Home › Resources › The Top Ten Issues Discovered During an HR Assessment

The Top Ten Issues Discovered During an HR Assessment

The team of HR Experts at OperationsInc has conducted hundreds of Human Resources (HR) Audits and Assessments for clients over the years. Our goal is to review HR practices for compliance and best practices gaps, with a focus on limiting liability and streamlining the function. Issues usually are the equivalent of areas that need addressing and are of significant concern.

Here are the Top Ten Issues we have discovered during these audits and assessments:

Offer Letters only reference annual salary.

Offer letters should state the compensation in payroll cycle terms, followed by the annual number (not the other way around), as well as eligibility for overtime based on position classification. The offer letter may also be missing an at-will statement, which leaves the firm vulnerable in a case where an employee might challenge their employment terms.

All employee data is in one file folder.

HIPAA requires employee data be split in two separate files, and that specific documents be in each file respectively.

Content from file to file is inconsistent,

with some files having some documents and missing others. All documents are critical, and should be found in files for every employee.

Terminated employee files are incomplete

and lack any documentation to support the performance issues that led to the decision to fire.

I-9 forms are misfiled,

and are present in employee files. These should be in a separate book or file.

Notes to file are present,

indicating these documents have not been shared with the employee, and generally are not admissible in court cases given the employee was not presented with them at time of employment.

All / most employees are classified as exempt / salaried / not eligible for overtime pay,

with many employers mistakenly thinking that this is something they decide at their discretion. The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) defines overtime eligibility with specific (albeit subjective and confusing) guidelines that all businesses must follow.

Labor Law Posters covering Federal and State Laws are out of date

and / or are completely missing. You are required to have certain postings in every office that you operate.

Emergency Contact Information is missing,

either because it was not collected at time of hire, or was collected but not updated.

Handbook receipts are missing.

While the employer has an Employee Handbook, the files lack a signed receipt for the Handbook and / or the receipt present is for an earlier version of the book.

For more information about OperationsInc’s HR Services, please contact Meghan Hopkins, VP of HR Business Development at mhopkins@OperationsInc.com or (203) 956-2572.