Within the last 10 years, federal regulations have been introduced which required massive restructuring of HR departments and IT staffing. Most of these regulations address security, corporate accountability, and privacy. All require the support of a renovated infrastructure--both human labor and software/database.

Four Essential Federal Regulations for Businesses

Pertinent legislation includes the Patriot Act, which has a number of requirements that necessitate background checks and reference checking. Compliance with the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) is also essential, and is intended to make sure that all patient information and medical record are kept secure. The Sarbanes-Oxley Act requires any public company to be able to provide financial statements with proof of procedure and controls. The Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act (GLBA) places new requirements on any financial organization to protect customer data.

In all cases, this legislation is costly to implement. Some companies choose to bring in consultants; others are increasing their IT staffs. Some are using software and passing on much of the work to an HR department to administer the programs and keep track of the information with the help of new software packages.

If you choose to use software, it will save you a great deal of time. It may be that you are able to draw most of the necessary information from already-existent databases. You will still need to train your staff in documentation and records management, storage, and business process management. Companies which make the better compliance software packages often offer training (on-site or online) in both the usage of the programs and the salient points of personnel management to which they appertain.