hr managers

Safety First: What All HR Managers Need to Know About Workplace Compliance

By Jesse KeremaDigital Marketing Manager
Published on February 10, 2020

Managing an HR department is about more than just hiring and firing employees. 

Whether your company has 100 employees or 100,000, for most HR managers, the constantly changing environment that is Human Resources is a challenging and rewarding role. No two days are the same. You may find yourself working on:

  • improving diversity and inclusion
  • handling payroll, training, performance management
  • or increasing employee engagement.

In addition to building the right type of culture inside your organization, HR professionals are the absolute front line of defense for a company to ensure it operates legally and keeps the business out of trouble.

If you want to create a safe and healthy work environment and avoid compliance issues, visitor management systems can help.

Let’s look at how…

What Is Workplace Compliance and Why Should You Care?

In layman’s terms, workplace compliance is simply observing the laws, regulations and company policies that apply to your business.

Doing so helps promote a safe work environment and avoids compliance violations.

Staying in compliance with the various regulations, guidelines, and laws that apply to your business is a first step towards protecting employees, customers, visitors and vendors.

Some industries are more compliance-heavy than others. For example, health care, food service, and financial services are all heavily regulated industries.  

And nearly every industry is held to certain regulatory standards for information and data handling to prevent sensitive information from getting into the wrong hands.

Most HR professionals would probably agree that the best workplace compliance scenario is when employers can prevent legal issues before they ever occur.

Noncompliance: The Invisible Threat to Your Business

Keeping your business compliant is no easy feat. 

Every year we see more employment laws, privacy regulations, and other requirements for businesses to meet.

Some of the ways organizations get into trouble include:

  • failing to observe regulations around user privacy 
  • not keeping up with rules concerning data security and cloud-based technology
  • using policies, processes, or work practices that expose the business to compliance issues.

The penalties for noncompliance can be significant. Compliance problems can lead to government reviews, expensive claims, and even lawsuits. In fact, they can have a devastating impact on a company’s financial picture and reputation.

The True Cost of Noncompliance

Although the cost of noncompliance is difficult to quantify, two things are certain: the cost is high, and a significant portion of that cost is avoidable.

When a business fails to meet compliance standards and regulations, increased costs come in the form of issues like:

  • business disruption
  • lost productivity 
  • lost revenue
  • and fines, penalties and settlement costs.

An analysis of 53 U.S.-based multinational companies found the average cost of noncompliance in 2017 was $14.8 million per company.

Improving Security and Trust on Your Workplace

The good news is that it's possible to put systems in place that will help you stay in compliance.

One way to do this is by using a visitor management system. The right system can help you:

There are many ways you can use a visitor management system to improve your business operations and stay compliant.

For example, a survey of 1,000 IT and security professionals found 47% of companies still use pen and paper to track visitors. This opens the door for all kinds of problems. 

  • Using manual methods places the onus on reception to monitor visitors and inform staff of guest arrivals
  • Paper records take time to gather and review whereas a visitor management system allows you to instantly spot the red flags in your business.
  • Manual methods like paper and pen allow for loss of privacy and are less secure than digital records.

When you replace your attendance book and implement a visitor management system, you empower your business to easily display health and safety, and company induction related information to visitors via iPad or the Sine apps. You can track time and attendance. You can also ask visitors and contractors to confirm if they have returned keys, file incident reports, select dropdown items, complete checklists, and view exit instructions related to your site.

Interested in learning how to protect your business with Sine? Get in touch below or book a live demo here.

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