The newspaper "Professiya"
Disputes with employees, unannounced checks of the labor inspectorate, are the nightmares of many HR managers. If bad dreams became regular, you can certainly start taking sleeping pills, but you can do without drugs. A physician will be replaced by an auditor. Just clean up the personnel documentation. Who will conduct the personnel "cleanup"? This question is answered by the Head of HR Services of Outsourcing Division of BDO Zulfiya Yupashevskaya.
- Undoubtedly, a staff auditor, who will conduct a professional inspection, will help. The main task of this professional is to check the procedures and documents related to personnel recordkeeping, and to confirm that everything is done correctly. During the analysis of personnel documents, calculations of wages for a time period are taken as a basis. Such fundamental company documents, as statements of personnel records are verified, as well as local acts.
HR audit can be full, when all the procedures and documents for all employees are verified, or selective, when samples of HR documentation across all HR processes are inspected. Usually, even a selective check reveals if there is a trend of systematic violations of the labor laws.
All too often, HR employees are asked not only to check the current paperwork for errors, but also to help with the restoration of the documents in a case, when a part of the archives, for example, was for some reason lost. This too, is the HR auditor's job.
- Who do you think is in need of such an audit the most?
- Companies that due to particular circumstances, have to be certain that their paperwork and procedures, related to personnel management, are in full compliance with the law. Such circumstances are many: a team, working in the HR department changes, the company changes ownership, labor inspectorate is expected. Sometimes, the headquarters of large companies order HR administration auditing of subsidiaries to make sure that HR work in every part of the country or of the world complies with all the corporate standards and requirements of the local labor laws.
- But there are certain rules and laws that large companies, looking for transparency, are surely following and therefore disputes simply should not arise.
- It's not that simple. In Russia, we do not have a single list of requirements that the government imposes on the employers, so it is not easy to provide full compliance of all the HR procedures to the law. Part of them are reflected in the labor law, some in the tax code. Sometimes they contradict each other. In addition, various regulations are constantly changing. Therefore, even with the most accurate companies mishaps can happen.
- How often should a company be audited?
- In our experience, to be confident in paperwork, audit should be done every two to three years.
- Is a failure to adhere to personnel standards really dangerous for a business?
- Speaking of the risks related to personnel standards non-compliance, they may vary depending on the area of law they are associated with.
Errors identified by a labor inspection once, will cost the company between 30 and 50 thousand rubles. However, if they are not corrected on time, the Labor Inspectorate can impose various sanctions, up to a temporary suspension of company's activities. In addition, if the inspection is carried out by the Labor Inspectorate, visits from the Prosecutor Office and tax authorities may follow. The most severe sanctions could follow if violations of immigration law are found - from 400 to 800 thousand rubles.
- To let a stranger into a sacred place, he must be trusted. How to find your auditor?
- First, you need to find a company providing similar services that you can trust. Choosing a service provider, ask what projects they worked on before, ask past customers for recommendations. Experience and trust are of the most importance when working with a staff auditor. It is very good if a company can produce any certificates of quality or compliance, showing its ability to lead on a project - it will be a proof that the supplier has a clear methodology for conducting audits, and you can really take advantage of the company's experience gained through the previous audits.
I would recommend, and our company shares my opinion, to change auditing companies from time to time or at least change the individual auditors. Over time, they lose their edge and the auditor may simply not notice some errors.
- And who is coming into this profession? How to become an HR auditor?
- Professional auditors, just as many other today's professionals, are not trained in universities. Typically, people come into this profession with extensive experience in HR administration and have excellent knowledge of the Russian law - lawyers specializing in employment law, personnel managers. To this knowledge we must add ability to analyze, compare different documents, verify the data. This is a very important part. Someone said once, that analytical abilities of a professional can be seen when he is shopping for a washing machine. If a person comes to a store, looks at a brand and the price and just buys - sorry, but he is not cut to be an auditor and analyst. But if he starts to search the Internet for each specific brand, compares lists of functions each machine features, and compares the prices in different stores - then this person will make a good analyst. And, of course, in this profession attentiveness, careful observance of professional ethics and a desire to raise the level of knowledge, including constant monitoring of legislation changes, are important,
- How promising is the personnel recordkeeping audit market?
- Personnel recordkeeping audit enjoys a stable popularity. On the one hand, in the recent years the Russian government tries not to terrorize companies with redundant inspections. But on the other hand, a growing number of enterprises want to ensure the maximum transparency of their business, a number of lawsuits by the former employees is on the rise and to secure their position HR-directors are turning to personnel auditors.
By Zulfia Yupashevskaya, a Head of HR Administration of the BDO outsourcing Division
