I’ve written in the past about the importance of routine, proactive audits of employment policies and practices:
- Use a wage and hour audit to proactively head off claims.
- Penny-wise, pound-foolish employment practices.
- Department of Labor to step up enforcement; employers should step up self-audits.
An article I found on Business Management Daily further underscores this point:
The economy is a shambles, and employers are doing everything they can to stay in business. That includes terminations, salary and wage cuts and temporary furloughs. Nearly every one of those moves carries litigation risk. With little to lose, more and more employees are willing to stake bias claims, hoping to score a big settlement. Their allies are attorneys who will look for any reason to sue. Need convincing? The dramatic increase in EEOC complaints rose 15.2% from 2007 to 2008, illustrating the risk employers take with every layoff decision.
Have your company’s personnel policies and practices had a checkup lately? A comprehensive audit is one of the easiest ways to spot problems.
The article then lists 17 different areas that employers should audit to ensure legal compliance.
While this list is a good start, it is nowhere near complete. I’ve developed a proprietary 200-point audit of HR and employment policies and practices. If you are interested in discovering which areas of your business are out of compliance and open to legal risk, I am willing to conduct this preliminary audit without charge. Please contact me for the details.
Presented by Kohrman Jackson & Krantz, with offices in Cleveland and Columbus.
For more information, contact Jon Hyman, a partner in our Labor & Employment group, at (216) 736-7226 or jth@kjk.com.