Does sexual harassment training reduce incidences of harassment?
Well, I will not be touching that fracas with a proverbial ten-foot-pole. Thankfully, our subject matter today is much lighter. HR professionals must tackle the difficult challenge of managing compliance on a variety of fronts. One thing I think we can all agree on is this can be very difficult – both time consuming and complex. So, what does it take to simplify compliance for both employees and HR?
According to a recent article in HR Technologist, compliance extends to five key areas of the HR function:
PayrollBenefitsRisk and safetyRecruitmentEmployee relations
Compliance in all areas involves the need to communicate with various employees, track follow up, and report on status.
Communicate the Need for Employee Compliance (The What)
Sending out an email blast to inform employees of a need to comply is great. Unfortunately, people sometimes need telling twice. Too often the next steps involve the following tedium:
Cross-reference another system to see who did and did not complete the taskSend out additional reminders to those not in complianceRepeat that entire process for the third outreach with their supervisor on CC
These actions must be taken as a part of managing compliance. But they don’t have to be so tedious.
📷 Communicate the How
Once employees receive notification of the need to comply, they must be informed of how to comply in a way they can easily follow. Many compliance initiatives involve training sessions conducted entirely online or including an online quiz. Program administrators must be able to quickly create custom forms and connect with other data sources, all while providing employees with a user-friendly experience.
As in many facets of life, technology is playing an increasingly important role in compliance. “Regulatory technology or RegTech is widely considered subcategory of the financial technology (FinTech) space; however, we believe that RegTech has a significant play even in the HRTech space. We see two fundamental shifts that will aid compliance technology to move into the mainstream and break the silos: First, legislation like GDPR will influence how organizations store employee information and process the same for decision making. Second, organizations’ increased use of technologies like IOT, Robotics and Artificial Intelligence, etc. will mean that organizations have to ensure there is a balance between mathematics and human emotions.”
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Track it All, Easily
To be truly effective, automation must function throughout all parts of all processes. It’s one thing to report on who has completed a training, but which employees have already received three notifications? Is there an employee who is not in compliance, but has only been notified once because they’ve recently joined the team? You must be able to easily access all the relevant databases in order to quickly answer such key questions. Additionally, you’ll have to access these records in the event of an audit to avoid penalties.
📷 Tech to Simplify Employee Compliance
Without the ability to effectively manage all your compliance related activities, important tasks can be missed, exposing your company to compliance risk. Small and medium-sized companies with lean HR teams have an even tougher time chasing down delinquent or slow responders. A solution in these environments may be even more essential when compared to large organizations. If you need assistance and/or technology to manage employee compliance, WSI offers BriteProgram, an all-in-one app for deploying and tracking corporate and employee compliance initiatives. Please contact us for a free consultation.