Hiring a Human Resources Expert

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Any small business with more than a few employees should consider hiring a human resources expert. The services provided by a qualified HR worker can help your business run more smoothly, prevent workplace conflict, and even save your business from legal troubles. In the long term, the money invested in creating the position will end up being a good investment. Here are the top reasons that a human resources expert is necessary and how they can benefit your business.

Ensure Legal Compliance

Employment law is complicated and varies from region to region. Keeping up with all these laws is difficult to do for a small business owner who needs to stay on top of the day-to-day tasks involved in successfully running a business. Federal law prohibits discrimination against employees or potential hires based on gender, religion, national origin, race, sexual orientation, and other categories. A trained HR expert can make sure your business is in full compliance with these regulations to avoid a potentially expensive lawsuit. Every year, businesses go bankrupt due to lawsuits filed by disgruntled employees.

An employer must follow employment laws, including applicable federal, state, and local regulations.
A business may be subject to an audit from an enforcing agency that may levy fines and penalties for non-compliance.
Not knowing or understanding your compliance obligations is not an acceptable legal defense.
A lawsuit settlement can bankrupt a company.

Compliance challenges

Business owners face compliance challenges with their time, and it can be difficult to know where they should start. Many business owners feel overwhelmed when trying to meet all of the requirements, but most want to do what is right by being compliant even if they aren’t aware that there are rules pertaining specifically to human resources until an agency contacts them first.

Let’s take a look at a few important compliance issues every business owner should be familiar with:

The Form I-9

which is an official employment eligibility verification form; it requires proof of identity and employment eligibility (i.e., being authorized by both federal law enforcement bodies as well as immigration authorities) – meaning anyone who fills one out has been approved legally here in America. Every employer must complete this process when hiring any employee regardless if you’re filling up positions full time

Non-Discriminatory Hiring Practices

Hiring discrimination is illegal in all 50 states and the District of Columbia, but compliance remains a problem.

Hiring discrimination has been made illegal in most areas across America to ensure that businesses are hiring on merit rather than using discriminatory criteria such as gender or race when choosing employees. However, this process often proves difficult for employers who must abide by guidelines set out by Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). Non-compliance results from a lack of awareness about how EEOC standards apply to specific business practices or because policies have not yet been updated following court decisions clarifying their requirements.

Exempt vs. non-exempt status

Businesses face challenges of compliance when it comes to determining which employees are considered exempt from federal wage and hour laws. Some factors businesses consider include whether the worker is salaried or hourly, what type of work they perform (which determines if their job falls under one category such as executive), how much autonomy they have in completing daily tasks, etc.).

Businesses must pay close attention to who qualifies for exemption vs. non-exemption status because failure can result in fines up $1K per infraction and a loss of benefits like overtime eligibility! To avoid this large fine employers should be mindful that certain positions qualify for an exemption depending on salary level or duties performed by each individual within the company–or else risk being sued later on down the road.

Help Resolving Workplace Conflicts

Any group of people working in close quarters, like an office, for example, will eventually have some conflict. This is human nature. The most important thing for your business is to know how to handle such situations when they arise. Hiring an employee with an HR degree or certification can ensure they have the skills to handle common problems. The assistance that a skilled HR professional can provide in this department can go a long way toward resolving and preventing conflicts in the workplace and keeping workers happy and productive.

Employee Evaluation

One of the responsibilities of a human resources department is to evaluate employees on an ongoing basis for productivity and quality of work. As a business owner, it’s easy to get distracted by big picture issues and the day-to-day management of the business. Unfortunately, this leaves little time to make sure the most expensive part of your budget, the amount you pay for employees, isn’t going to waste with unproductive idle time, abuse of holidays, absenteeism, draining of company resources, etc. HR professionals are trained to stay on top of these things and make sure the humans who power your business are working properly.

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