Onboarding Made Simple

Yesterday, we began to explore how to onboard employees while avoiding legal pitfalls. Today, we will cover a set of steps for streamlining the process.

By Julia Bailey, senior director, Product Management, Equifax Workforce Solutions

6 Steps to Effective Onboarding

Given the challenges around new hire onboarding, consider the following steps to help streamline the process, minimize risk, and achieve compliance:

1. Identify current requirements in each state. With increasing requirements and regulations, understanding the existing new hire policies in each state you currently hire in—and those you may be expanding to in the future—is essential. Working with counsel or your onboarding provider can help you identify the various state notification and verification requirements and react accordingly.
2. Stay up to date on new legislation. You can stay current with all new and pending regulations by subscribing to compliance updates from a law firm or by using automated onboarding solutions and services that provide regular legislative updates as part of their offering.
3. Create a strategy to integrate new requirements. Any changes to the onboarding process should be implemented quickly, driving the need for clear-cut processes to ensure the latest regulations are addressed as soon as possible. The best approach is to make appropriate changes at the corporate level and to cascade them to all locations as appropriate.
4. Be specific in notification documents. With more states introducing unique requirements around wage notifications, leave of absence laws, vacation policies, and other obligations, there is no one-size-fits-all approach to comply with these varying regulations. Companies that take a broad, generic approach may expose themselves to risk. It is important to keep in mind that if a state distributes a template for new hire notifications, the state will expect that template to be used.
5. Create a detailed document trail. Self-auditing of your processes is key to uncovering potential issues and addressing them before they turn into real problems. Maintain a document trail of employee notifications and verifications that includes the dates the documents were issued and completed, the people involved in their delivery and receipt, and when the employee signed the document. Your company’s legal team can help you determine the best way to conduct a self-audit to ensure you’re on the right track and that you’re protecting your interests.
6. Retain all documentation securely. A great deal of sensitive information about your new hires is collected throughout the onboarding process, driving the need for a safe and secure way to store these data. Doing so will also make it easier to produce the necessary documents in instances of litigation or an audit. Using an electronic depository can help keep these crucial documents well-protected with roles-based access, ensuring only relevant stakeholders can access them.

Keeping Up with State New Hire Regulations

As more employers expand their operations to additional states to capitalize on new opportunities and gain access to talent in new markets, the need to understand and comply with changing new hire onboarding regulations will only become more pressing.
Companies that can create a streamlined process around new hire onboarding will benefit from not only maintaining compliance but also from delivering a positive experience for new hires. Doing so enables the newest employees to be productive from day one instead of spending those crucial first few days on the job bogged down in paperwork. But getting to that point requires companies to stay on top of new hire regulations and to have a plan to address and implement them effectively.