At its core, compliance management is about mitigating risks including fines, project delays, reputational damage, employee injury and death.
With the stakes so high, it makes sense for compliance managers (such as HR admins) to take a page from the risk professionals’ handbook and create a formal risk register. Below, we explore how a risk register works with examples relating to workforce compliance.
What is a risk register?
A risk register is a document that identifies potential risks and other important information about each, such as their likelihood, severity, ownership and response plans.
The register can relate to potential risks affecting the entire organisation, or be more granular by recording risks that could impact a specific project. Generally, risk registers are more effective if they are targeted rather than vague or broad in scope.
Format
Risk registers can take any format, but as a general rule they should be readable at a glance and contain as little text as possible.
Consider using a table format and applying numerical values or colour-coding to the various fields. For example: 1 = Minimal impact to 5 = Critical impact, or Green = Minimal impact to Red = Critical impact.
Workforce compliance risk examples
Types of risks to include in your risk register depend upon the project, but common workforce compliance risks include:
- Regulatory fines
- Poor communication
- HR data security
- Having uncertified or unqualified workers on site
- Ineffective onboarding
- Employee injury or death
- Project/scheduling delay
- Reputational damage
What fields should be included in a risk register?
The risk register should contain important information relating to each risk. If you want to keep the register “lean” (brief enough to fit on a single page or poster), then consider hosting more detailed information elsewhere.
A risk register may include the following columns:
- Name: Identify the risk with a label such as “Ineffective onboarding”. Reduce duplication by ensuring there is an agreed-upon name for the risk across the organisation.
- Date: Adding the date that the risk was first identified will help decision-makers see how long a risk is taking to resolve.
- Description: A short, succinct description that accurately describes the risk and the impact it could have on the organisation.
- Category: The main category that the risk falls under, for example “schedule”, “budgetary” or “reputational”. You may choose multiple categories or limit it to one for simplicity’s sake.
- Impact level: An assessment of the severity of the impact on your business or project. Rather than using text to describe this, consider using a scale such as 1 = minimal risk to 5 = critical risk.
- Likelihood: Determine the likelihood of risks taking place. Some risks such as poor communication are highly likely to happen, while others such as employee death are (hopefully) very unlikely. Again, use a numerical value or colour code.
- Priority: Determine a risk’s priority to help the organisation decide which risks to invest in/mitigate first. A risk’s priority can be determined by charting a risk’s impact and likelihood. Use a 2×2 matrix to prioritise the risks in the top right corner (high impact and high likelihood).
- Mitigation: The response the organisation will take to lessen the risk. This will be the most text-heavy part of the table, so try to keep it succinct. For example, “Having uncertified or unqualified workers on site” can be mitigated through investing in a unified, real-time view of compliance status across the organisation as provided by Cited.
- Ownership: Who is responsible for putting the mitigation strategy into action?
- Status: Describe the current status to show at a glance if the risk has been successfully mitigated or not. E.g., “Not yet started”, “In progress” or “Mitigated”.
Say hello to a new way of managing workforce compliance. Learn how Cited can simplify compliance and dramatically reduce workforce-related risk here.