Whitepaper

THE CASE FOR PEOPLE RISK MANAGEMENT

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From terrifying threats of violence to costly litigation to increasingly complex regulations and compliance requirements, HR and business leaders must focus on their people and their workplace culture more than ever before. A mistake can be expensive. Lack of awareness or proper safety measures can be dangerous.

This whitepaper lays out the need for people risk management (PRM) and explores what embodies an effective PRM strategy.

www.thinkhr.com © 2019 ThinkHR, Inc.

The Workplace is at Risk in Today's Society

CONTENTS

HR Continues to Evolve

Why People Risk Management?

A Good People Risk Management Strategy

The Foundation: A Living Employee Handbook

The Essential People Risk Management Toolkit

People Risk Management from ThinkHR

Connect with ThinkHR

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Historically, HR departments focused primarily on operations. In the 21st century, HR began taking a more strategic role, becoming involved in workforce optimization and talent management. In recent years, HR has evolved again to focus more on people and culture (with many departments even adopting that name).

Organizations today realize the importance of a strong culture and high employee engagement, because they contribute to higher performance as well as retention of top talent.

HR Continues to Evolve

Strong culture and high employee engagement contribute to higher performance as well as retention of top talent.“

“Companies who double that number can realize a:

For example, Gallup research has found:

of employees strongly agree that the mission of their company makes them feel their job is important40%

33% improvement in overall quality

41% reduction in absenteeism

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There are countless risks related to people that can result in expensive litigation, fines, and even criminal punishment.

Compliance risks related to people are innumerable, including:

Ineffective alignment between leadership behavior and articulated culture principles.

Failure to comply with key operational guidelines for the administration of human resources, payroll, and benefits policies across federal, state, and local entities in which organizations do business.

Discriminatory or biased hiring practices.

Inconsistent or biased administration of compensation programs.

Inadequate health and safety guidelines and inspection.

Weak management practices for consistent supervision of employees.

Poor quality onboarding, offboarding, and trans-boarding practices.

The shift in focus to people and culture is a positive one for organizations that reaps many potential benefits. It also carries risks that employee behavior could be an impediment to organizational success.

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People risk is inevitable — but organizational behaviors and responses can eithermitigate or accelerate that risk. The greatest challenge in managing people risk is in its anticipation.

Why People Risk Management?

People risk management fills a critical need for businesses of all sizes, helping them build and maintain a strong culture, drive employee engagement and performance, and mitigate the numerous people-related compliance risks that exist in every organization.

People risk management simply provides HR and business leaders the tools and guidance they need to prepare for and manage day-to-day people risk.

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An effective people risk management strategy is multi-dimensional and takes the entire employee lifecycle into account — hire to retire.

The ability to handle an incident when it occurs, such as a sexual harassment complaint or a workplace injury, is only part of a strong people risk management strategy. It is critical that organizations have the tools and expertise to manage and mitigate risk before, during, and after an incident.

This includes:

Anticipating and preparing for potential risks, including an awareness of changing legislation.

Knowing where to turn and how to respond when a risk becomes real.

Having the resources to react after the fact, limit liability, and mitigate further risk.

Establishing a risk awareness culture so all employees contribute to the work of identifying and mitigating people risk.

It is critical that organizations have the tools and expertise to manage and mitigate risk before, during, and after an incident. “

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Manage risk before, during, and after it is exposed.

A solid start: Ensuring these four key items are addressed and in place will help businesses mitigate people risk.

What Does a Good People RiskManagement Strategy Look Like?

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Most importantly, organizations that wait to build a handbook until there is a crisis cannot mitigate risk. In most cases the damage has been done.

The foundation of any solid people risk management strategy is a living handbook.

This is much different from the traditional concept of an employee handbook; while thoughtfully prepared, they suffer from low readership and rapid obsolescence due to changing regulations.

The Foundation for Effective PRM: A Living Employee Handbook

Employees need to understand how they are expected to behave, be ready to confirm that understanding, and ultimately be held accountable for their actions.

A living handbook creates the ‘line in the sand’ organizations need to highlight both what’s great about their organization and the behaviors considered unacceptable.

Includes key organizational policies and procedures, standards of behavior, plus elements of culture.

Is continuously reviewed and updated as needed to ensure compliance with the latest legislation as guidelines change across all regions where a company conducts business.

Holds employees accountable by requiring their signature during onboarding and when there is a change to the handbook; creating a clear link between communication and behavior through the sign-off process.

A COMPREHENSIVE, LIVING HANDBOOK:

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The only way to ensure a comprehensive, end-to-end people risk management strategy is by incorporating three critical components:

The Essential People Risk Management Toolkit

Content: The need for instructional and accurate content is clear, from regulatory updates to handbook policies to interactive and engaging training courses. Organizations must have access to reliable knowledge related to all potential people risks, along with guidance on preparing for and managing those risks.

Technology: All the content in the world is useless without the ability to get that content into the hands of the right people. That includes technology such as a handbook builder for easy creation and maintenance, a learning management system to deliver powerful training content, and key deployment technologies to create a great user experience (like SSO and mobile applications).

Live Advisors: There are times when content and technology just won’t solve a difficult situation, such as an employee leave issue happening right now. That’s why people are the essential third component of a strong people risk management strategy, to offer the expertise and guidance that HR and business leaders need.

Content

Technology

Live Advisors

People Risk Management

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ThinkHR recognizes the significant risks that center around people within an organization, and is the only service provider to introduce an end-to-end people risk management solution.

ThinkHR's People Risk Management solution delivers all elements of the essential toolkit, including:

People Risk Management from ThinkHR

Up-to-date and accurate compliance content to guide and support an organization’s PRM strategy.

Law and risk alerts to provide businesses with insight into changing federal and state legislation, including guidance on potential changes on the horizon.

A trusted team of live experts who have extensive experience resolving tens of thousands of issues in your area/industry. They help research and explain how to respond, not just recite hard to understand, complex legal writings.

A comprehensive living handbook builder, including legislation and policy change alerts, Spanish language translation, and e-signature capabilities.

Training solutions for both proactive and reactive risk management, including tracking for completion and effectiveness.

Fully-integrated content that combines compliance data, best practiceinformation, and high impact delivery. People Risk Management shows HR leaders both what happened and what to do about it.

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To learn more about ThinkHR or connect with one of our representatives, please go to thinkhr.com/contact-us/.

Visit us on the web at thinkhr.com/prm

Follow us on LinkedIn or Twitter (@RealThinkHR)

Call us at 855.271.1050

Connect with ThinkHR

www.thinkhr.com April 2019