I confess to feeling a bit “humdrum” about planning our December HR executive peer group meeting. The agenda was titled “2014 HR Executive Dashboards”, but the focus of the discussion was intended to be on the legislative and compliance environment, not the aspects of HR hat appeal to me personally:  organizational learning, leadership development, culture and engagement arena. AND, compliance is inevitably an important aspect of HR Executive Dashhboards. To compensate for the fact that the topic was lacking sex appeal, I made sure our two invited guest attorneys and discussion catalysts (Mary Drobka and Sarah Bhagwandin from – Davis Wright Tremaine) were familiar with the format for our discussions: personal learning and sharing is number one, we keep it strategic, and THERE WILL BE NO POWER POINT!  And  they did a dynamite job of doing just that-creating inspired conversation on a topic that some of us would consider “boring” (apologies). I believe participants left with some very poignant inquiries around how they are organized to respond to  the challenges of the Affordable Care Act and the rest of our legislative environment. Also, they left with some renewed urgency around the importance of not forgetting that if you are an HR executive “it is ultimately all on your butt.”  Are you aware that for example failure to pay wages can become a personal executive liability? Also, you may not be able to read all the fine print of contracts and evolving laws, but you had better make sure you have the right people in place to make sure you are in compliance.

Here are some of the questions participants took away from our discussion, questions you might want to ask yourself if you are an HR executive looking at your 2014 Dashboard:

1. How sophisticated is your team? Does it have the knowledge base it needs? What about critical thinking skills?  Do you have the right staff inside to keep you and your company out of trouble  or do you need to hire from outside? Have you tapped the right people to become subject matter experts in specific areas? Do you have special teams that can be pulled together ad hoc to deal with for example things like reasonable accommodation events? Is it capable of dealing with all the legal differences between different locations and states? Is your benefits manager communicating consistent messages to everybody?
2. What is your sense of what managers and other staff doing the hiring actually do day-to-day? Do they understand the implications of mis-categorizing people? Do you need to do more education of your managers of the complexities of hiring? Do they understand that sloppy hiring could result in the whole company being on the hook for large pay penalties? Will the Affordable Care Act be an incentive for managers to come up with creative and potentially illegal ways to deal with situations? Do your managers know what  they should or should not know and say and do they have the right conversations with employees-an increasingly important matter now that employees spend a lot of time on the internet educating themselves about their rights.
3. Do you have payroll from staffing agencies-do you know what really, actually happens with those employees over time? Are you auditing retroactively to see where you have soft spots?
4. How aware are your C-level executives? We know they generally do not want to get bothered but mostly just be assured that things are taken care of? That being said, make sure you bring the critical issues where the potential liability is the highest to their attention…the kinds of issues that is something goes sideways, it will come back and bite your butt. Give the C-suite a number so that they can understand why it matters.

In conclusion, if you are an HR executive looking at your 2014 Dashboard, don’t forget to make sure it covers your butt. If you cannot personally stay on top of the ever changing legal arena, you do have control over your staff. It needs to have the knowledge, the critical thinking, the skills, and clear roles and assignments with accompanying accountabilities. Put together team to deal with events proactively. Don’t wait until you “have a situation.”

Want to browse some of Davis Wright Tremaine advisories on the HR legislative environment, check out my HRExecutiveYak Magazine: http://flip.it/HGeUZ