5 Ways to Be Better Prepared for an HR Audit or Complaint

Just hearing the words “lawsuit” or “audit” can be enough to make the hairs stand up on anyone’s neck. And it seems like we are hearing those words more and more often, these days. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) complaints are on the rise and high-dollar labor and employment class action lawsuits seemingly pop up weekly in the news. For the 2023 fiscal year (FY), the EEOC secured more than $665 million in monetary relief for more than 22,000 victims of employment discrimination, a 29.5% increase over fiscal year 2022.

You might be convinced you are doing all the right things, but a minor mistake in procedure or execution could snowball quickly and potentially lead to a lawsuit or additional scrutiny. These complaints could actually be tied to something like state forms or some information that was not presented to that employee in a timely fashion, either pre-, during, or post-employment. Errors in these processes could even potentially be uncovered and attempted to be used against you during litigation that may seem unrelated to on- and offboarding forms.

Read this eBook for insight on 5 best practices to consider in your forms processes to help you avoid facing a lawsuit and better prepare, if you do.

• Prioritize the entire employee experience
• Send everything out in one packet
• Stay aware of state-specific forms
• Be audit-ready
• Automate

Consistent and efficient form management across the employee experience can be crucial to helping protect your company and better mitigate these risks.

You want employees to have a positive experience throughout the complete employee lifecycle from hire to retire. Technology can be your friend when developing or refining your processes to help cultivate this experience.  Having one unified system that employees are used to using to submit and receive forms can help not only in the onboarding and offboarding processes, but to better organize and manage these documents in case of an audit. 

To learn more about how Equifax can help you get the right form packet, to the right person, at the right time, throughout the employee lifecycle, visit https://workforce.equifax.com/solutions/forms-hq.

The information provided is intended as general guidance and is not intended to convey any tax, benefits, or legal advice. For information pertaining to your company and its specific facts and needs, please consult your own tax advisor or legal counsel.  Equifax Workforce Solutions provides services that can help employers reduce their compliance risks. Details on our provision of these services and related support will be contained in your services agreement. Links to sources may be to third party sites. We have no control over and assume no responsibility for the content, privacy policies or practices of any third party sites or services.