How Strong HR Processes Can Mitigate Risk with Deb Muller

Do you have HR processes in place? Join us on this episode of the Innovation with Compliance Podcast with Deb Muller, the CEO and Founder of HR Acuity, and we’re chatting about how human resources related technology and processes can help mitigate risks and create a safer workplace for everyone.

No rhyme or reason

Deb noticed that most of the investigations being done within HR in an organization had no rhyme or reason. There were no processes as to how they should be done. Talking to clients, she recognized the need to incorporate technology and consistency into the investigation lifecycle, because someone can just walk in the door with something to tell you and upend your entire day — not to mention pose an incredible amount of risk for the organization.

Having a system

Human resources are your most expensive resources, yet most companies don’t think about it when they think about risk or compliance. What happens when someone makes an allegation?  A proper compliance process will make sure you get to the right result, stop the behavior, and mitigate the risk.

What HR Acuity’s system allows you to do is identify if you’ve had similar issues in the past, spot the trends in behavior, and get ahold of them before they lead to something else. You can nip situations in the bud, and the data allows you to get smarter about your people and figure out how you’re going to train them.

Interpreting data

What’s great about the data is that you can see the outliers. Once you know your norm or your benchmark, you’ll be able to spot the spikes and dips — things that are unexpected. You might now know what that actually tells you, but what that does is it gives you the information to go and ask the questions and find out what’s going on. What changed? What’s different? Did something happen internally? Externally?

10 Ways Technology Can Impact Your Employee Relations Strategy

This blog entry goes through all the different things you can get from technology. Many clients rely on the data to see if they’re at risk for class action suits, for example, where legal can just check the data as a “single source of truth,” go through historical information, and see if there’s anything they need to get on top of before it becomes a bigger issue.

It’s not the issue, it’s how you handle it

If a process exists that people see and believe in, they are going to be more accepting of the outcome. We hear that 75% of people don’t come forward, and Deb believes it’s not because they don’t know how to come forward. It’s because they don’t know what to expect when they come forward. It can be scary: Am I going to be retaliated against? Am I going to have to recount my story in front of the person? Are they not going to do anything about it at all? Will it be held against me?

One important thing about having a process in place is sending a message that you have a process in place. When someone has an issue, they’re going to feel much more comfortable coming forward, so having processes in place is so important in helping to create that safe workplace.

Resources

Deb Muller | HR Acuity | 10 Ways Technology Can Impact Your Employee Relations Strategy