Your policies are setting employees up to fail
A policy without guidance is like a map without street names. Not. Very Useful.
We’ve worked on many government intranet projects. We’ve noticed lots of issues they all have in common. One of those issues is the way policies are handled – or rather – not handled. What concerns us even more is that PDFs of policies alone don’t provide any kind of guidance for how people should comply with the policy. They are often updated and uploaded without removing past versions that are no longer valid.
Some organisations have a ‘tick-the-box’ mentality for publishing policies. If the policy is uploaded in any format, they consider it defensible. They’re not thinking about the end user experience of an employee having to trawl through a 40-page policy document to find the information they need. Senior leaders in these same organisations often grumble that staff are not complying with the policy, causing endless rework for their business area.
Does anyone else spy a connection between policies and non-compliance here?
Creating a single source of truth
Your intranet needs to be a single source of truth.
Sometimes version control is a major issue when several versions of a PDF policy appear in an intranet’s search results. The search results page may not place the most recent version of the policy at the top of the results. The search engine results become diluted and employees lose trust that the policy they’re accessing is the most up-to-date version.
When a person sees duplicated or out-of-date content, they lose confidence in its authority.
They may unknowingly download, refer to and act upon an older version of the policy.
During research interviews, we’ve heard from many employees that when they find it difficult to find a policy, or if they have trouble locating the most up-to-date version, they will save a copy to their local drive. This means if the policy is updated in the future, they risk missing key information and being non-compliant, simply because it’s too hard to find.
Making policies accessible and understandable
All intranets we’ve seen have policies published – usually in PDF format. But …
- Is the information in that policy accessible and easily understood?
- If there are guidelines on how to follow a policy, are they clearly outlined or linked to from that policy?
- If there’s a process, is it set out in simple steps?
- Does the policy address the different needs of audiences reading the same policy?
When you get this right, it means you can expect more employees to be self-directed in their work.
Learning from the experts
The key to creating genuinely helpful policy guidance starts with talking to your subject matter experts (SMEs). These are the people who field policy-related questions day in, day out. They know exactly where employees get confused, what assumptions they make, and which parts of policies consistently trip them up.
When we interviewed SMEs across various government departments, we discovered patterns. The same questions kept cropping up. The same misunderstandings were happening across different teams. Most telling of all, the same workarounds were being invented by well-meaning employees who couldn’t make sense of the original policy.
Ask your SMEs these questions:
- What are the top 5 questions you get asked about this policy?
- What do people consistently get wrong?
- What assumptions do people make that lead them astray?
- Which parts of the policy cause the most confusion?
Their answers will reveal exactly what your guidance needs to focus on.
Finding the critical information
Not all policy content is created equal. SMEs understand what truly matters – the information that, if misunderstood, could cause real problems for the organisation or put employees at risk.
When we work with SMEs, we ask them to identify the must-know information.
- What are the 3 things every employee needs to understand about this policy?
- What’s the difference between nice-to-know and need-to-know?
This exercise often surprises policy owners. They realise they’ve been burying the most critical information on page 23 of a dense document, whilst spending pages on background context that adds little value for someone trying to do their job.
Overcoming the guidance gap
Here’s where we often hit resistance. Some SMEs worry that publishing guidance creates risk. They fear that simplifying complex policies might lead to oversimplification or misinterpretation.
We see it differently. We think it’s far riskier to leave employees to interpret complex policies on their own.
When guidance doesn’t exist, employees make their own. They develop shortcuts, create informal processes, and share half-understood interpretations with colleagues. Before long, you have multiple versions of ‘how things really work’ circulating around the organisation – none of them officially sanctioned, and some of them completely wrong.
Published guidance doesn’t increase risk – it reduces it by providing a controlled, accurate interpretation that everyone can reference.
Designing for understanding
Once you know what employees need to understand, you can structure information to help them succeed.
Start with an overview. Every policy page should begin with a single paragraph that explains what the policy covers and who it applies to. Think of it as the policy equivalent of a good news headline – it should tell people immediately whether they’re in the right place.
Then structure the rest of the content around the most common enquiries your SMEs identified. If 80% of questions are about expense limits in a policy about credit card use, make that information easy to find. If people consistently struggle with approval processes, lead with step-by-step guidance.
Focus on the happy path – the straightforward scenarios that apply to most people most of the time. Edge cases and exceptions can be mentioned, but don’t let them dominate the guidance. Instead, provide clear contact details so people can get help with their specific situation.
Making processes crystal clear
When a policy requires someone to take action, spell out exactly what they need to do. Replace vague phrases like ‘liaise with your manager’ or ‘complete the appropriate documentation’ with specific steps:
- Complete the expense claim form (link to form).
- Attach receipts for all expenses over $20.
- Email the completed form to your manager for approval.
- Once approved, email the form to finance@yourdepartment.gov.au.
This level of specificity removes guesswork and reduces the back-and-forth that happens when people aren’t sure they’ve done the right thing.
Considering your audiences
Most policies affect people in different types of roles in different ways. Take bullying and harassment policies – the information a manager needs is different from what someone who’s been bullied needs, which is different again from what someone accused of bullying needs.
Don’t try to serve all audiences with the same content. Create targeted guidance that speaks directly to each group’s situation and responsibilities. Use clear headings like ‘If you’re a manager’, ‘If you’re experiencing bullying’, or ‘If you’ve been accused of bullying’.
Each section should focus on what that specific audience needs to know and do. This targeted approach makes it much easier for people to find relevant information quickly.
Making compliance achievable
When policies are designed with users in mind, compliance becomes achievable rather than accidental. Employees can find what they need, understand what’s expected of them, and take the right action confidently.
The result? Fewer questions to SMEs, fewer mistakes to fix, and fewer frustrated managers wondering why their staff aren’t following the rules.
Good policy guidance isn’t about dumbing down complex information – it’s about making that information work for the people who need to use it. And when information works, so does compliance.
Get in touch
If you have policies failing to cut through, we can help you turn them into the kind of guidance that improves compliance. Get in touch.
