As we move forward into 2023, there are a number of changes that your HR team needs to be prepared to tackle. At Dovetail, we are proud that one of those changes includes our recent partnership to include Mineral within our HR Service Delivery platform. That's why we decided to highlight some key compliance trends for 2023 and show how leveraging the Mineral platform can help our clients be more proactive in dealing with these trends.
As highlighted in a recent article in hrdive.com, “State, local laws to drive compliance trends in 2023”, while employers of course need to keep abreast of federal regulations, it is really at the state level where employers need to remain vigilant in tracking new regulations, as this is where changes are most likely to occur from year to year. This can be a real challenge for companies trying to track their compliance requirements for employees in various states, not to mention Employee Relations teams that are wading through various issues while at the same time ensuring they have the correct regulatory backdrop as part of their investigation. The increasing post-pandemic use of remote workers has only exacerbated the need for companies to monitor additional state regulations. Enter Mineral.
One particular compliance trend noted in the HR Dive article concerns the growing number of states adopting, or considering, pay transparency laws. Mineral helps address this by providing clients with a raft of resources for compliance and other HR challenges. Core to the challenges noted in the article is the ability to track regulations at the state level. Mineral allows users to select all the states of interest and even filter based upon the type of regulation, e.g. Benefits, Hiring, Leaves & Time Off, etc. In a similar post, ADP’s blog noted that over 14 state and local jurisdictions now require pay transparency when posting a job opening. If you want to know if your organization is impacted, simply select the category and states of interest and quickly get a list of regulations for those states.
Of course, it is one thing to be aware of existing regulations, it is another to be aware of new regulations as they go into effect. Using Mineral you can easily set up notifications to alert if there are regulatory changes for states in which your company operates.
Further, as part of the various other complimentary resources provided by Mineral, there is a Salary Comparison Tool that can provide a salary range for a posted position. This could become even more critical information if pay transparency regulations expand, as the companies will need to ensure the pay range posted for a position is competitive with the market in which it is being advertised.
Now that you’ve identified a potential regulatory impact, Mineral helps your company respond. One impact is in the policies a company adopts and captures in their Employee Handbook(s). Should you find that to be the case, Mineral offers another solution for managing the various state regulations with its Employee Handbook Builder. This tool can automatically update employee handbooks when required, which can prove invaluable when trying to juggle various state requirements while ensuring they are all accounted for in your policies - not to mention kept current.
Another area raised by HR Dive is employee leave. Here again, the lack of a consistent approach to leave across the states means the onus is on companies to navigate the various compliance requirements. While the compliance alerts and handbook builder are also very relevant, something else to consider is how to manage these various leaves on a day to day basis. Do you have the requisite forms to account for various state requirements? Yet another area where Mineral can help as it includes an extensive library of forms, templates and checklists to refer to.
Attempts to raise the Federal Minimum wage in 2022 failed to result in any legislation but many states picked up on this. As ADP notes, in 2023, over 20 states and 40 local jurisdictions have new minimum wages going into effect. Using Mineral’s database of regulations provides a great resource for understanding these details, not to mention having the Law Alerts updates to provide notifications of relevant state changes before they went into effect.
Another tool worth a mention (if you need a quick reference of the minimum wage in various states) is Mineral’s Minimum Wage Map, which offers a quick interactive resource of state pay requirements at a glance.
The bottom line is that HR compliance can be complicated and is always changing, especially if you have employees in multiple states. Fortunately, Dovetail recognizes that it isn’t enough to have only a powerful Case Management tool to deal with issues as they arise. It's also important to have the ability to be proactive in preparing for HR compliance changes before they become an issue for your Employee Relations team. That’s why we’ve partnered with Mineral to provide ER teams with the tools they need to prepare for or prevent issues in the first place. We’ve only touched upon some of the resources provided through our relationship with Mineral, so if you have an interest in learning more, please feel free to contact us for more information, or to schedule a demo of Dovetail's and Mineral's capabilities.