Many businesses find that labor poster laws are much harder to meet for remote and hybrid workers. The workload to achieve poster compliance can increase for each remote employee a business has. The risk of noncompliance can grow, too.
As a result, businesses operating with a hybrid model of on-site and remote workers can inadvertently expose themselves to financial risk and other consequences. To prove compliance with labor e-poster laws, a hybrid business must pass a digital poster audit. Learn how to prepare and why the right compliance solution can make a fundamental difference.
In This Article
- What Is a Digital Poster Audit?
- Manual vs. Digital Compliance Methods
- Auditing Risks of Manual Poster Compliance
- The Benefits of eComply360 for Digital Poster Audits
- How to Choose the Right Digital Poster Compliance Solution for Audit Readiness
- Why Partner With Poster Compliance Center
What Is a Digital Poster Audit?
A digital labor law poster audit checks that your employees have access to all necessary labor law posters. These posters are designed to protect your employees’ well-being and ensure they know their rights.
For on-site employees, physical posters are displayed in a prominent, accessible location, such as an employee break room. In comparison, you must send remote and hybrid employees digital copies of each poster. Simply having the posters on the company intranet will not comply with regulations, even if all employees can access it — labor law requires that employees receive and acknowledge that they have the most up-to-date and correct poster.
To pass an audit, a business must provide evidence that physical posters are displayed as required. Additionally, they must have proof of digital labor law poster delivery from every employee who received a poster via email. While it is easy to evidence that a poster has been placed on the worksite, proving a remote employee received a digital poster is harder, which is why documentation is vital.
Failure to provide proof of delivery and acknowledgment can result in penalties and fines. If you challenge the audit result, you will have to provide strong evidence of compliance.
Manual vs. Digital Compliance Methods
There are two ways a business can work toward poster compliance — manually or digitally.
A business that uses manual methods to meet compliance may:
- Send posters by mail.
- Receive written receipts from each employee proving labor law poster distribution.
- Store all records and evidence as paper copies.
A business that ensures compliance through digital means may use a poster compliance software like eComply360. This software can email posters to a remote or hybrid worker and document confirmation that the labor law poster was distributed. A digital signature provides proof of acknowledgment from the employee.
Auditing Risks of Manual Poster Compliance
It can be easy to make mistakes when you manually collect evidence of poster compliance. As a result, you may find that you lack the proper documents to pass a labor law poster audit, or that your workload and costs increase overall.
Increased Risk of Error
Meeting compliance standards through manual means can increase the risk of noncompliance due to human error. To ensure you have all the evidence you need for compliance, your HR team must do the following for every poster:
- Get evidence that the poster has been displayed in the workplace.
- Get evidence that the poster has been sent directly to remote workers.
- Receive confirmation from remote workers that they received the poster.
- File all evidence systematically so it can be found easily during an audit.
These tasks can multiply fast when you must also send posters digitally, as you will have to gather and keep evidence of every poster you are sending. For example, say a company has 60 remote workers, each of whom must receive six federal posters and 10 state-specific notices. The company would need 960 pieces of individual evidence to be compliant. The workload increases when you consider that proof of delivery and acknowledgment are required for each employee.
With so much evidence to gather and file, it can be extremely easy for an HR team member to misplace or forget to gather a piece of evidence, directly impacting future audits.
Increased Workload
Manually gathering so much evidence involves a considerable workload for your HR department. It can take hours for each remote employee, especially if your HR team has trouble obtaining confirmation of receipt. It also takes time to correctly file and collate evidence into an audit trail when needed.
In the event your business fails an audit, you may wish to challenge the outcome. This challenge will further add to your team’s workload, as they will have to gather further evidence to refute the original decision.
Increased Costs
The manual labor required to meet compliance, from gathering evidence to filing it, is an unavoidable cost. If you choose to mail posters instead of or in addition to posting them digitally, you’ll have to purchase and print the posters, and then pay for postage. With a large remote workforce, you can expect costs to increase.
Further, if your manual poster compliance fails an audit and you choose to challenge the outcome, your team will likely have to spend weeks gathering all the necessary information. This additional labor will increase your cost of compliance, as will the expenses associated with penalties like fines, if your business is found to be noncompliant.
The Benefits of eComply360 for Digital Poster Audits
Using a digital compliance solution like Poster Compliance Center’s eComply360 can solve many problems associated with manual compliance methods. With a streamlined, thorough and easily accessible digital process, your team can better prepare for labor law poster audits.
Reduced Workload Through Automation
A key benefit is the reduced workload for your HR team. From automatically sending posters and tracking their delivery to storing all compliance evidence, digital compliance solutions can automate many of the tasks necessary to achieve compliance. By reducing the workload required for poster compliance, your HR team will also be free to focus on other essential tasks.
Audit Warranty
When you use eComply360, you receive a fine-free guarantee — our confidence in the software’s ability to help you meet poster compliance is so high that we will cover any fine you may receive for not achieving compliance. This guarantee means you do not have to budget for potential fines or the work to challenge a noncompliance decision.
