How To Get Staff and Volunteers to Follow Policies

Your library or nonprofit organization likely has policies covering a range of important topics, from compliance and safety to daily operations. 

Developing clear policies is the first step. Getting people to follow them consistently can be trickier. 

In this article, we’ll look at what gets in the way, why policies matter, and how to turn policies into practice.

Why Don’t People Follow Policies?

Several factors can keep people from following policies. Here are a few common reasons:

• Unclear purpose. Policies can feel abstract if they are just a bunch of documents that no one ever looks at or talks about. Or, they might be viewed as strictly punitive if you only use them to tell staff and volunteers what they can’t do. It’s important for everyone to understand that policies exist to help guide your organization and maintain consistency.
• Lack of awareness or access. People can’t follow policies they don’t know about or can’t review easily. You need to let people know they exist and where to find them.
• Overly complex or confusing language. Policies don’t need to be written in legal jargon to be legal. Nor do they need to be so detailed that people have trouble following along. Your organization’s policies will be easier to follow if they are clear, concise, and consistent.
• Uncertainty around implementation. Reading a policy and knowing how to apply it are two different things. Someone may understand what a policy says but still be unsure what to do when they run into a situation that falls under it.
• Inconsistent application or enforcement. If one manager follows a policy closely while another ignores it, or different people interpret it in different ways, staff and volunteers may not know what’s expected of them.

Training plays an important role in getting people to follow policies, but it’s not the only means.

Before You Train, Figure Out What’s Getting in the Way

You might be tempted to immediately schedule a training session when you spot a policy issue. But before you do, take a closer look at the problem and ask a few questions:

• Do people know the policy exists?
• Do they know where to find the current version?
• Do they understand what it says?
• Do they understand why it matters?
• Do they know what they’re expected to do?
• Are managers applying it consistently?
• Are people running into the same issues repeatedly?

The answers can tell you whether training will help.

For example, if no one can find the policy, you have an access problem, not a training problem.

If managers interpret the policy differently, you may need clearer procedures.

A policy generally establishes the standard and explains who, what, when, and why. A procedure explains how to carry it out. If the steps are missing or unclear, you should probably fix the document before you offer training. 

If the policy itself needs work, check out our article, How to Develop & Implement Policies for Your Nonprofit. It provides step-by-step guidance and templates for writing clear policies and procedures.

Once you’ve ruled out other reasons and identified a genuine knowledge or skill gap, then it’s time to think about training.

Who Needs Policy Training?

You probably don’t need to train everyone on every policy exactly the same way. Instead, think about who needs to enforce or follow the policy, what they should know, and what they’re expected to do with the information.

Managers

Managers are a good place to start because they often play two roles: they need to follow policies, and they need to help other people follow them.

Before training staff or volunteers, make sure managers:

• Know which policies apply to their teams
• Know where to find current versions
• Understand why the policies exist
• Can explain how they apply to everyday situations
• Know how and when to enforce them
• Know how to respond to common questions
• Understand when an issue needs to be escalated

This step can help ensure different teams receive the same message.

Then, depending on the policy, you could even use a train-the-trainer approach and give managers the information and resources they need to guide their teams.

Staff

Staff often put policies into practice every day. They may interact directly with patrons or clients, handle sensitive information, use organizational technology, or make decisions without a manager immediately available.

Focus their training on the policies that affect their work and, more importantly, the decisions they need to make.

Someone probably doesn’t need to memorize every paragraph of a cybersecurity policy. They may need to recognize a suspicious message, know not to click a link, and know exactly how to report it.

Volunteers

While many organizations focus on recruiting and retaining volunteers, it’s easy to overlook policy training. 

But there’s a good chance you rely on volunteers to interact with patrons, clients, visitors, donors, and other community members. In some cases, they may be doing work that carries the same privacy, safety, or conduct expectations as paid staff.

Volunteers can also be harder to train if they only work a few hours a month, come in on different schedules, or have varying levels of comfort with technology. 

These challenges make it especially important to identify the policies that directly affect their roles and provide training they can access when they need it.

How to Train Staff and Volunteers on Policies

Once you know where training is needed, here are some ways to get started.

1. Choose a Policy

You don’t have to train everyone on everything at once.

Choose one policy and use it as a pilot. You can learn what works, make adjustments, and use the experience when you tackle the next one.

A few questions can help you choose:

• Where are people making mistakes or asking repeated questions?
• Which policy affects the most people?
• Which issue creates the greatest risk if someone gets it wrong?
• Which policy has the greatest impact on your mission or services?
• Are there policies people are legally or professionally required to understand?

Thinking through what would most benefit your organization can help you decide where to start.

2. Make the Policy Easy to Find

Training won’t do much good if people can’t find the policy afterward.

Keep the current version somewhere everyone who needs it can access. It doesn’t matter whether you share a digital or hard copy so long as people know where to look and are sure to see the latest version.

It’s also important to think about accessibility. If staff or volunteers need policies in different languages or formats, make those versions available too. 

For higher-risk or more complicated policies, you might ask learners to review the policy before training. That gives everyone a shared starting point and lets them come prepared with questions.

3. Explain Why the Policy Matters

Policies can feel like a list of rules if people don’t understand why they exist.

Use training to add context. Why does the policy matter? What problem does it help solve? How does it support your staff, volunteers, clients, or community?

For example, if you have a remote work policy, you might explain how it helps your organization maintain consistent service while setting clear expectations for people working away from the office.

If you have a PTO policy, you might talk about how taking time away supports employee wellbeing while helping managers handle leave consistently.

