- Does the HR department have an inventory of policies, procedures, laws, and regulations covering employees and employment-related matters applicable to the company’s business?
- If yes, do you have a specified person in charge of updating the inventory?
- If not, what system does the HR department utilize to ensure that it is aware of the various compliance laws and regulations and has a process to comply with them?
- What evidence would the HR department be able to produce to the government to support a finding that the company has a solid compliance program for applicable labor and employment laws and regulations?
- What types of compliance training are mandatory for all employees, which are optional, and how do HR track and document completion? How is the training performed? Is it provided in the native language of the employee or only in English?
- What enforcement actions predominate in the compliance arena for your industry or where your organization does business? How is such data tracked in your company?
- Are employees within the HR department specifically trained to understand compliance requirements applicable to your organization?
- Does the HR department provide senior management with periodic updates on monitoring results, key risks, and compliance violations within HR?
- Has the HR department established escalation criteria to ensure that high-risk compliance issues are reviewed at the corporate level?
- Does the HR department have compliance monitoring standards in place?
- Does the HR department perform periodic audits to ensure that the policies and procedures are complied with?
These are only a few of the questions that you may want to ask to begin the process of assessing how compliance and the role of HR apply to your company. My final suggestion is to work with HR to create a consolidated Human Resources Compliance Audit Checklist that can be used to audit (and document) the company’s HR Compliance Program. The key to compliance, in my opinion, is having the proper structure to identify the issues, implement policies and procedures to address the issues, audit for compliance, and document, document, and document.
Three Key Takeaways
- A gap analysis is a key component in the risk assessment process.
- The ultimate responsibility should lie with the business units and functional discipline to fully operationalize compliance.
- The role of the compliance department is to oversee, provide subject matter expertise, and coordinate.
This month’s series is sponsored by Advanced Compliance Solutions and its new service offering, the “Compliance Alliance,” which is a three-step program that will provide you and your team a background into compliance and the FCPA so you can consider how your product or service fits into the needs of a compliance officer. It includes an FCPA and compliance boot camp, a one-month podcast series sponsorship, and in-person training. Each section builds on the other and provides your customer service and sales teams with the knowledge they need to have intelligent conversations with compliance officers and decision-makers. When the program is complete, your teams will be armed with the knowledge they need to sell and service every new client. Interested parties should contact Tom Fox.
