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Startup
companies come into existence with a business plan/business
model, some very enthusiastic entrepreneurs and some financial
backing. At this point, no one is thinking legal compliance.
The founding person/team is thinking about leasing space,
buying equipment and starting to reconnect with potential
employees who might very well have been "waiting in the
wings." All are anxious to get to the business of designing,
implementing and selling that product.
 Among
their early stage efforts, there is usually a finance person
who contracts to buy benefits and probably sub-contracts out
to a payroll service to meet the essential requirements of
even a one-person company — periodic cash flow and health
insurance. Usually, little or no attention is paid to any
other aspects of the hiring process except for identifying
who the company needs and getting them on board.
But other
aspects of hiring must be considered, especially with so many
potential legal dangers lurking.
Accordingly,
one of the best ways to insure legal compliance is to begin
with a "Human Resources Tool Kit."
What
is an human resources tool kit? Fundamentally, it's a comprehensive
checklist of guidelines and suggestions to insure that companies
don't forget essentials, such as legal protections as well
as sometimes-overlooked minor needs like return addresses
on envelopes. Following such a checklist makes the company
compliant with state and federal laws.
Here
are some examples of what this kit should include.
Legally
compliant employment application
So many companies disregard the legal requirements that exist
regarding what information is legal to be requested of a potential
applicant and, in turn, that which is mandatory to communicate
to an applicant.
A
benefits summary
This need not be a complex document. However, even your very
first few employees will want to know if they have basic health
coverage, disability in the event they cannot work, life insurance
for their families' protection and many other basic needs
such as vacation days and savings plans.
The summary
can function both as a recruitment tool to show that you do
indeed have a benefits package and as a cultural statement
showing from early on that you are aware of your employees
as "total" individuals.
An
agency agreement
If the founder is able to put together a basic team to start
the company, the next wave of employees may be available through
employee referral. If not, the company is faced with using
recruiting services that charge a fee. When a company negotiates
this contract, it should capture the Company's terms and conditions,
not the agency's.
Hiring
authorization
Every company of more than one person needs to start "putting
it in writing" early on to avoid confusion and misunderstandings.
As soon
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as a
hiring need is identified, what it is should be committed
to writing — no matter how simple — and it should
exist on a piece of paper or a computer log.
Candidate
activity schedule
The confusion that can occur when a company tries to recruit
and schedule candidates for its openings is unparalleled.
Mishaps include having two people from the same company in
your waiting area. Or, if you're really unlucky, a supervisor
and his subordinate from the same company in which neither
knew the other was "looking." This form will track
everything about your candidate from "first contact"
to "hire or reject" before you can invest in expensive
computer based recruiting tools.
Candidate
evaluation form
On paper or in your computer system, everyone who talks to
the candidate should be asked to evaluate him/her with certain
consistent criteria and then "open comments" as
needed by each interviewer. If you are doing a lot of recruiting,
by the time you get to the 10th candidate, you feel a bit
lost regarding how you felt about the first one. Also, evaluations
should be done right after an interview — we talk ourselves
"in and out" of perceptions as time passes.
Offer
authorization
A standard form that gathers all the required information
about an offer will be an accurate and simple way to document
and transmit the terms of an offer to an administrative person
who is charged with committing it to writing.
Legally
compliant offer letter
An offer of employment is one of the more significant commitments
the company will make to others as it does business. Offer
letters have specific legal requirements regarding statements
that must be made and some that should be avoided.
New
employee orientation kit
This standard kit will contain a checklist of materials you
will be giving your employees as general company information
and a list of materials they will be asked to complete and
return to you. Examples of both these categories are insurance
plans for them to read and keep, the mandated I-9 form to
prove eligibility to work in the United States and ID documents.
Also included in this kit will be all the enrollment forms
for programs the company offers such as health insurance.
Once
a company has some employees and begins to assemble information
about them, a whole new set of requirements pops into the
picture. Various laws dictate that companies practice "appropriate
employee treatment." This includes areas such as protecting
employees against invasions of privacy by keeping data such
as their age and marital status, which appears on insurance
enrollment forms and other paperwork, in carefully filed and
locked cabinets.
In fact,
such personal information must actually be filed separately
from other "employment" information such as resumes,
job descriptions and performance reviews. Basically, companies
must be able to show they have created a giant umbrella of
respect for their employees, to keep out of court and/or to
avoid fines.
Joan
Curtice is an independent human-resources consultant,
who specializes in legal compliance. She can be reached at
(781) 273-0248 or joancurtice@verizon.net.
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