5 Compliance Cases for Employee Attestation Surveys

Posted by onepoint-admin on Nov 23, 2020 10:32:02 AM

Employee Attestation Surveys Support Compliance

By definition, the word “attestation” is:

  • evidence or proof of something
  • a declaration that something exists or is the case
  • the action of being a witness to or formally certifying something

That last bullet is crucial. Employee certification of a task, time or event is essential when it comes to documenting compliance issues.  The OnePoint HCM Attestation solution provides the tools to configure attestation surveys with specific questions and request responses from employees them when you need them. Ask questions to confirm compliance with business policies, safety and injuries, and timesheets. You can also use attestation surveys for health checks or employee emotional well-being. Aggregated reporting by employee, department or location allows for better monitoring and easy identification of exceptions or to identify trends.

 

Five Compliance Cases for Employee Attestation Surveys: 

1) Track Meals and Breaks 

While California typically gets a bad rap for meals and breaks, did you know there are more than 35 jurisdictions with required break and meal periods? OnePoint is highly configurable to identify, track, and automate these requirements through the platform. While automation is a key benefit for an HCM solutions, capturing exceptions is necessary too. Using employee attestation surveys, employers can set up specific questions for various groups of employees based on specific requirements or policies. 

For example, at the end of a shift, a customizable question can be configured to ask the employee:

“Did you receive your 30-minute uninterrupted meal period today?”

Depending on the answer, organizations can then add a workflow to inform the manager or HR of noncompliance so the issue can be investigated right away and doesn’t build up over multiple days or weeks.  The system can even automate a meal penalty (in California, this is known as meal period premium pay) or other automatic allowance per statutory requirement.  

 

2) Comply with Scheduling Laws

Hours worked and compensable time continue to be a challenge as scheduling laws and guaranteed minimum requirements are passed throughout the U.S. OnePoint  simplifies the approval process by triggering pop-ups and sending email notifications when it’s time to submit timesheets. Use employee attestation surveys to take this one step further by asking employees a specific, customizable question to help ensure requirements and appropriate expectations are being met. For example:

“Were you aware of your schedule at least 7 days before your shift began?”

If the answer is “YES”, branch the survey to gather more information if necessary: 

“Were any changes made to your scheduled hours?” 

If the answer is “NO”, you can build a different question logic to clarify the negative response. In certain jurisdictions, the answers to these questions are critical as they help ensure compliance with regulations and can also demonstrate an organization’s intent to keep compliant.

 

3) Workplace Safety and Injuries

When it comes to workplace safety, it pays to comply with government regulations.  OSHA estimates that employers spend nearly $1 billion a week on workers’ compensation costs.  Employers can use employee attestation surveys to keep track of injuries on the job, but also prevent false injury claims. 

At the end of a shift ask specific questions to collect information about that shift and store the responses by date and employee.  For example:

"Have you witnessed any safety violations or suffered an on-the-job injury during your shift?"

If the answer is “YES”, branch the survey to gather more information if necessary: 

“Did you notify your manager of supervisor?”

Tracking responses to safety and injury questions can lower workers' compensation exposure, simply by asking employee to be accountable and attest that they followed rules and policies put in place by the company.

 

4) Employee Health Screening Questions

The Employee Attestation Surveys are customizable to be triggered at punch in or punch out.  In the new reality of COVID, there is a definite business need to have a consistent and trackable way to survey employees pre-shift about health related questions.  To screen for employee health and wellness, design the employee attestation surveys to be presented at punch-in or on a mobile phone before they start a shift. 

Depending on the answer to a health related question, notification workflows can kick off certain emails and notifications to various managers.  This can proactively inform supervisors or HR to investigate the employee for potential health risk.

 

Mobile Attestation questions screenshots

 

When developing employee wellness check questions, and before including any health-related questions in OnePoint HCM Attestation, please consult with your legal counsel to ensure you are compliant with applicable privacy laws and regulations.

 

5) Proactively Monitor Employee Well-Being

The COVID-19 pandemic has forced every organization to rethink the office setting and  the well-being of employees. Organizations can leverage the Attestation solution to check in on the well-being of their employees. It’s important to keep a pulse on how your employees are doing. Studies show that workplaces with happier, more engaged employees have lower turnover rates and less employee burnout. With so many employees working from home today, it can be easy to feel lost or alone. Again, the OnePoint HCM Attestation solution can be used to interact with your employees to provide a check-in and insight into how things are going. Consider adding questions to collect employee feedback, such as:

“Congratulations on making it to the end of the week!

Did you have positive work/life balance this week?”     

Or perhaps you’re interested in measuring employee and manager interaction to report on events and engagement. Using employee attestation surveys, you can collect responses to questions such as:

“Have you had a meaningful conversation with your manager in the past week?”

 

Easily Report Employee Attestation Responses

Attestation reporting organizes employee survey response data about activities so that managers can monitor trends, demonstrate compliance to rules and policies.  Moreover, attestation response reporting provide easy and seamless proof of compliance should governments enact more stringent and required compliance measures into place.

Employee-Attestation-Survey-Summary-Report

Conclusion

The employee attestation surveys, while traditionally intended to capture employee time sheet certification, has gotten several enhancements based on client use cases. From gathering health check responses to promoting employee engagement, organizations are using employee attestation surveys to improve employee monitoring.  The end result is better information and reporting to protect against common compliance risk.

 

Topics: HR Compliance, Wage and Hour, Compliance, Workplace Safety, COVID-19