I heard some horror stories the other day from a freshly minted HR generalist who, soon after starting her job, was startled by a Paul Revere-like cry from the company’s general manager rushing into the HR department. “The auditors are coming!”, she declared. “Who here knows how to handle the HR compliance audits?” Blank stares were her only reply. Apparently the departed HR generalist had handled that task before, but in the intervening months before the new hire, no one had backfilled her functions. Unfortunately for this company, the generalist had never taught any of the other HR representatives how to do these audits. As this awareness dawned on her, the new hire was sitting there thinking, “Uh oh.”

And she was right: this wasn’t going to be a quick study. Preparation for the compliance audit consisted of plowing her way through a tall stack of policy manuals and legal tomes. She began her dizzying introduction to the alphabet soup world of FMLA, FLSA, USERRA, ERISA, and EEOC. The ACA (Affordable Care Act) hasn’t even kicked in yet but that’s got to be high on her reading list to prepare for the changes required in 2014. She learned that even if no lawsuit occurs, there are plenty of other circumstances that can cost you, such as having to pay back wages to non-exempt employees...

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