SElf-audit of HR & employment practices
The goal of conducting a self-audit of your HR and employment practices is to discover areas of opportunity where you can improve your employee experience or uncover non-compliance items that will need to be addressed. It is always better to uncover your own issues and make corrections rather than discover an issue during a government agency audit, or in response to a formal complaint.
By conducting a high-level overview audit, you may find that many areas involving employee relations or government compliance are right on track. If you find one category that may have some issues or risk, then you can take a deeper dive with a more detailed audit.
A few areas to consider:
Talent Acquisition
On-boarding
I-9
Employment Files
Payroll
Worker’s Compensation
Performance Management
Employee Satisfaction/Engagement
After your audit is concluded, then you can decide the best way to correct, improve and move forward. You may hire a consultant to assist, you may add a temporary or permanent HR team member to work on a large scope change, you may call in a labor attorney or you may find that a PEO (Preferred Employer Organization) model is the best HR support for you and your company.
A great goal idea for 2022 would be to take 1 topic per month and devote a few hours to examining your business. What is working, what isn’t, what are areas of opportunity? Then, spend time that month improving a system, creating a process, or diving into a deeper level audit for concern areas. Over the course of the year, you will have improved twelve different aspects of your human resources!
If you have a Human Resources individual contributor or leader on site, an outside audit can confirm that the individual/team has consistent and effective strategies and policies, that they are managing within state and federal compliance rules, and they are promoting a healthy company culture. If you have multiple sites, have those with HR responsibility audit a site not their own. Having a fresh set of eyes reviewing can help identify additional opportunities.
For a full legal review, or answers to legal questions, please consult a Labor Attorney that is licensed in your state. This self-audit is not all inclusive and all items aren’t applicable to all companies. This is not legal advice. It is a self-guided journey to help you identify employment practices that may need further review, improvement or refreshing.
Please download the free HR Self-Audit Checklist to get started in your own business review.
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