Keeping up with constantly changing state and federal employee compliance regulations can be a never-ending cycle for your HR team, but your dealership can face steep fines or lawsuits for common human error mistakes. By instead automating many of your HR processes, your dealership can maintain employee compliance and save time that would have otherwise been spent manually tracking each compliance update.
Rather than using a standalone payroll solution – or several solutions for different HR tasks – partnering with an integrated hiring and and talent management platform gives your dealership all the tools and reports needed to track compliance. Below, we’ve outlined several ways the right hiring and talent management partner can help you maintain employee compliance.
Hiring Process Compliance
Employee compliance doesn’t start on an employee’s first day, but rather during the hiring process. An integrated hiring and talent management platform can help you stay compliant during the interview process by ensuring you ask consistent interview questions across candidates and don’t ask any illegal interview questions. Using a hiring platform, you can also run background and reference checks to have the assurance prospective new employees can be trusted. An accurate background check report will provide peace of mind that each prospective employee has a history free from negligence or other activities that may put your customers – and dealership – at risk.
Payroll & Tax Compliance
Automated taxes and reporting can take the tax compliance burden off your plate. An integrated payroll and talent management solution ensures your dealership is fully compliant with tax regulations, including electronic IRS filing and pay withdrawals, quarterly online tax statements and W2 preview, and new hire reporting.
Affordable Care Act (ACA) Compliance
The ACA employer mandate requires all businesses with 50 or more full-time equivalent employees (FTE) to provide health insurance to at least 95% of their full-time employees and dependents up to age 26, or pay a fee. Due to the various complexities of the ACA, it can be easy for employers to make mistakes and fail to comply. By enlisting the right talent management provider, you can have resources at the tips of your fingers to stay up-to-date with ACA compliance. Your talent management provider can also help you get a full picture of health insurance eligibility across all your employees and ensure you have all necessary reporting to prove you’re maintaining compliance.
Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act (COBRA) Compliance
COBRA is a federal law that outlines how employees and their family members can opt for continued health care coverage under their employers for a limited period of time after coverage is lost for a number of reasons – including reduction in hours worked, voluntary or involuntary job loss, divorce, death, or other life events.
Employers with group health plans and 20 employees or more are required to offer this temporary extension of health coverage. And employers who meet this criteria can face fines for inadequate record keeping, failing to notify employees of coverage in a timely manner and other simple mistakes. An integrated payroll and talent management provider can manage COBRA compliance for you, minimizing the risk of common mistakes and freeing up time for your HR team.
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) Compliance
The EEOC investigates workplace discrimination complaints based on an individual’s race, children, national origin, religion, sex, age, disability, gender identity, genetic information, and retaliation for reporting, participating in, and/or opposing a discriminatory practice. Rather than spending a significant amount of time – and risking mistakes – manually tracking EEOC compliance, partnering with an integrated talent management provider provides you with all the tools and tracking resources you need to maintain compliance.
Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) Compliance
FLSA establishes minimum wage, overtime pay, recordkeeping, and child labor standards for full-time and part-time workers in the U.S. Payroll and talent management technology offers reporting and tracking to stay compliant with FLSA.
Minimum wage and overtime pay can get particularly tricky for dealerships when it comes to automotive technicians and flag time pay – and other businesses with atypical pay plans. The Department of Labor mandates each employee must be paid at least minimum wage, so if a dealership service department has a slow week, the dealership would need to pay employees a “minimum wage makeup” to be compliant with labor laws.
E-Verify Compliance
Recent regulations by the Departments of Justice, Labor and Homeland Security have made employment authorization measures much stricter, with fines for certain I-9 violations increasing by as much as 96 percent. E-Verify automation and integration through your talent management provider can ensure all your new hires have employment verification, so you can avoid severe fines and other penalties.
E-Verify guarantees complete accuracy and compliance, as opposed to having new employees fill out paper forms to verify their identities. It also saves your dealership time, by requiring employees to fill out the forms on their own time before their first day, rather than spending time on the job filling out paperwork.
Automating compliance can help your dealership run more efficiently and avoid fines, lawsuits and other legal action. For more information on how your dealership can more effectively maintain compliance – and other benefits of an integrated hiring and talent management provider – read our Payroll Buyers Guide.