This warranty also covers any mandatory changes to your posters. When changes are required, we will send you a notice of the changes and, if necessary, an updated poster, too.
Lower Costs
Investing in software like eComply360 can help you reduce costs related to poster compliance. Consider:
- How much you pay your HR employees.
- How many HR team members you have working on poster compliance.
- How many hours they spend each year working on poster compliance.
When you take all of that information into account, you could easily be spending thousands each year chasing compliance through manual means. By greatly reducing your team’s workload, you can put that money toward other requirements while still achieving poster compliance. With a digital poster compliance system, you will also cut the costs of manual HR compliance audit documentation, such as shipping, materials, printing and storage.
Enhanced Employee Experience
The core purpose of labor law posters is to provide employees with essential information about their legal rights. eComply360 helps ensure your workers receive all the necessary details through accessible labor law posters. As a result, your employees will know and understand their rights, ensuring they can advocate for themselves in the workplace.
This knowledge will give your employees peace of mind and improve their experience at work. The reduced workload and stress related to compliance will also benefit your team.
How to Choose the Right Digital Poster Compliance Solution for Audit Readiness
When evaluating digital poster compliance solutions, part of your focus should be on features that directly support successful audit outcomes. While features, reputation, experience and customer base provide valuable information, your chosen solution should be your ultimate tool in navigating audits and maintaining compliance. Look for:
-
Audit trail capabilities: The solution should automatically create a comprehensive audit trail, documenting poster delivery, employee acknowledgment and version history. Look for features like timestamps and unique identifiers for each employee interaction.
-
Reporting and data accessibility: Ensure the software can generate detailed audit reports quickly and easily. The data should be readily accessible and searchable for specific employees, posters or time periods.
-
Accuracy and legal updates: Confirm that the provider keeps the poster database current with all federal, state and local regulations. Automatic updates and notifications of changes are essential.
-
Integration with HR systems: Integration with your existing HR systems can streamline data management and improve audit preparation.
-
Provider expertise and support: Choose a provider with a strong reputation and proven experience in supporting clients through labor law poster audits. Keep an eye out for audit support services or guarantees.
Why Partner With Poster Compliance Center
Poster Compliance Center is your dedicated labor law poster compliance partner. Learn how we can help your team achieve and maintain compliance with our advanced, customized solutions:
Comprehensive Documentation
A central feature of eComply360 is its documentation capabilities. The software automatically maps, delivers and tracks all posters, documenting digital poster acknowledgement and other essential points. The software also understands which posters each employee will need based on their work location.
Considered the gold standard of digital poster documentation, eComply360 uses timestamps unique to each employee. These timestamps allow you to see every interaction an employee has with every poster they receive. This comprehensive documentation provides irrefutable evidence that can be used in your poster compliance audits.
Instant Audit Reporting
One of the main challenges to achieving poster compliance is providing a clear e-poster acknowledgment audit trail. This process involves finding the correct evidence and presenting it in a clear, chronological order. Doing it manually can take hours, and mistakes are easy to make.
eComply360 can generate a full audit trail at the click of a button. Since all evidence is saved digitally in a logical and searchable system, it is much easier to find specific pieces of evidence, too.
National Coverage
eComply360 can be used in any part of the United States to help employees receive the federal, state, county and city-level labor posters they require. When poster updates occur, you will receive an instant notification, giving you peace of mind that all of your posters are up to date.
Secure Data Storage
With cybercrime posing an increasingly significant risk, employee data protection is one of a business’s most important responsibilities. eComply360 is built to protect your employees’ personal data while allowing you to use it to ensure they receive the correct posters. The software also stores compliance data securely — your audit evidence will be there when you need it.
Seamless Integration and Onboarding
Adopting a new technology can often require a period of adjustment. As you get started using eComply360, you will find that your operations are running smoothly in no time at all. With our customer support team ready to advise you, eComply360 will quickly become an essential aspect of your compliance operations.
The software is designed to be intuitive, accessible and user-friendly. It is also easy to onboard new employees, ensuring they have all the labor posters they need from the start.
Experience and Reputation
eComply360 is built on more than three decades of experience and backed by some of the most trusted names in the industry. Additionally, Poster Compliance Center has a perfect track record of no violations. Trust us as the most reliable resource for mandatory labor law posters since 1991.
Meet Compliance With Help From Poster Compliance Center
If you want to ensure your hybrid business complies with labor poster laws, a digital poster compliance solution is essential. Beyond helping you achieve compliance and removing the risk of fines, a digital solution could also save you thousands of dollars each year.
At Poster Compliance Center, we have helped businesses navigate labor law poster compliance for decades. Through eComply360 and our other customized labor law poster solutions, you can rely on our professional team as your dedicated partner. Together, we can determine and implement the best compliance plan for your needs.
To find out more about how eComply360 can help your business, request a custom quote today.
