Introduction
Admittedly, I’ve been obsessed with the concept of organizational agility for many of my 40 years of operating on all sides of HR/HCM/HR Technology. I view achieving this as one of the most reliable paths for an organization to ascend the ranks within its industry sector, and there are more than ample industry research findings to support this. For example:
- Truly agile firms are more than twice as likely as the average organization to achieve top-quartile financial performance (55 percent versus 25 percent). Source: Accenture.
- Agile firms grow revenue 37 percent faster and generate 30 percent higher profits than non-agile companies. Source: HRCI and Forbes
For more details about organizational agility and why it’s imperative in order for organizations to thrive, please refer to Organizational Agility – A Quick Primer
The HR function has a critical role in an organization’s ability to become an agile organization. At the same time, the HR function must itself become agile.
One critical area of this that I wish to highlight in this blog is ownership of HR compliance. Being able to promptly respond to new mandates and regulatory changes not only helps the company avoid fines, lawsuits, and reputational damage, it helps an organization avoid having their strategic HR undertakings be derailed. At the same time, an HR function that is distracted by compliance administration is likely to have less of a strategic impact on the business.
For these reasons, I believe it is imperative to seek out automation to reduce compliance administration and improve accuracy, and also why I believe it is in the best interest of the HR and HCM platforms to continue to add new compliance services to help their clients. I highlight one interesting example of compliance automation later in this blog – labor law poster compliance.
Agile HR
To be successful, HR practices must be effective at all levels of what I often refer to the “Three Value Tiers” that HR as a corporate function (ideally) delivers to the organization:
- Bottom Tier or Foundational / Administrative level
- Middle Tier or Collaboration / Enablement level
- Top Tier or Planning / Readiness level.
Each layer in the pyramid is dependent on the previous one to be effective, and success at each level necessitates an HR function that is able to promptly respond to changes as needed to support the rest of the organization. This is the essence of “Agile HR”
HR Compliance Agility
As such, there is a major dependency on excellence at the foundational level (Bottom Tier) in order to achieve outcomes further up in my 3-tier HR value pyramid. A big part of HR capabilities at this foundational level is ensuring cross-organizational compliance with the vast sea of applicable labor laws. Moreover, quickly responding to new compliance mandates or adjusting regulatory change with existing ones is paramount. By proactively addressing HR compliance requirements, including all the frequently updated regulations around poster displays, organizations not only minimize the risk of fines, lawsuits, and (employer brand) reputational damage, but also improve the employee experience (when they perceive their employer as a strong advocate for both their well-being AND their legal rights. An organization that cannot do this or is distracted by compliance administration will struggle to be truly agile.
This is why agility with regard to HR compliance is so important. Doing so is made considerably easier by having a corporate culture and value system of trust and advocacy having been established, including by openly or transparently communicating about HR compliance requirements and processes. Just as important is incorporating the right amount of automation into HR practices that are both informative and proactive–supporting HR’s ability to respond quickly. The HCM technology providers would do well here by expanding their compliance services and incorporating compliance automation where possible. Many already are, including the following example.
Labor Law Poster Compliance Services that Support Agility
Federal, state, and local labor and employment laws in the U.S. require that employers post various notices to alert employees of their rights under all applicable employment and labor laws. The notices must be posted in a prominent location, where they can be easily seen, and that is frequented by all employees. Failure to display the correct federal, state, and local labor and employment law notices can result in penalties, fines, and lawsuits. Importantly, HR compliance regulations related to workplace posters change frequently and almost randomly at the federal, state, and local levels – often more than 200 changes annually.
PosterElite, a compliance-as-a-service solution partners with HCM technology platforms to help them solve this challenge for their clients. They do this by automating the entire poster compliance process for employers and white-labeling the service for the platform. By delivering their solution through the HCM providers, businesses are able to conveniently and seamlessly manage compliance–accessing a valuable service that automatically delivers notifications, updates, and even new posters to ensure ongoing compliance as regulations change.
By partnering with PosterElite, HCM platforms make it easier for their clients to manage an essential piece of HR compliance, and stay agile.
Concluding Remark
It should be no surprise that extreme responsiveness in service delivery, coupled with intelligently designed, monitored and updated solution components should be the lens applied when evaluating services partners or even different avenues for self-owning these critical HR compliance responsibilities. I’ll conclude by once again mentioning the 3-tier HR value model I developed years ago and underscoring the axiom that higher-order strategic value from an HR team is only possible to achieve when foundation-level dependencies aren’t just accounted for – but handled with major reliability and confidence!
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