I like to read.  I’ll admit the reading list includes the Twilight, Hunger Games and Fifty Shades of Grey trilogies.  But I also read a lot of Human Resources books and magazines.  They may not be quite as titillating (no vampires or red rooms of pain that I have found quite yet), but unlike the other books, I do learn a few things that I use in my everyday life.

And my everyday life is usually about Human Resources and technology. My latest read is HR Specialist Magazine, the Employment Law Edition, in which I learned that employees filed 99,947 charges of workplace discrimination with the EEOC last year alone (the highest ever).  Leading claims include retaliation, race bias and sex discrimination.

The magazine details all of the different areas where employers need to be mindful of avoiding lawsuits and ensuring compliance.  I always to try to think of ways that technology can assist in these endeavors.  One article about how altering time sheets can mean a personal liability for managers was pretty interesting.  It basically outlined that if you are a manager responsible for approving timesheets or signing off on alterations of time sheets, it’s not just your organization that can be sued … but you personally!  The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) allows employees to sue their bosses, execs and HR professionals for personal liability for altering pay records.

How does technology help?  For starters your SAP ERP HCM system can track employee time in several different ways and includes the ability for managers or HR professionals to alter time entry.  My suggestion would be to insist (make it a required field, for example) for any change that is entered as an override to an employee’s time requires the entry have a note inserted detailing specifically why the time was altered.  Little things like that allow you to make sure you are keeping things on track in terms of compliance.  Plus, if you have a great reporting solution like Easy Reporter, you can easily report on those values as needed.

My blog posts will likely focus on these types of concerns and how technology can be used to assist.  And for those curious – I am team Edward, Peeta and Christian respectively.