display in a way that cannot be skipped or ignored – making it the perfect way to communicate critical policy and procedure changes. It can form the backbone of your own crisis communication policy.
Other useful features include:
While email by itself can be an unreliable delivery channel for important updates, it can be used effectively in conjunction with DeskAlerts to reinforce other messages sent by other channels. Simply select the option to send by email in the control panel to include email delivery when you’re sending alerts.
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As with any good internal communications approach, the best way to roll out new policies and procedures includes:Do you want to know more? Request a free online demo.
When there is an important policy change that everyone needs to be aware of you should communicate it clearly in an email outlining why the policy is being introduced and what is required of the employees to abide by it.
Try using DeskAlerts for this purpose.
When you’re introducing a new policy that has been approved by management you should:
New employee policies should be announced in a way that is guaranteed to be seen, is easy to understand and can be easily found again if people need to refer back to it.
Ideally, you should take a consultative approach to changes to policies and procedures so that employees are aware that change is coming, have their opinions canvassed and included if appropriate, and are then informed about the change when it is finalized.
Send urgent notifications to any corporate devices: PCs, phones, tablets, etc.
The high visibility combined with our 100% delivery rate guarantee. Bypass information overload. Deliver key information even if the computer is on screensaver mode, locked or sleeping.
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