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Raising The Stakes For Your Company's Constitution: 14 Ways To Get Employees On Board

Forbes Human Resources Council

If executive leadership expects their direct reports to embrace and abide by institutional values and policies, then they have to foster a collaborative environment for staff members to contribute by sharing their input. This ensures that everyone will be represented with a unified mission and purpose as well as the ability to have a voice.

Reviewing the business constitution with transparency on a regular basis gives everyone on staff some skin in the game and makes them feel like appreciated team members who are enabled to grow with a company that truly cares about their career journey in the process.

Below, 14 Forbes Human Resources Council members discuss ideas to help leaders engage employees in writing an organizational doctrine that will benefit every stakeholder involved in pursuing the company's mission.

1. Start With Your 'Why'

Being clear about why your organization exists will resonate with today's workforce. Now more than ever, you need a good answer to this question, and purpose is not a choice but a necessity. Clarifying things such as where the company has a unique or positive impact on society and what individual mindsets and behaviors link to the company's values can be very beneficial and will go a long way. - Rachel Fletcher, Projekt202

2. Share Examples Of Values And Policies

You should want the values and policies to be a call for action, not just a well-crafted poster that gets dusty on the wall. So bring them to life with examples and break them down into observable behaviors. - Catalina Schveninger, DataCamp

3. Invite Employees To Author Doctrines

A great way to increase engagement and make organization values resonate with employees is to have employees author doctrines. Circulate a concise summary of existing values and policies. Ask each employee to contribute by either rating how strongly they identify with existing values and policies or suggesting an additional value or policy that they would like to see implemented. - Misha Ford, 3TG Staffing Solutions

4. Codify Team Process

As values and "organizational constitutions" develop at a company, it is important to codify how each team's work can represent behaviors relative to each value. If a company embraces a commitment to providing the best service to its customers, how does the recruiting team do that? How does the engineering team do that? Write down, video record and display examples of the process throughout company communication. - Courtney Berkholtz, The Ray Life


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5. Encourage Team Accountability

When company values and policies have an authentic connection to the company’s purpose, they can be embedded into every employee-related process, including recruiting, performance management, promotion cycles and more. When done properly, this also becomes part of how employees hold each other accountable for these values. - Leah Sutton, Elastic

6. Give Presentations Regularly

The problem with internal documents like employee handbooks is that employees rarely read them or retain the contents long after reading them once. As CEO, I have a presentation on my company's core values and how to apply them in the workplace. I do this presentation to all hands a couple of times per year to make sure everyone has these values top of mind and that it’s coming from a caring manager. - Eric Friedman, eSkill

7. Align Tone With Culture

It's critical to ensure that the tone aligns with the culture. The tone is almost as important as the content contained within the documentation. Spending the time and energy to define things that do not reflect the real perspectives of your actual employee experiences can yield less than desired results. - Matthew Brown, Schoox

8. Create A Diverse Team Of Collaborators

Select a diverse team to share your values doctrine drafting process. This will ensure that you set a foundation for inclusivity that is "baked into" the overall doctrine. In this way, you will bring empathy and inclusion into the DNA of your organization. - Nassim Abdi, StoryBolt

9. Ingrain It Within Business Communications And Decision Making

Companies should ingrain the organizational constitutions in every business communication, decision and process throughout the employee life cycle. This will keep the values at the forefront with all stakeholders and employees to ensure the company is actually honoring the constitutions and values throughout the cycle of the business and not just using them as sayings you hear in passing. - Evelyn Reed, Jacent Strategic Merchandising

10. Be Clear About Expectations

Members of leadership will often outline the company's doctrines, values and policies in a very formal manner that is not applicable. Sometimes in an attempt to use flowery language to reiterate the importance to the company, the value and expected behavior of each employee get lost in translation. It is important that teams outline how to be inclusive in their attitude and beliefs and what to do, including what others see. - Carrie Berg, Teladoc Health

11. Consult With Top Leadership

Bringing in top leadership to contribute can help HR bypass buzzwords, speak authentically and get leaders engaged and excited rather than feeling like they're being forced to sign off on just another HR initiative. It ensures messaging is concise and from the heart, making it a more impactful and inspiring core organizational document that employees can feel confident looking to for guidance. - Patrick Donegan, SEI

12. Interview The Company's Founders

Interviewing founders of a company about the original vision, and observing the current value system that is informally in place, can provide a framework for outlining key values the company wishes to incorporate. This also helps leaders identify the positive values the company has adopted organically that they want to keep by formalizing them in a policy. - Laura Spawn, Virtual Vocations, Inc.

13. Lead By Example

Your organizational constitution defines your company’s DNA by laying the foundation for your employees’ experience within your organization and providing the rules and regulations that your employees live and work by. The most meaningful way for the executive team to drive home a company’s values and policies is for them to lead by example. Leadership should exemplify the values to amplify and instill them into the company culture. - Rick Hammell, Atlas

14. Reevaluate The Policy Often

DEI should be top of mind for all employers, and an organizational constitution should never leave any employee feeling unrepresented or excluded. Leaders must understand that organizational constitutions should be reevaluated often and amended if necessary. Employees should also have a voice in their values and policies to ensure everyone feels included and equally represented. - John Feldmann, Insperity

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