Utah State Capitol (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Here’s a typical scenario: your business receives an email, telephone call, or a snail-mail letter telling you that posters for your state have changed and that your posters are now out of compliance.

How can you be sure that they aren’t just feeding you a line? After all, they’re in business to sell as many posters as possible.

Three recent employment posting changes to Utah state postings serve as a good example. Several GovDocs’ competitors listed these changes as mandatory changes requiring customers with locations in Utah to purchase new posters.

• Workers’ Compensation Notice (English): Verbiage addition to the poster that states employees have 180 days to give notice of injury. (Utah law has required the 180-day limit for more than 10 years. The English version now mirrors the 180-day language already found on the Spanish version.)
• Workers’ Compensation Notice (Spanish): Reformatting/slight text changes.
• Workplace Safety and Health in the State of Utah: Includes language that whistleblower complaints must be filed within 30 days.

GovDocs uses a very thorough research methodology when it comes to determining whether a posting change is mandatory or not. Our Research Department delved deeper with qualified members of the Utah Occupational Safety and Health (Utah OSHA) and confirmed that the three changes mentioned above are not mandatory changes, and Utah employers who display the previous version of each of these posting are in compliance.

As mentioned in Part 1 of this series, postings in the U.S. experience more than 200 labor law changes each year, but government issuing agencies deem approximately only 40% as mandatory changes requiring replacement of existing postings or the addition of new postings.

If you’re responsible for keeping a few locations compliant with labor law posting requirements, you many not mind spending an extra $30 here and there just to be “on the safe side.” But if you’re responsible for hundreds – or thousands – of locations, posting updates can be an expensive and confusing proposition.

GovDocs eliminates unnecessary spending on labor law postings and logistics for large, multi‐location employers with extreme accuracy.

That’s why many large employers – including 30% of Fortune 50 companies – rely on GovDocs to keep current with the latest state and federal labor law posting requirements. GovDocs actively monitors all changes from more than 500 state and federal agencies in order to provide complete and accurate posters that keep our customers compliant.

Learn more about how GovDocs helps business like yours remain compliant.

How does your department weigh the needs of your compliance program in relation to cost?

This is a particularly busy time for human resources and compliance departments at large companies. On top of open enrollment activities, and hiring and training for holiday operations, many companies assess their budgets for the upcoming year.

Assessing labor law poster vendors now? Download our free Buyer’s Guide.

Here are 4 quick tips to help you select a vendor who keeps your locations compliant and helps you avoid unnecessary spending on your compliance program.

1. Check their track record

Some poster vendors do a very good job of delivering compliance products to customers at a fair price and with responsive customer service. Others do not. Check out your vendors on the Better Business Bureau website. The BBB provides a letter grade and a register of specific complaints from customers.

2. Define mandatory versus non-mandatory changes

Have each vendor tell you what constitutes “mandatory” to them and how they verify that changes are mandatory. Some vendors claim any change to a required posting is mandatory, but it matters little what your vendor thinks is mandatory. It matters very much what the issuing agency considers mandatory change. If you purchase from vendors who push you into unneeded poster purchases, you are wasting precious budget dollars and potentially creating more confusion for your locations.

3. Cross-check their update records

Ask your potential vendors for a list of recent mandatory state and federal labor law posting changes. With those lists in hand, you can see if each vendor’s list measures up to what your current vendor delivered to your locations. You need to trust that the research methodology of your vendor translates into compliance for your locations. Remember, compliance starts with thorough and accurate research!

4. Check references

Specifically, ask your vendors for references from companies like yours (similar size, similar industry, similar service) – and then contact those references. Ask your peers about vendors’ customer service, products, and total costs. One important question to ask: If you could change one thing about your poster vendor, what would it be?

Talk to us!

When you’re considering labor law poster vendors to help keep your company compliant, GovDocs would love to be considered. Take a look at our Compliance Programs to see how GovDocs can make your compliance program – and your job – easier than ever, while eliminating unnecessary spending on labor law posting compliance and logistics for large companies. In fact, we provide ongoing compliance for more than 270,000 employment locations in the U.S. and Canada – including the world’s largest retail employer and 30% of Fortune 50 companies.