Human Resources (HR) Compliance Overview

HR compliance is a comprehensive and intimidating area. As it relates to hiring, it includes everything from the recruitment and application process to onboarding and eventually retirement and/or termination, so it covers the entire lifecycle of the employee. Cadient’s involvement begins at the hiring stage and concludes with onboarding and payroll integration when applicants become new employees.

Cadient monitors for legislative updates and guidance on how employers need to maintain compliance in the realm of hiring employees and consults with our clients to help implement best practices in their hiring processes. This article provides a high-level overview of HR compliance and begins a series of informational articles on this topic.

Recruitment and Application Phase

There are many compliance considerations for employers when constructing their job applications. The answers to these questions can determine what and when you are allowed to ask within the application and whether additional notices or authorizations must be presented to applicants. 

  • In what jurisdiction are you hiring?

States, cities, and counties have different legal requirements. 

  • Do you operate in an industry with specific regulations or exemptions?

Additional Screening Stages

Screening steps in the hiring process can be integrated into an applicant tracking system such as Cadient’s. Many of these screening steps require disclosures and consents from the job applicant before an employer can proceed.

  • Background checks
  • Drug testing
  • Tax credit qualification
  • Industry-specific verifications
  • Employment assessments
  • Automated tools using artificial intelligence (such as Decision Point)

 

Onboarding Forms

A myriad of forms is required to be completed as part of the onboarding process, notwithstanding the federal Form I-9, federal tax withholding form, and state-specific tax withholding forms. Many states also require new hire forms to be completed and filed at the time of hire. In addition, every employer has company-specific forms that need to be filled out by the new employee. 

In a previous Cadient article, we discussed the upcoming changes anticipated in the new Employment Authorization Form I-9. We also have a video presentation of the forms that Cadient supports and our established process for keeping them updated for our clients.

Additional Information

Check out the Resources section on our website and filter by category to find the articles mentioned above, more information about HR compliance, and other relevant topics for employers. Stay tuned for the next article in this series on HR compliance.