Legal compliance should be a priority for all businesses and organizations operating in Canada. Noncompliance with federal legislation can be severely detrimental, resulting in fines and other penalties that can make a dent financially and even affect operational processes. Below are 3 simple rules that you should follow in order to ensure legal compliance for your business.
Topics: Are digital images legal, human resources
Human Resources compliancechecklists are instrumental in ensuring that organizations stay well within the laws governing employment in Canada.
They help not only prepare for audits, but also provide a means to monitor whether business processes are operating efficiently and resources are not being wasted or used ineffectively.
Ultimately, HR compliance checklists are an integral component of more comprehensive HR management systems that serve the dual purpose of boosting business efficiencies and staying compliant.
Below are a few of the ways that Human Resources compliance checklists can help keep your organization out of trouble – both legally and operationally.
Topics: HR, human resources
Employee records management is an important aspect for any organization, regardless of industry or size. Since people are the most important element to the success of a business, effective management is criticaal – and the purpose of creating and retaining employee documentation is to improve the management of employees.
Essentially, employee records provide a single source where data about each employee is stored, and this information is used to help guide HR decision processes to the benefit of the organization, such as hiring, promotions, compensation and even termination.
Topics: HR
Document security has long been a concern of organizations. Regardless of format or whether analog or digital, business records, sensitive data and proprietary information have needed to be secured in order to protect the interests of the business. As the need for such security has expanded with the introduction of the digital age, more sophisticated document security management systems have been developed, boasting more complex methods of securely storing and retaining myriad business documents.
Particularly now when data security is such a salient issue, privacy has become a huge concern for businesses of all types, from small operations to large enterprise organizations. Consumers need to be able to trust businesses with their private information, and if that trust isn’t established – or even worse, if it’s breached – people will take their business elsewhere.
The value of consumer privacy, then, is very well understood. But have you ever considered employee privacy? It is equally as important to the well-being of an organization as is consumer privacy, and having an employee privacy policy in place is an important way to guide the infrastructure of privacy throughout your organization. Here are 6 reasons why you should be talking about employee privacy policies if it’s not on your radar.
Topics: HR, human resources
The primary argument forwarded to make a case about why HR automation software is a prudent business decision is efficiency: such a system improves manual, time-intensive processes and ultimately saves organizations money. Less commonly discussed, but equally important, is that these systems allow businesses to adhere to regulatory and organizational requirements. Boosting profitability is obviously a valid goal, but if a company or its employees fail to adhere to legislative or organizational rules, they many find themselves in hot water.
Topics: office automation, HR
Human Resource management is a multi-faceted organizational challenge. Along with talent acquisition and retention, HR departments are faced with the tasks of electronic HR records management, meeting government regulated compliance standards, as well as meeting time sensitive payroll processes.
With so many responsibilities falling onto the HR department, inefficiencies tend to surface, particularly in regards to paperwork and administrative burdens, delayed payment, review and approval processes, and even in the hiring process itself. These inefficiencies stem primarily from a common underlying issue: outdated HR records management.
For organizations wishing to curtail their HR records management challenges, the following advice is a step in the right direction. Here is our unconventional guide to electronic records management for HR.
Topics: HR, Electronic Records
Document retention serves a higher purpose than simply ensuring accurate business records are kept. Effective document retention policies are informed by a variety of considerations from a business, technical and legal standpoint. In fact, a misguided policy could see you in noncompliance with the law.
Canadian law requires that corporations, trusts and organizations keep adequate records that provide enough details to determine tax obligations and entitlements for a period of six years. Failure to keep records, or destroying them too early, could result in prosecution.
But legality should not be the only concern when implementing a document retention policy. While legal considerations are important, any policy should also balance technical possibilities, and of course the needs of your business. Below are some tips to help your business create an efficient document retention policy.
