HR compliance Dallas TX is more important than some business owners may think. If your human resources department is not up to date on important laws and regulations (or simply not following them), you could be opening up your company to government fines as well as private litigation. To protect the health and welfare of your employees as well as to protect your business from taking a hit, here are five areas of HR compliance important to businesses large and small.

HR Compliance Dallas TX: 5 Important Considerations

1. Employee Handbooks.  As a threshold matter, your company’s code of conduct and policies should be laid out plainly in an employee handbook and circulated to each employee. Your workers should know everything about their dress code, their work hours, sick leave, vacation, maternity leave, and any other rules by which employees must abide. Penalizing an employee for violating a rule he didn’t know or understand is stepping on a slippery slope.
2. Safety Regulations.  Your HR department should understand OSHA regulations and how to comply with them. Employee safety is a very serious matter, particularly if your business involves high-risk activities. OSHA fines are high for a reason – protect your employees and your bottom line by ensuring the highest level of safety for your workers.
3. EEOC Issues.  The EEOC enforces federal law on employee rights, including the Family and Medical Leave Act, the Civil Rights Act, the Equal Pay Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act and more. It is imperative that your human resources department understand these federal laws and any state laws that go along with them to both protect employees from discrimination, harassment and retaliation, and also to protect the company from EEOC charges and lawsuits. Your HR department should be equipped to deal with employee accusations of discrimination, sexual harassment, and retaliation, and they should be able to enforce company policy with regard to how management must treat employees. Employee rights litigation costs companies a lot of money, so starting with a firm foothold is the best way to prevent such suits from getting out of hand.
4. Proper Employee Classification.  Your HR department should understand the difference between an independent contractor and an employee. They should know who gets benefits, who gets a 1099 at the end of the year and who is entitled to certain legal protections. Many businesses, either inadvertently or intentionally, misclassify employees as independent contractors and run afoul of employment laws as well as tax laws.

If you’re concerned that your human resources department is not up to speed on any of the above, the experienced business and employment attorneys at Simon | Paschal PLLC can review your policies, revise and update those policies, and counsel your HR staff on important employment law issues. HR compliance Dallas TX is a key part of operating your business smoothly. Call us at (972) 893-9340 now.

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