There is no fixed term for informing staff about the textile passport; the regulation does not prescribe this either. In practice, it takes a matter of days for a straightforward situation with one or two functions involved, and a matter of weeks when multiple departments, multiple locations or a works council are involved. Often more decisive than the number of employees is the timing of when you start: only once it is clear which software you will use and who will supply which data can you tell people something concrete.
Information about the textile passport is not a one-off announcement to the entire company. It concerns a few functions that will be dealing with it in practice: warehouse or logistics, which applies or checks the label or QR code on the product; procurement, which collects and passes on data from suppliers; customer service, which may receive questions from buyers; and sometimes marketing, if the content of the passport relates to what appears on the packaging or website. For each group, something different is relevant, and that determines how much time the information takes.
What extends the turnaround time
The first delay arises when no one in the company is designated as owner of the subject. Without someone to collect questions and escalate them to the software supplier, information gets stuck at a presentation that no one returns to. The second delay arises when you inform staff before the choice of a supplier or working method has been made: employees then receive questions that you cannot yet answer, and the session must be repeated later. For this reason, it is often more effective to schedule information after your conversations with your software supplier, not before.
A third factor is employee participation. If your organization has a works council, the choice of a software system with which personnel data or work processes are recorded may fall under the right of approval. Whether this applies in your case, and what timelines are involved, is something to discuss with the works council itself and if necessary a lawyer; this process is separate from the information itself but can mean that you only complete communications to staff after employee participation has been completed.
What makes the information itself simpler
Most companies have enough with a brief, role-focused explanation: what changes for this role, which action is added or removed, and who can someone contact with questions. This is different from explaining what the regulation precisely contains — not everyone needs to know that background. Anyone who first wants to check for themselves what changes for the company as a whole will find an ordered overview by subject in the knowledge base with explanation per situation, and can get a first indication in a few questions via the product scan that shows in a few steps where you stand.
A common misconception is that information is unnecessary as long as the technology is correct. In practice, it is precisely the warehouse or customer service that first has to deal with questions, long before a supervisory authority comes into view. Therefore, make sure these people know what is on the label, what the QR code shows and who they can contact if a customer asks them something they cannot answer.
Realistic planning
For a company with a limited number of functions involved with the product passport, a week to two weeks for preparation and a short session per team is a reasonable estimate, provided that the choice of working method is already determined. If you have multiple locations, a works council, or work with many different suppliers who each provide their own data, this often extends to several weeks, simply because more coordination is needed before the information is complete. How information provision looks precisely in your organization and which steps are involved can be found in the frequently asked questions about the product passport in practice.
Would you first like to get an idea of what will change for your company before discussing this within your organization? Take the free quick-scan or read the topics that are relevant to you — that way you will know what you can inform your staff about specifically later.