Perfection in compliance can, in real-world practice, become a block to progress, said Lori Kleiman, SHRM-SCP, managing director of HR Topics, an HR consulting firm in Naples, Fla., on July 1 at SHRM25 in San Diego.
More typically, HR has to get as close to perfection as possible, which often is just good enough, she explained.
“Do the best with what you know,” Kleiman said. “Be ready when a lawsuit crosses your desk.”
Lawsuits can come from many different compliance obligations, she noted, comparing employment law to a “big spider web.” Often, HR gets “caught up with nuances we thought we were doing right” but then finds that there was an error.
It’s important to know if leadership at your organization wants “black-and-white” legal answers or if they are willing to “walk up to gray areas in the law,” Kleiman said.
If leadership wants to be on the other side of the law, members of HR have to decide if ethically they want to continue working for that employer, she added.
But there’s “plenty of gray space” in the law, Kleiman said.
Compliance is confusing partly because of the language of the laws, but also because businesses and their strategic directions are constantly changing, even as technology is evolving.
Added to that, each organization has managers who are doing “who knows what,” she said. “Try to put systems in place to mitigate some of the risk” with managers’ actions.
Kleiman highlighted several current...
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