There’s far more to HR than just ensuring your company’s employees are happy in their positions and focused on the company’s goals. From health and safety to very serious issues such as sexual harassment, HR has a huge range of responsibilities. One of the most important responsibilities of any HR department is complying with the numerous workplace laws and regulations that have been set up to make today’s workplaces safer, more responsible and less discriminatory towards employees.
These include OSHA, the Fair Labor Standards Act, workplace sexual harassment laws and a range of laws designed to end discrimination in hiring practices and in the workplace. Compliance means understanding the responsibilities of your HR management and ensuring that your company is completely compliant with the relevant laws in your state.
The best way to make sure your HR department is compliant is to carry out an HR compliance audit. This type of audit looks over your HR department’s conduct and processes to ensure it understands and observes all relevant current laws. Carrying out an HR compliance audit can seem complex, but it’s actually far easier than it seems. Read on to learn five tips for conducting an effective HR compliance audit for your business.
Understand the HR laws your business is subject to.
It’s essential that your company’s HR department understands the laws it’s subject to. HR laws change relatively frequently, making it essential that you not only understand the laws but stay up to date with any relevant changes.
Make it a key aspect of your HR policy to stay up to date on developments to HR laws and incorporate any necessary changes into your HR strategy if they become necessary.
Ensure your HR department follows its conduct manual.
Does your company have an HR conduct manual? Clearly outlining your company’s HR processes and policies makes it easier for your HR department to make consistent, effective decisions that comply with HR regulations.
Your company should update its HR department manual whenever new laws come into place – or updates are passed to existing HR laws – to ensure it’s compliant in any circumstance.
Examine your company’s hiring and interview process.
How does your company recruit, interview and hire its employees? As part of your HR compliance audit, examine and review your company’s process for hiring new employees to ensure it’s completely compliant with relevant HR laws.
This often involves ensuring your company’s employees are trained in its HR policy and aware of any key requirements or policies. It’s essential that your hiring team is completely aware of any key HR policies that they need to follow when recruiting.
Locate areas where changes or improvements are needed.
Every business has strengths and weaknesses, and these can often be found in the HR department. During your HR audit, it’s important to take note of any issues or points where improvement is required for efficient, compliant HR management.
Throughout your HR compliance audit, note any failings or problems that your company has faced. These can be used to create a list of priorities for your HR department and company as a whole to focus on in the future.
Keep documentation of all important HR-related decisions.
If your HR compliance audit reveals that many decisions haven’t been sufficiently documented, it’s important that you make documentation one of the key priorities of your business in the future.
Recording and documenting all of your HR department’s key decisions is one of the most important aspects of compliance. Good documentation gives your company a proven record of decisions that can protect it against claims of noncompliance.