Communicating a critical data security policy that involves software that monitors employees’ emails is vital to its acceptability, implementation, and success. Corporate surveillance is a trade-off that ensures production efficiency at the expense of trust between employees and their employers. Employees are also always at risk of malware and external attacks. Thereby, they will support security measures by the employer. Therefore, the policy needs effective communication.
There exist various ways of communicating policies within an organization. They include employee handbooks, the company intranet, the company website, staff journals, work emails, and many others. The data security policy should be made available to all workers within an organization who can access work emails. Additionally, it should be published on company websites, staff journals, and newspapers, with each component of the email check clearly stated. This will make employees aware of the policy and legal implications in case of violation.
Employee handbooks are also preferred to deliver consistent information to all employees regarding standard operating procedures. Unlike the former print method, a digital format allows an update to the security policy, review by employees, and documentation. Despite that, a multimedia approach is best preferred to catch the attention of all the intended employees.
Two-way communication is adopted to make employees feel involved rather than a policy being forced on them by the human resource department (HR). To ensure this, a group of employees from different departments can be sampled and spoken to by the HR head or representative before the policy is disseminated to all others. Thus, confidence and loyalty will drive production efficiency within the entire organization.
In conclusion, there are elements of effective communication that HR must look at to boost policy acceptability and implementation success. A feedback-generating method will be a vital element that will allow employees to give their opinions without victimization. Clarity with specific goals and transparency about software that may make employees feel monitored. In addition to increasing acceptance, transparency will prevent backlash due to monitoring. Other elements will include a customized delivery approach that is easy to comprehend and a process to evaluate situations that drive the need to communicate.