15

A company issues a new regulation and wants to make the new regulation more broadly known and understood by all of its employees.

What do we say the company does? (The company ... its new regulation.)

Is the word "socialize" appropriate to fill the blank above?
I am looking for a word that has the property of "efforts" to ensure the regulation is known by all and understood thoroughly instead of merely making it public, so words like "announce" and "publicize" are not sufficient.

Improve this question
9
  • 2
    "Promote" or "Advertise" in the sense of calling attention to (something) or causing people to notice (something).
    – Graffito
    Mar 13, 2016 at 19:41
  • 3
    :"Broadcast" is one word. But consulting a thesaurus will get you "announce", "proclaim", "disclose", "declare", "disseminate", "publicize", "promulgate", "publish". "reveal", "notify", "propagate", ad nauseam.
    – Hot Licks
    Mar 13, 2016 at 20:48
  • 1
    @mgc "The company wide-spreaded its new regulation"? I can't see that catching on, if I'm honest.
    – John Clifford
    Mar 13, 2016 at 20:48
  • 1
    @JohnClifford you're right, I guess I meant something like: once these regulations have been <put the appropriate word here>, we could probably say that they are, for example, widespread regulations ? (anyway I realize, according to the most voted answer that I was just paraphrasing "disseminate" : spread or disperse widely)
    – mgc
    Mar 13, 2016 at 21:55
  • 1
    The verb is normally applied to staff in this context: e.g. training. For the regulations, you could try to institutionalise, with the benefit that if the training effort fails, you can still say it's been institutionalised. :)
    – Lawrence
    Mar 14, 2016 at 5:45

9 Answers 9

Reset to default
43

disseminate as defined by Oxford Dictionaries

spread or disperse (something, especially information) widely. "health authorities should foster good practice by disseminating information"

In your example: "The CEO ordered the Human Resources Office to disseminate the new policy on workplace harassment by holding a meeting, with ample time for Q&A, in every division by the end of the quarter."

Improve this answer
5
  • 1
    Whoever downvoted this post, can you explain why this post doesn't answer the question or how can it be improved?
    – user140086
    Mar 13, 2016 at 19:26
  • @Rathony Thanks. If I hadn't seen it happen to others, I'd be paranoid.
    – ab2
    Mar 13, 2016 at 19:34
  • 2
    I'm honestly not sure which one to upvote: disseminate is a great word, but I can't help but feel that in the OP's sample sentence "The company circulates its new regulation" sounds more natural than "The company disseminates its new regulation". Hell, I'll upvote both. +1!
    – John Clifford
    Mar 13, 2016 at 20:43
  • 1
    The word disseminate is a good word. It does not belong in that sentence.
    – user116032
    Mar 14, 2016 at 1:37
  • 1
    Odd, I think disseminate is more natural than circulate here. However, publish carries an additional sense of making official. In olden days, perhaps proclaim.
    – Andrew Lazarus
    Mar 15, 2016 at 0:03
17

Promulgate could work.

Promulgate - promote or make widely known
Example: These objectives have to be promulgated within the organization.

Improve this answer
2
  • 6
    I do not believe promulgate is the right word, although its meaning would be clear. It is too portentous to the task in hand, and belongs to things such as religious messages. (There used to be an organisation called Society for the Promulgation of the Gospel.) Disseminate is a far better option, for getting information out to employees etc. in my view.
    – WS2
    Mar 13, 2016 at 19:24
  • 2
    @WS2: on the contrary, I think promulgate is the perfect word to use here, since it carries a connotation/side meaning of "put into effect". I don't think it's a portentous word at all.
    – Marthaª
    Mar 15, 2016 at 0:10
13

Another possible word is popularise.

From Cambridge Dictionaries:

popularize verb [T] (GENERAL) - to make something ​known and ​understood by ​ordinary ​people: Television has an ​important ​role to ​play in popularizing new ​scientific ​ideas.

From The Free Dictionary:

  1. popularise - make understandable to the general public; "Carl Sagan popularized cosmology in his books"
Improve this answer
10

You could consider using the verb circulate which means:

to pass from person to person or place to place

When there was no intranet (inter-company internet), a memorandum about a new regulation was circulated from a person to another person within a team or department to make sure they understood it well. They had to sign their initials on a signature box after reading it. The word is still being used and the memorandum is circulated in the form of an electronic document on the intranet. If it is classified as confidential or very important, a company still circulates a printed version.

Your example:

The company circulates its new regulation on the intranet.

[Merriam-Webster]

Improve this answer
0
6

Not an exact match but evangelize is sometimes used for spreading awareness about a technology, see Technology evangelist entry on Wikipedia.

Improve this answer
6
  • 2
    I think you evangelize people, not regulations.
    – Jacinto
    Mar 13, 2016 at 20:29
  • 1
    @Jacinto you can evangelize software so why not regulations?
    – Jan Tojnar
    Mar 13, 2016 at 20:40
  • 1
    I don't think you can evangelize software. My understanding is that religious evangelism means preaching the gospel to people, and converting them to your religion (check evangelize at M-W. So by analogy, technology evangelism means 'preaching' technology to people, and trying to get people to adopt technology. In both case you evangelize people.
    – Jacinto
    Mar 13, 2016 at 21:06
  • @Jacinto If you want to convert people to your religion, you have to spread the awareness and understanding first, hence the similarity. By ‘evangelizing software’ I meant ‘evangelizing people about software’, my mistake.
    – Jan Tojnar
    Mar 13, 2016 at 21:21
  • 4
    I am most used to evangelizing <some topic> to some people.
    – Jim
    Mar 13, 2016 at 21:58
5

I think "promote" is the best option here.

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/promote

  1. To urge the adoption of; advocate: promote a constitutional amendment.
  2. To attempt to sell or popularize by advertising or publicity: commercials promoting a new product.
Improve this answer
1

It's a neologistic use I don't particularly like, but "socialize" as a transitive verb fits this fairly well if you want to use a word which is business-speaks.

You would use this, for example, by saying "the company will need to socialize these new regulations to make sure everyone is familiar with them."

Improve this answer
3
  • 1
    Thank you for your input. Could you please give some examples with the word "socialize" used in this meaning?
    – stelle
    Mar 14, 2016 at 4:02
  • 1
    I have updated my answer.
    – James McLeod
    Mar 14, 2016 at 5:24
  • Socializing regulations sounds like altering them in some way to make them fit for society. Can you provide actual examples where the word is used as you suggest?
    – David42
    Jul 14, 2016 at 19:45
1

Consider "publish" - the process of production and dissemination of literature, music, or information — the activity of making information available to the general public.

Consider also, "inculcate" - instill (an attitude, idea, or habit) by persistent instruction.

Improve this answer
-1

disclose, defined by vocabulary.com as:

to reveal or expose information that has previously been kept a secret — like a politician might be forced to disclose his finances or former scandals while running for office.

Improve this answer
2
  • 3
    You answer was too laconic for a good answer here. I edited it to bring it in line with the site's requirements.
    – ab2
    Mar 13, 2016 at 19:23
  • @ab2 I like my answers abridged :(
    – Laconic
    Mar 14, 2016 at 4:06

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.