Sometimes people also need training around the policy, not just on the policy itself.

For example, you could pair a policy explaining how to report sexual harassment with training that helps staff recognize sexual harassment and know what to do if they experience or witness it.

Or you could support a cybersecurity policy with training on phishing, scams, passwords, and protecting sensitive information.

The point is to help people understand not just what the policy says, but why it matters.

4. Show People What the Policy Looks Like in Practice

Reading a policy is one thing. Knowing what to do in a real situation is another.

Scenarios can help make policies more concrete. Give people situations they might encounter and ask what they would do.

For example:

A staff member receives an email that appears to come from your executive director and asks them to log in through an unfamiliar link. What should they do next?

Or:

A patron becomes upset after being told their behavior violates library policy. What should the staff member do?

At a nonprofit, you might ask:

A client’s family member asks a volunteer for information about the client. How should the volunteer respond?

Scenarios give people a safe place to make decisions, get feedback, and learn from mistakes before they face a similar situation at work. Real-life examples and role-playing can also help turn policies into something people can apply.

They are also a good way to add context. A cybersecurity policy might require strong passwords, for example, but a scenario involving compromised organizational data could help you connect that requirement to phishing, human error, and protecting sensitive information.

Stories work well for the same reason. As we discuss in our article on using storytelling to make training memorable and meaningful, they can make abstract information easier to understand and remember.

You don’t need to create elaborate scenarios. A question in an online tutorial, a story discussed during a staff meeting, or a short role-playing exercise may be enough.

You can also give people something to refer to later, such as a checklist, script, decision guide, or step-by-step procedure. These kinds of resources can provide just-in-time training when someone needs a quick reminder.

5. Choose the Training Format That Fits the Need

Policy training doesn’t have to mean gathering everyone in a room for an hour-long presentation.

Different topics and audiences may require different approaches. You might:

• Share a short online tutorial
• Discuss examples during a staff meeting
• Practice difficult interactions through role-playing
• Record a demonstration of a procedure
• Provide a checklist or decision guide
• Pair self-paced training with a live Q&A
• Offer a short refresher when a policy changes

You can also combine formats.

For example, staff could review a policy and complete a short online tutorial on their own, then use the next staff meeting to work through a couple of scenarios and ask questions.

Volunteers who rarely work at the same time may need training they can complete on their own schedule. Managers dealing with a complicated policy might benefit from a live discussion where they can talk through different situations together.

Use whatever format helps people understand the policy and what they need to do.

6. Give People a Way to Ask Questions

Policies can’t anticipate every situation.

Make sure people know who to ask when something doesn’t fit neatly into the examples they’ve seen. That might be a supervisor, HR contact, policy owner, or someone else responsible for that area.

You could also create an FAQ based on questions that come up regularly.

And pay attention to those questions. If several people ask the same thing, your training may need clarification. Or the policy itself might not be clear enough.

It’s better for people to ask than guess about something important.

How a Training Platform Can Help

A training platform can make things easier when you’re training people on different schedules, combining your own policies with related training, or tracking who has completed what.

With Niche Academy, for example, you can add your own policy-specific content, pair it with ready-made tutorials from our Market, include activities or assessments, and track training through reports.

The goal isn’t to turn every policy into an online course. Use the platform when it makes training easier for people to access and easier for you to manage.

Measure Whether the Training Is Working

Completing training doesn’t necessarily mean someone can follow a policy.

Start by deciding what you want people to be able to do afterward.

Instead of:

Staff understand the incident reporting policy.

Try:

Staff can identify when an incident report is required and submit it through the correct process.

Or instead of:

Volunteers understand our confidentiality policy.

Try:

Volunteers can identify information they shouldn’t share and know who to ask when they’re unsure.

Now you have something you can measure.

A quiz or scenario can help you see whether people understand the policy after training. Completion data can tell you who has taken the training.

But you can also look at what happens afterward:

• Are the same questions or mistakes still coming up?
• Are people following the correct procedures?
• What are managers noticing?
• Have policy-related incidents changed?
• Do staff or volunteers feel more confident about what to do?

As we discuss in our article on measuring training effectiveness, start by deciding what success looks like and then collect information that helps you see whether you’re getting there.

If one or two people are still struggling, they may just need some extra help.

If almost everyone is getting the same thing wrong, take another look at the training.

Or maybe the training isn’t the problem.

Let the Training Improve Your Policies, Too

Training puts policies in front of the people who have to use them. And they may notice things you missed.

Maybe two sections seem to contradict each other. A procedure might leave out an important step. Something you thought was obvious might not be obvious at all.

That’s useful information.

Staff are close to the day-to-day work. Managers see patterns across their teams. Volunteers may encounter situations your regular staff don’t. Listen to their questions and use what you learn to improve the training—and the policy.

And remember to review training when policies change.

A major change may require new training. A smaller change might only need an update or refresher.

But don’t retrain people just for the sake of it. If they already know the material, you may be able to let them demonstrate what they know instead of asking them to complete the same training again.

Start With One Policy

Policy training doesn’t have to be boring or become a major project.

Choose one policy people could use more help putting into practice. Figure out what’s getting in the way, who needs training, and what you want them to be able to do.

Then start there.

Make the policy easy to find. Explain why it matters. Show people what it looks like in practice. Give them a chance to ask questions. Then pay attention to what happens afterward.

Use what you learn to improve the training, the policy, or both.

If you’d like more help, check out our free democast, Bringing Policies to Life: Building Scenario-Based Training.

We’ll take a closer look at how to turn policies into useful training and show how Niche Academy can help you create, deliver, and track it.