Why Policy and Compliance is so Important for HR post-pandemic

Staggering and bloody, like boxers that won’t go down, HR is still reeling from the sucker punches of the past few years – Brexit, the pandemic, furlough, workplace activism and division, work from home, back-to-work, take away the number you first though of… Nobody would blame the profession for asking for time out, but it’s not a realistic prospect as the country continues the painful EU divorce, and HR attempts to get workforces back into the office and stave off what threatens to be a summer of hot, rancorous strike action across several sectors.

Having watertight, compliant policies will help ease your HR headaches 

Compliance and policy might not be the sexiest item on the agenda, but those HR colleagues who are quietly ensuring they are working to statutory, legal and contractual compliance and legislation will avoid punitive fines, adverse reputational publicity and a tangle of legal headaches.

Start with an HR audit

Conducting an HR audit is always a sensible start – and understanding the sometimes-overwhelming recent changes will help identify where your policies may need updating. Gender pay, RTW checks, changes to bank holidays, vaccination status, carer’s and neonatal leave and, as Holland announces the enshrining of the right to flexible working in law, yet more potential policy changes are on the horizon.

BFI's Training courses are designed to help HR teams keep abreast of the changes

As well as updating them, HR is also tasked with designing and communicating policy and procedures, along with implementing training to ensure they are understood and adhered to. Helping your staff follow best practice in such areas as confidentiality, Data Protection and GDPR is a challenge but failure to comply could deliver a knockout blow to an organisation. The good news is that risking legal implications, punitive fines and reputational damage is avoidable.

Audits will highlight areas of concern, from how you store employee, applicant and third party personal data, to new EU directives on parental and carer’s leave, to the ever-present remote working challenges of compliance with local employment laws, contracts and worker classifications. 

HR remains in the spotlight as employee activism rises

Anti-discrimination laws, health and safety, information security, time tracing and the right to disconnect are all jostling for HR attention too. And with employee activism rising, and industrial action on the horizon for a range of sectors, HR will be in the spotlight for a good while to come.

Helping HR mitigate risk

Revisiting policy and compliance to ensure you’re not taking unnecessary risks might not seem top of the priorities right now, as scrutiny and transparency become the norm. And not just for our chaotic government.  But it will ease that HR migraine! 

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Article written by Elizabeth Smith, Director of Research

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