Keeping Businesses hR Compliant
As a business grows, it becomes more and more reliant on both its people and its systems. At a certain point, productivity is affected by not just your ability to structure teams and workloads most efficiently, but how able you are to resolve issues that can have an impact on your team.
To prevent those issues from becoming major roadblocks and to ensure you always have the right processes to handle them, HR compliance is essential.
About HR compliance
HR compliance isn’t about adding new rules to the business, but rather ensuring that everything you do complies with employment law and regulations.
By taking an active approach, rather than reacting to issues as they arise, you can make sure in advance you’re operating under best practice. This includes taking responsibility for day-to-day processes such as health & safety management, as well as having systems in place to ensure fair payment, holiday allocation, and other entitlements.
HR compliance also means ensuring that fair recruitment policies, disciplinary measures, and routes for handling harassment and discrimination are all in place. True HR compliance also means keeping up-to-date to changes in laws and regulations, such as the gender pay reporting rules that recently came in to ensure workplaces aren’t paying women less for the same work as men.
Are you responsible for your HR compliance?
Business Owners, Chief Executives and HR Directors hold the final responsibility should they be found not to be compliant with existing rules and regulations. If, or when, it comes to legal action, it’s those people who will be brought to account.
As such, your HR team or consultants are there to help inform, advise and strategise with you to create policies that keep you compliant, but it is ultimately your role to ensure they’re put in place correctly. That doesn’t mean doing it alone, however. Getting everyone in the company involved in education, training, and providing feedback can ensure that HR compliance becomes part of company culture, not just an obligation.
From the executive team to the managers to the staff, all levels of the business should be involved in the creation of HR compliant policies and processes, and all should be informed of them when they’re put in place and when they have to be relied on.
The benefits of HR compliance
The clearest advantage of HR compliance is that you’re protecting your business from legal action. Non-compliance can be unlawful or illegal, leading to expensive employment tribunals. Some failures may even constitute criminal law offences, such as gross negligence cases in health & safety matters.
Staying legally secure isn’t the only advantage, however. Another advantage is the impact on your workforce. By ensuring that their statutory rights are secure, your team members are likely to feel more secure in their job, improving their motivation and productivity.
Furthermore, an open and proactive stance on issues such as the gender gap or foreign worker employment can be an attractive perk during recruitment, helping you bring in top talent to the team.
Is your business HR compliant?
HR compliance is not a choice; it’s a necessity. If you want to learn more about getting your business compliant, get in touch with Neathouse Partners. Our team of employment law and HR specialists can ensure that your business is compliant, protected, and productive.
