How do you make line managers follow proper HR procedure when their heads are into everything but? Check out this answer.
Yesterday’s Daily Advisor offered a checklist to be sure your policy on leave meets the complex standards of the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA).
As FMLA changes, as it likely will during the current Congress, and new employment laws come on the books, also likely, it becomes harder and harder for the line managers to keep up with all they need to do to comply. Things are more likely to slip through the cracks, or be done wrong.
Short of sending your people through 3 years of law school, is there a way to keep all your HR ducks in line? The quickest way may well be a plentiful supply of checklists, such as the one we gave you on FMLA.
Checklists have power, especially in HR, where even a hint of discrimination – of doing things one way for Employee A, and another for Worker B – can spell trouble.
Can the power of the checklist train your line managers in HR? Try HR Audit Checklists at no cost for 30 days and see. Click here.
Checklists encourage consistency – the same procedure done the same way, in all cases. Errors of commission or omission are both avoided. They keep your focus on all an HR professional needs to remember. Plus they force those not trained in HR, such as line managers, to think through all the elements of any employment action, something not usually top of mind for someone worried about sales figures, production quotas, or balancing the books.
HR checklists, however, are best utilized when embedded in a total self-audit program that goes through each key area of HR responsibility.
One such program is BLR’s recently published HR Audit Checklists.
The Book of HR Checklists
Housed in a binder, the program contains several packets of reproducible checklists, each covering one of the following areas:
–HR Administration (including communications, handbook content, and recordkeeping)
–Health and Safety (including OSHA responsibilities)
–Benefits and Leave (including health cost containment, COBRA, FMLA, workers’ compensation, and several areas of leave)
–Compensation (payroll and the all-important provisions of the Fair Labor Standards Act)
–Staffing and Training (including Equal Employment Opportunity considerations in recruiting and hiring)
–Performance and Termination (appraisals, discipline, and termination)
Anatomy of a Checklist Packet
Because the items on a checklist may make little sense unless viewed in context, each packet also contains a background summary of the key laws and issues revolving around that topic. Let’s take the packet on Employee Handbooks in the HR Management section as an example.
Try BLR’s HR Audit Checklists at no cost or risk for 30 days. Click here.
Before doing the checklist, the reader is informed on how a sloppily written handbook can actually form unintended contracts with employees that are enforceable in court. A poorly drawn book can even nullify the key concept of employment –at will that allows us to manage our businesses efficiently. Here are three items from the checklist designed to help you keep this from happening:
* Have you requested your attorney to review your handbook?
[]Yes []No
* Do you reserve the right to unilaterally alter your handbook?
[]Yes []No
* Do you require employees to [acknowledge] that employment is at will?
[]Yes [] No
Say “yes” to these questions and you’ve skirted one of the most dangerous areas in the employee-employer relationship. But would you have thought of asking them without the prodding of a checklist?
All checklists, by the way, are in a reproducible format, so you can provide them to everyone who needs them, or even post them.
If you have never done a thorough audit of the key HR areas above, you may want to review this new program. It could be a road map to staying out of a whole lot of trouble.
Make Sure You Don’t Forget …
… all the legalities in administering HR. Make sure your managers don’t either. Keep everyone on track with BLR’s HR Audit Checklists. It’s a binder full of reproducible checklists for virtually everything essential in HR. Try it FREE for 30 days. Read more.