Due to the dynamic nature of the market, change is inevitable in all business environments. Whether it’s the internal or external changes affecting your industry, new systems or new legislation is been implemented, or there is a paradigm shift in the company’s strategic direction, you are unable to avoid the updates and changes in policies and procedures of the company. However, when these changes occur, it becomes equally important that you should communicate with employees about your company policies and procedure changes. Doing this is helping in keeping your business from costly errors and mistakes.
When complying with the policies or procedures, remember that there could be some financial and legal consequences as well, based on the nature of the change that’s being made. Carefully examine your new work policies and try to figure out the ones who are going to be the most affectees of these changes. It could primarily be your employees and if not, your business stakeholders including partners, clients, and other community members can be in hot water. When you know the people who will be affected by the policies and procedures being changed, it enables you to determine when the right time is and how to communicate those modifications in the right manner. There are certainly some essential steps that you can follow to make sure that all the people are informed and made to understand the new protocols and changes and the consequences of not following them.
It should be concise and clear enough to easily understand – It’s mainly not that important the way you choose to communicate your business policies or procedures if your communication is very clear and concise and people can easily understand the changes. Any such communication should speak about what exactly is going to be changed, what is remaining the same, the need for change, and what measures one should take to ensure their compliance with the new set of rules and regulations. A clear spelling out of implications is necessary here to make sure everyone knows the consequences if they do not follow the corporate policies.
Speaking directly to the employees feels more authentic – Major corporate policies and procedures are related to employees, therefore having face-to-face communications becomes very helpful, especially on important issues. It not only helps build trust with your staff but also makes compliance easy. If possible, you can conduct a webinar or hold a meeting with the senior management present to inform employees about why the change is necessary and the related consequences.
Roll out appropriate training when required – Sometimes the changes made to your corporate policies and procedures are so complex that they call for an entirely new approach to comply with those practices. In those scenarios, when you feel that it will be difficult for employees to grasp the new concept(s) and simply writing them down is not going to help, you need to provide your employees with an adequate training to act in accordance with the new procedures and carry out their tasks the way they are expected to do and meet specified standards. If necessary, you can also factor in the need for a refresher or follow-up training.
Use an effective channel for better spreading out of the word – There are instances where you cannot just have face-to-face communicate or roll-out adequate training at the start of a new initiative. In that time, it’s better to inform your employees about any policy or procedural changes through text alerts and notifications. With an SMS cell broadcast device like Hitech Terminal (SMSBroadcaster.com), you can communicate your message to all your employees in the blink of an eye. The best thing about Hitech Terminal is that it makes off grid communication a breeze.