HR managers need to keep track of a significant amount of paperwork in order to maintain employee compliance. And most businesses have manual, time consuming processes in place to organize, track and stay up to date on the latest forms employees need to complete. In many cases, HR managers still store employee materials in a filing cabinet with a folder for each staff member.
Not only is manually tracking forms time consuming for your HR team, but it poses a risk for human error. With paper files, you risk losing a critical onboarding document, sharing an outdated document with an employee – such as an old employee handbook – and scrambling to find a required document in the event of an audit or legal action. By instead automating your forms management, you can centralize all materials and maintain employee compliance. Below, we’ve pulled together several benefits of automated forms management.
Initiate Digital Onboarding
Ensure a seamless transition between the hiring and onboarding processes by electronically assigning new hire paperwork as soon as each new hire signs an offer letter. With digital onboarding, you can distribute and collect all necessary documentation, including I-9 and W-4 forms, before day one. This way, new employees don’t have to sit in the HR office the entire first day filling out paperwork and can start contributing to the business right away.
Digital onboarding also helps your business maintain employee compliance by automating manual, error-prone processes and centralizing all employee paperwork, helping you securely store sensitive information and easily access when needed. This is much more streamlined than alternative options, such as using a variety of systems – emails, spreadsheets and more – to collect and store employee information.
Streamline Employee Training
Rather than scheduling a variety training sessions for each new employee, a centralized platform enables you to automate key training steps. For example, the platform can offer training videos on such topics as harassment in the workplace, safety requirements and data privacy, among others. Following each video, employees can automatically sign documentation and take an assessment to ensure they understand the material and your business won’t be held liable if they violate any regulations. Integrated reporting also gives your business visibility into which employees have completed training steps and sends reminders to employees with incomplete training steps.
Centralize Incident Reporting
While some employees might report incidents to your HR team in person, send an email or communicate the incident in another way, incident management tools can help you better maintain employee compliance. Incident management tools give employees, regardless of whether were directly or indirectly involved, a streamlined way to report incidents. And administrators can route reports to right staff members, escalate if the incident is critical, and kick off an investigations. And integrated reporting tools enable your team to track all incidents to identify trends or high-risk areas within the organization. Having a centralized, automated way for employees to reports incidents such as harassment or safety violations, demonstrates your organization’s commitment to a culture of compliance and safety.
Easily Access Critical Employee Information
By automating your forms management using a centralized platform, you have all critical employee information at the tips of your fingers anytime you need it. This is much more efficient than thumbing through countless papers in a filing cabinet For example, you might need to get in touch with an employee’s emergency contact or prove all employees have completed safety training. Or you might be in the midst of an audit or facing a potential lawsuit. No matter the reason you need to it, you can have confidence in knowing all employee information is easily accessible in a digital form.
These are just a few of the many benefits of automated forms management and moving all employee materials to a digital platform. Not only can a centralized platform increase productivity at your business, but it can also help you maintain employee compliance. For more information on maintaining employee compliance, visit Hireology.com/compliance.