1. Create a Formal Policy
First things first, a formal document retention policy is an absolute must. It is critical from both a legal and business standpoint. In regard to the former, an official document retention policy that is practiced and enforced sets a framework that ensures you are in compliance with the requirements outlined under the law. For the latter, a formal policy will help your business eliminate storage costs by ensuring that you do not obtain records for any longer than you need to.
2. Include an Implementation Plan
A formal document retention policy that is not properly implemented will do nothing but waste company resources and fail to serve its initial purpose. Employees should be made aware of their roles and responsibilities under the policy, as to avoid confusion or poor employee adoption. Furthermore, an implementation can help account for and improve the various ways that employees store documents, so that information is traceable and important records are not misplaced. Document management systems can be highly effective to this end (see #3).
3. Integrate Your Policy with a Document Management System
Document management systems that work harmoniously with your document retention policy cover all bases: legal, business/operational, and IT. Such systems provide a more efficient (and consistent) way to file, store, organize, secure, and retrieve every important document or record that is prudent to keep. It also allows organization to automate processes such as expense reports, AP invoice approval, and AR functions that can be tracked and stored logically within a single system. Furthermore, document management systems allow for easy retrieval of any records, meaning the ability to find the information you need is right at your fingertips.
Remember, an effective document retention policy is not just important from a legal perspective – it can also service business and operational needs by curtailing document management issues and eliminating costly business processes. If you create and implement a policy using the above advice, you can ensure that all considerations – operational, legal, and technical – are attended to.
Topics: Document Retention
Any organization that has tried to improve an existing record management process, or create an entirely new one, has likely run into a number of issues. Many of these issues stem from a few common myths associated with business record management, and re-evaluating perspectives on record management could very well be the first step towards overcoming such problems. Here are four commonly-held misconceptions about records management that could be hindering improvement to your record management process.
Topics: Records Management, Electronic Records
In the digital age, analog records are quickly becoming obsolete. This doesn’t mean that paper records need to be completely eliminated, but rather that as remote workforces, digital communication and distribution, and a higher volume of data creation become the norm, analog formats are less and less practical. Put simply, electronic document management is the way of the future.
If you’re new to the inner workings of document management systems, it’s unlikely that you have a comprehensive understanding of electronic records, what they entail, and how they ultimately help improve business operations. To offer some insight into this, we’ve compiled a list of things you may not have known about electronic records.
Electronic Records exist in multiple formats
A common misunderstanding is that electronic records are simply paper documents that have been converted into digital files. While this is not untrue, it is an oversimplification. Electronic records do consist of converted paper files, but also include many, many other types of formats: microfilm, microfiche, images, cheques, non-standard documents, etc. Depending on the sophistication of the conversion equipment being used, almost any kind of document can be converted into electronic format, regardless of the source.
They are perfectly acceptable for legal compliance*
In Canada, businesses, trusts, and organizations are required to keep adequate records that provide enough details to determine tax obligations and entitlements for a period of six years. However, they do not have to be paper: electronic records are perfectly acceptable. In fact, because electronic document management is more efficient, particularly with a document management system, legal compliance and document retention becomes more accurate and easier to manage.
Electronic Records can be more effectively controlled
Physical records (namely paper) have a number of issues: cost, susceptibility to misplacement, limited indexing and classification ability, poor retrieval and search functionality, and general disorganization. If you choose to go with electronic records that are integrated within an electronic document management system, your organization will no longer face these problems. Every document is traceable, indexable, easily classified, and can even be included in automated workflows so that error-prone, time intensive manual processes are eliminated. This allows for the setting up of functions such as retention rules, security and access controls, DRM, seamless information sharing and collaboration, and more.
The above are a few aspects of electronic records that aren’t widely known, but nonetheless convey why electronic record management systems are becoming so popular for businesses of different sizes in different industries. The right solution can significantly improve records management processes, which can help both directly and indirectly improve other business areas.
*Note: The information provided in the MES blog is not legal advice as we are not lawyers. Please reference the Canadian Standard Document and your legal counsel to ensure that your electronic documents are legal.
Topics: Records Management, Electronic Records