Too many employers find out the hard way how necessary it is to have organizational policies both for managing their employees and protecting their day-to-day operations. While every state is different, and you also need to factor in different federal laws and regulations, once you’ve developed your policies, you’ll need to find a way to implement them all.
Consistency is the key when you’re implementing new workplace policies. Let’s take a look at a process you can use in your organization.
1. Make it clear from the start. First, you’ll need to let employees know that a new policy is coming soon. Give them plenty of advance notice to get them prepared. Next, you’ll need to distribute this new policy in a variety of different ways. Post it in a high traffic area, like a break-room. Email it to all of your employees and request a read receipt. Lastly, hold department meetings that are mandatory and tell your employees about the new policies verbally. This ensures that you’ve covered all of your bases and that no one can say they were not aware of the change.
2. Work out issues ahead of time. In order to stay professional , you’ll need to work out all of the details of your new policies ahead time. This prevents having to issue company-wide changes and keeps all of your employees on the same page. In addition, you won’t risk having your employees lose respect for your organization if you’ve got everything worked out and handled ahead of time.
3. Enforce your policies consistently. Once you implement a policy, you’ve got to enforce it consistently — all the time, every time, no matter what mitigating circumstances may be in place. If you don’t enforce them consistently, they immediately lose all power and your management loses a portion of their power as well. Be as fair as possible, and your employees will appreciate it.
4. Stay on top of changes. Even though you want to make sure you’re not issuing amendments to policies all the time, if laws, regulations or circumstances do change, you’ll need to stay on top of it to ensure that you’re in compliance. If changes do occur, following the above step on making it clear to ensure that everyone in your organization is aware of the change.
Do you have a question about implementing policies in your organization? Let the experts at SoloPoint guide you!