30 Terms Every HR Compliance Manager Should Know

Do you consider yourself to be a HR compliance expert? Look at these HR compliance terms* to test your knowledge, and maybe learn a thing or two!

1. Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)

Prohibits discrimination and ensures equal opportunity for people with disabilities in employment, state and local government services, public accommodations, commercial facilities, and transportation. It also mandates the establishment of TDD/telephone relay services.

2. Audit

An objective overview of the company’s HR policies, practices, procedures and strategies to protect the company, establish best practices and identify opportunities for improvement.

3. Bereavement Leave

Leave taken by an employee due to the death of another individual.

4. Compliance

Ensuring the organization meets all its legal obligations. For HR, this means staying responsible for meeting health and safety requirements, ensuring employees receive their contractual wages and benefits, and keeping an eye on all labor law updates, such as discrimination, gender pay reporting and more.

5. Corporate Governance

The system of rules, practices and processes by which a company is directed and controlled. It is a delicate balance of the company’s stakeholders, management, customers, financiers, government and the community.

6. Corporate Social Responsibility

A corporation’s initiative to take responsibility for its effects on environmental and social wellbeing. These efforts typically go beyond what is required by regulators.

7. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC)

This agency is responsible for enforcing federal laws that make it illegal to discriminate against a job applicant or employee because of the person’s race, color, religion, sex (pregnancy, gender identity, and sexual orientation), national origin, age, disability or genetic information.

8. E-Verify

Internet-based system that compares information from an employee’s Form I-9, Employment Eligibility Verification, with data from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and Social Security Administration records to confirm employment eligibility.

9. Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA)

(FLSA) Establishes minimum wage, overtime pay, recordkeeping and youth employment standards affecting employees in the private sector and in federal, state and local governments.

10. Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA)

Allows eligible employees of covered employers to take unpaid, job-protected leave for specific family and medical reasons with continuation of group health insurance coverage under the same terms and conditions as if the employee had not taken leave.

11. Grievance Procedures

Process an employee must follow to get his or her grievance (complaint) addressed and resolved. This process may involve a formal (written) complaint that moves from one level of authority to the next. These procedures are usually included in union agreements.

12. Hours of Work

A set schedule that establishes the company’s official workweek. This helps set the time frame for overtime hours.

13. Labor Law Poster

The large, printed paper that includes all labor law postings required for your workplace.

14. Labor Law Posting

The smaller, individual policies that make up a labor law poster. These exist in many forms, such as federal, state, city and county postings.

15. Living Wage

Living wage is the lowest wage at which the earner and his/her family can afford the most basic costs of living.

16. Minimum Wage

Minimum wage is the most widely recognized term in the realm of employee compensation. It is the lowest hourly wage an employer can pay an employee for work.

17. Misclassification of Employees as Independent Contractors

Classifying a non-contract employee as an independent contract employee to deny employees access to benefits and protections they are entitled to by law, such as minimum wage, overtime compensation and family and medical leave.

18. National Labor Relations Act (NLRA)

Guarantees basic rights of private sector employees to organize into trade unions, engage in collective bargaining for better terms and conditions at work, and take collective action (strike) if necessary.

19. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA)

Assures safe and healthy working conditions for employees by setting and enforcing standards and by providing training, outreach, education and assistance.

20. Overtime

Time an employee works more than the 40-hour legal workweek. The FLSA requires most employers to pay overtime to employees at a rate of one and one-half the employee’s regular rate of pay.

21. Paid Sick Leave

Hours employees can take off work when sick and still be paid.

22. Paid Time Off

Hours employees can take off work for any reason and still be paid.

23. Pregnancy Discrimination Act (PDA)

Prohibits sex discrimination based on pregnancy.

24. Prevailing Wage

Prevailing wage typically refers to the rate of pay contractors and vendors must offer their employees when doing business with a government agency.

25. Public Holiday Entitlement

Employees at certain businesses are entitled to time off on all public holidays. However, payment for these holidays is not required at a federal level. The benefits are a matter of agreement between an employer and employee or the employee’s representative.

26. Social Media Policy Compliance

A corporate code of conduct that sets forth a company’s prescribed practices for employees who post company-related content on social media platforms, whether through company or private accounts.

27. Statutory Benefits

Benefits a company must provide their employees. These usually include social security taxes, unemployment insurance, worker’s compensation, disability insurance, leave benefits and family and medical leave.

28. Statutory Obligations

A company’s obligations overall that arise from a law or statute.

29. The Uniform Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act

States that an employee has the right to be reemployed in his/her civilian job if they leave to perform the uniformed service.

It also prohibits discrimination and retaliation because of an employee’s affiliation with uniformed services.

Lastly, the employee has the right to elect to continue using employer based health plan coverage for him/her and dependents for up to 24 months while in the uniformed services.

30. Wage Theft

Theft that occurs when employees do not receive their legally or contractually promised wages. This includes non-payment of overtime, not giving employees their last paycheck after he/she leaves a job, not paying for all hours worked, not paying minimum wage and not paying an employee at all.

*These terms were acquired from the Department of Labor (DOL) website.