Make Your Corporate Sustainability Policies More Effective
This is the final blog on corporate sustainability policies! Today we’re covering best practices, how to get employees to follow policies and how to share your corporate sustainability policies internally and externally. In our previous blogs, we covered how to write a policy, the basics of a good policy and what corporate sustainability policies you need.
In this blog, we'll investigate how to make sustainability policies thrive and avoid allowing hard policy work to go to waste! Policies are often treated as “one and done” items.
Created and never seen. But effective policies are part of a strong overall sustainability program and provide support for changes, initiatives and company culture. Policies provide details on how you will complete goals, why the company cares and the steps taken to prove sustainability practices.
There are multiple steps you can take to activate policies. We'll look at how to get employees to follow policies, how to share policies and general best practices for policy management. Let’s dive right in with getting employees to follow policies.
How to Get Employees To Follow Corporate Sustainability Policies
The bulk of employee motivation, satisfaction and engagement evolve from culture and systems. 58% of employees say culture is more important than salary, according to a recent Glassdoor Survey. It means culture motivates employees. And engaged employees are more productive. Don't underestimate culture in keeping employees happy.
Assign tasks
Use task assignments created from policies to get employees to follow policies. Include it in their job description, goals, or as a component of the annual review to increase the likelihood of completion. Look at your policies and determine what can be assigned.
Share Wins
Motivate employees by sharing wins from the policy and how changes they’ve made have carried out the policy. Report regularly on how the policy has affected the goal of the outcome and connect progress to the policy. Use your company culture to dictate how and when to share wins, but ensure you are sharing.
Ask for Employee Input
When creating or refining a policy, ask for employee input or feedback. Use suggestions to improve policies. Ask for feedback as part of a regular review process (see below) and when writing the policy, if possible. Encourage an employee assigned to a policy to report improvements or efficiencies.
Seek Feedback Regularly
As policies get developed and get put into action don’t be afraid to adjust or update them. Ask for feedback from employees at all levels and think of your policy as a living document. Improve and re-word the policy as necessary.
Where to Put Your Corporate Sustainability Policies
For non-public corporations, preference dictates if you choose to share your policies externally. Policies must be shared internally. Follow the below best practices to ensure you’re communicating policies effectively.
Internal Sharing
Internally, distribute policies far and wide. Managers must share policies with their teams and incorporate policy updates into meetings as necessary. Create a policy repository for teams or on a company level so essential people have access.
Policies are also distributed internally when they are tied to employee tasks or job descriptions (see above). Internal distribution facilitates feedback and task assignments.
External Sharing
Many public corporations share policies due to regulatory requirements or to provide crucial information with shareholders. For policies you want to share, put them on your sustainability webpage.
Share what you’re comfortable with or what external stakeholders find important. If you’re in a supply heavy industry, a supply chain code of conduct or stakeholder engagement policy is a good idea to share.
If policies are heavy on action steps or in-house modifications like resource reduction, keep those internal.
Companies will sometimes use a “statement of sustainability” or “statement of environment” to share environmental commitments without describing details of their programs.
Manage Corporate Sustainability Policies for Long Term Success
Training Tools
Don’t forget to apply policies as training tools for new employees. Distribute policies to convey how their work is supported and managed. Policies are powerful approaches to share corporate culture because they show company values, systems and focus.
Schedule Reviews in Calendars
Schedule time to update policies. I recommend including an annual calendar reminder review for assignments or updates. If you’re involving teams to manage and review policies, make sure tasks assignments are correct.
Matching Initiatives with Policies
Initiatives can be sometimes linked directly to policies, like resource reduction examples. Make sure as you’re hitting your initiative goals, you’re updating and adjusting policies in tandem.
Those are the best policy practices for making sure your company is using policies effectively. I recommend reviewing all of our policy blogs to make sure you’re creating the best corporate sustainability policies you can.
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Check out our blogs on employee engagement
