Employee Legal Awareness Day

Policies and Procedures are extremely important but often unbearably long and incredibly dull.

There is a certain satisfaction in drafting a considered policy document and keeping it up to date. But if employees do not read it until a problem arises then they may not be aware of the avoidable legal pitfalls that can cause significant loss to their employer before it is too late.

In about 2007, I founded Employee Legal Awareness Day. Since then, I have made legal presentations, written articles such as Ten Legal Things That your Employees Need To Know and devised the 3 Minute "Are you legally savvy" Quiz to promote the advantages of keeping employees legally savvy.

One US company proposed three tips to make the day a hit, including a Trivia Night. However, I accept that it could be a long night for employees unless the prizes were exceptionally expensive.

In the last decade, policy documents appear to have substantially increased in length while remaining unappealing to any normal employee. Whereas, interest in Employee Legal Awareness Day appears to have increased, or so the hashtag on Twitter would suggest.

I challenge all those drafting Policy and Procedure documents to hold the length at the 2021 level and even consider setting a ten year reduction target.