Professor Joe, Show Us How It Works (Employment Law Version)
Joe Aakre is Compli’s Senior Sales Engineer, but you might know him better as Professor Joe, our resident scholar and lecturer on all topics compliance automation. Last week Joe stepped in front of the proverbial blackboard once again for a presentation about a topic we see our customers dealing with all the time: employment law.
If you’ve been following our compliance blog recently, you can probably guess which aspects of the law we had Joe focus on. That’s right: drug policy, the Fair Labor Standards Act, and sexual harassment. More specifically, our distinguished professor explored how Compligo, our workforce compliance automation platform, improves documentation to safeguard auto dealerships (and organizations of all kinds) from the risks of litigation and penalties.
If you haven’t had a chance to view the webinar, or if you’d like to review what we learned, here’s a quick recap:
Compligo’s Workforce Compliance Reporting Features
Joe discussed the importance of documentation, explaining that by documenting things now, organizations establish unalterable records that keep them protected during litigation. A paper trail can easily disprove a wrongful termination claim, for instance.
Joe showed an example of Compligo’s Disciplinary Action Form, which provides a place to enter the type of disciplinary action, and describe exactly what took place, who saw what happened, where it happened, and so forth.
If an employee commits a fireable offense. Compligo allows supervisors to initiate a termination directly within the system. The Termination Form looks similar to the Disciplinary Action Form, and provides numerous predetermined options, possession of drugs, refused to work with the supervisor, or violated a safety rule or policy.
What happens to this form when it’s finished? After the completed form is submitted, HR receives a notification. HR gets a chance to reviews the incident before it’s filed and the offending employee is officially let go. This process doesn’t need to include HR if the organization wants to go to inside counsel instead. Compligo can add additional notifications—for example, a notification to turn off the document management software and go out to IT at this point (the filing stage), or a notification to collect uniforms. Every organization’s termination process is different, and Compligo accounts for your organization’s unique needs.
Whether we give a warning or termination takes place, there will be a paper trail. We can demonstrate that multiple chances were given or that enough policies were violated that employee had to be let go. So, if there’s ever an employment lawsuit, legal can point to the documents in Compligo and say, “Look, here’s what’s happened.” Everything has been documented, saved in a database, and timestamped. It’s our evidence for why we did what we did.
Compligo also makes it easy to ensure you’re treating employees as employees, and contractors as contractors. As a supervisor, you have the ability to review tailored Fair Labor Standards Act content, so you there’s no guesswork as to how to do your job in compliance with the FLSA.
Watch the Free On-Demand Webinar
Want more guidance about employment law trends and how to use Compligo for documentation? There’s a 20-minute webinar recording waiting for you in our Resources Library. We’ll also return to this topic with a follow-up post in a week or two.
Click here to watch “Ask Professor Joe: Employment Law In Compligo” for free.
