Why Conversing with Employees is Important Before Making a Policy?

“Change is the only constant thing in life.” -  (Heraclitus)

While everyone realises that change is inevitable, this word still creates uneasiness for most people. In the workplace, communicating a plan for policy change often comes across as a daunting challenge for leaders. As people get comfortable with their habitual routine, they tend to resist change assuming this will disrupt their existing ways of conduct. Owing to this reason, be it big or small, change is often perceived in a negative light.

Fear of the unknown often becomes the main ground why employees are not excited with the idea of change. Not knowing how the change of policy will impact them, employees might feel like losing control and helpless. Therefore, effective communication between the employer and employees is important for seamless implementation of change.

It is part of leader’s critical responsibility to communicate with employees regarding the managerial plan to generate a new policy. You might be thinking, why bother conversing with employees when the final decision rests in the hands of the higher-ups anyway? Isn’t it the employees’ duty to follow the lead?

Well, here are some sensible reasons why you should conduct two-way communication before issuing any policy:

1. Demonstrate that you care

More than anything else, your employees will be the ones who are mostly affected by the policy. Being the ones impacted by policy change first, they should know what is going on within the inner workings of the company. You should bear in mind that, not everyone likes surprises such as drastic change of policy.

By communicating with employees
before hand about the change in policy, it will demonstrate that you count their existence into account. This not just shows that you care about their concerns, there are higher chances of your message being heard.

2. Enhance trust and credibility

Face-to-face conversation is a great medium to share your strategy with the employees. During the talk, you can explain the proposed policy design with them more clearly. You can also open question and answer sessions, wherein the employees can talk about matters on hand and you can answer them honestly.

Through this discussion, employees will gauge how you align your words with action. When you are able to demonstrate a genuine attitude, it will enhance your trust and credibility. Only then, your words will be respected by your employees.

3. Gather for feedback

Conversing with employees before drafting a policy is important because you can interpret what they might be feeling towards the policy. Conducting open discussion and inviting your employees to provide comment and feedbacks will help you create a better policy.

Such forums allow
to measure employee engagement and understanding of sensitive issues within the organisation.

4. Implement openness and transparency

Building trust between employer and employees is the lifeblood of every organisation. When you manage to hold open and regular communication with your employees, this will help create a culture of openness and transparency in the workplace. When drafting a new policy, transparent leaders find it easier to communicate with employees about such change to seek better understanding.

Towards the end, drawing upon two-way seamless communication strategy should be the focus of your organisation. Rather than looking for an opportunity to face-to-face conversation, you should enlist the program as your next regular agenda. This might sound simple, as long as you initiate efforts and persistence into it, seemingly-trivial talk can transform to deliver deeper insight for business sustainability.conduct

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