HR professionals are responsible for understanding and planning for ensuring compliance. It includes compliance with all local, state, and federal regulations proposed for businesses in the jurisdiction. If a company’s policy is non-compliant, they may be fined deftly or bundled out of business.
Moreover, these regulations are constant. It is then the responsibility of the company to follow and implement updates frequently. Of course, ensuring compliance is not a simple task; it can be burdensome to collect changes, update and enforce company policy. However, reliable online HR software compiles information and reports less time-consuming, seamless and compliant.
What is Compliance?
Compliance refers to the practice of following local, state, federal, and international laws in running your business. It involves knowing the various laws that apply to the company in its jurisdiction and ensuring that the company operates following the law.
If your company fails to comply, you may be sanctioned expensively. Each jurisdiction has its laws; for instance, we have income tax compliance laws. Depending on the state, businesses may have additional taxes, including:
- Sales tax
- Property taxes
- Excise
- Franchise taxes
- Dividends taxes
- Payroll/employment taxes, etc.
Meanwhile, below is how HR software helps to ensure smooth HR compliance issues:
Certification Management
Most businesses require local, state or federal certifications. Your employees are expected to be qualified, accredited, certified or licensed by a professional organisation to function legally. Typically, the essence is to ensure that the license holder is proficient enough to handle the delicate responsibility.
Suppose your company operates in the construction, legal, teaching or healthcare aspect, the employees must qualify through certifications to work legally.
Human resource management software can ensure professional body memberships, certification management, and accreditations.
Workflows can be designed to inform an employee’s line manager or the HR of their membership status. For example, an expiring license or membership, since some accreditations are ephemeral.
Paperless Compliance Management
HR software is more than an electronic filing cabinet; it mitigates the use of papers and ensures compliance data mobility. It ensures that the cloud powers compliance data and that it remains organised, typically for a specific time.
HRIS is mobile, may be compiled into reports for audits and sent to appropriate officials. Employees may have the authorization to access information, make updates or feedback that helps the company to adjust to regulations.
Monitor Employee Consent
In the context of employment, consent is necessary when processing specific employee data. In this regard, the company must get the employee or contractor to consent before collecting or storing their information.
For instance, if a company must collect personal details, including customer, employee, manager, and contractor, to store for marketing, there must be consent. HR brings fluidity in this aspect; it communicates with e-signatures, tracks and reports consents.
Updates to the company policy, including employment contracts, data protection policies, privacy statements etc., are also communicated to the users. They must be permitted to review and consent to it. Of course, HR software returns responses to the HR team that learns whether a user consent or not.
Crawl for Payroll Compliance Updates
It is challenging for HR managers to stay up-to-date with payroll compliance changes manually. Thus, the need for human resource software to track updated requirements automatically to remain compliant.
How does the HR tool function in this regard? It alerts the company of compliance updates and can be configured to implement the updates automatically or after reviews.
Moreover, HRMS provides the necessary tools for in-depth data analysis and access to useful resources that explain updates to HR managers.
Scheduling Fair Labour Standards
It is typical for companies to face challenges regarding the FLSA (Fair Labor Standards Act), especially when dealing with inexperienced workforce.
Fortunately, HR systems can eliminate the dilemma by automating the workforce schedule within the regulated hours. HR tools can be configured to notify when an employee exceeds time, working overtime, or deserving minutes, hours or days off.
Unrivalled Accuracy
HR is built for accuracy and not just speedy automation. One wrong data entry or policy changes, and a company may have the law to contend with. HRMS automation mitigates risks arising from human errors; however, HR must provide accurate data. While giving information, HR tools search for errors or make suggestions, typically marked or underlined.
Even after updating information with errors, the HR software allows users to access and recommend or enter corrections that may be reviewed and implemented by the HR. It entails information accuracy, and most importantly, compliance. It could be regarding company tax information, user consent requests, work schedule, and privacy statement.
Final Thoughts
Modern HRMS can handle complex exceptions and computations, especially when appropriately configured. Moreover, it could be best if your company employs a reliable HRIS solution to track/monitor necessary HR data or indispensable legal issues.
If the software demands inspecting and shuffling spreadsheets or uses the unfriendly interface, consider getting another software. Besides, the industry features sophisticated and cost-effective software from many reliable providers.
Amanda Byers is a graduate of Columbia, where she played volleyball and annoyed a lot of professors. Now as Zobuz’s entertainment and Lifestyle Editor, she enjoys writing about delicious BBQ, outrageous style trends and all things Buzz worthy.
