It’s no good creating excellent corporate policies if they’re not followed. Too many frustrated business leaders and their HR departments write award-winning policy, but fail to see it being enforced in the field. It doesn’t help you unless it’s actually providing guidance for everyone in the workplace.

Here are four strategies that we’ve seen work out in getting people to follow company policy.

Show That It’s For Everyone

Too many companies are making a huge amount of extra work for themselves in writing policies that don’t explicitly cover every level of staff. Too often, top-level managers or others in high places with the company simply feel that the rules don’t apply to them. This does several bad things — first, it sets up the policy for non-compliance, where HR people or others may have to actually enforce policy on others above them. That makes people uncomfortable. But it also sets an example for others that the policy may not apply, if it’s flouted. So one of the best ways to make policy enforceable is to show actively that everyone, right up to the CEO, is expected to toe the line.

Assign Messengers

Most businesses have different departments and teams. A policy may make its way out to one or more of these, but not to others. To get around this, have point people in each specific department who will be responsible to make sure that message gets out. It has to have “100% coverage” in order to have a good chance of universal compliance.

Reinforce the Message

This is the step where you work to keep a policy visible over time. Doing this in a punitive way is not likely to help — just churning out e-mails and reminders is going to antagonize people and make them angry. HR departments have to find creative, subtle yet distinctive ways to keep underlining why a policy is in place and why it needs to be followed. There’s a fine line to the walk in order to enforce policy and reinforce messages without hurting morale — but that’s the reality of today’s workplace.

Make it Fun/Interactive

Again, this might seem like something that’s “not my job” — but getting these kinds of things in play can really help make less work for those responsible to control policy compliance. You may have seen these kinds of activities at other companies, where people “play police” or otherwise make policy compliance an amusing part of day-to-day operations. Setting up one of these activities the right way can be an additional way to reinforce policy, and get it followed across the board.

For more on policy and everything else that’s challenging your business, keep an eye on the Full Steam Staffing blog as we detail the realities that we have found to be relevant in the Ontario, California business community.