Executing compliance is one of the few tasks that HR professionals have control over. For all the roles and responsibilities required, compliance is one of those areas where you can apply a “set it and forget it” mentality. When you have systems in place, it also frees up your mind to tackle more important challenges and higher priorities.

Considering the 98% high burnout rate in HR reported last year, creating a healthier way of working in HR, whether it’s in areas of productivity, organization, or prioritization, should be at the top of every HR’s list.

That’s where a systems mindset comes in handy. If you don’t already, compliance is a substantial area to practice new ways of working that are proactive, organized, and most importantly, on auto-pilot. The more you can rely on your systems (and your ways of working) the more you’ll have time for the enjoyable parts of your role that you love.

For example, what I love about the HR industry is the support and resources, but there can sometimes be too much noise. Too much information. If there isn’t a single source of truth, I am still not getting the support I need to “set it and forget it”. I now have a new task to add to my plate which is organizing and confirming which resource is accurate.

In the technology industry, there are terms to help us work smarter and not harder. These terms are what IT Managers and Chief Information Officers live by to help them handle the complexities and ever-changing states of the technical systems they manage.

The single source of truth is something you can rely on so that it doesn’t take up more time to devote mental energy to. While double checking my information on compliance dates, I noticed subtle variations in what information was included in which calendar, depending on the resource.

This meant more work to tease out what dates I needed to pay attention to and what information I could rely on, and what naturally followed was a feeling of overwhelm. There are also different protocols for a compliance calendar to follow based on a variety of factors, including industry, size, benefits you include or don’t include. I checked my dates against SHRM’s 2025 compliance calendar because the organization comprises many certified HRs and not a single employer. This provided me with a single source of truth for our 2025 HR Compliance Calendar.

Redundancy

To work systemically has to come with a level of preparedness to keep our minds relaxed. Redundancy is a technical term that means you have a backup to your system in case Plan A fails.

This means creating a proactive plan to back up your current compliance strategy. That’s why we have created an HRInsidr Compliance Prep Calendar to help you achieve this redundancy in 2025. This serves to prepare you for the tasks included in SHRM’s 2025 Compliance Calendar.

Preventative Maintenance

When you save things to the last minute, you’re prone to working in a frantic and chaotic way. Preventative maintenance is a term that focuses (and schedules) routine tasks. For example, this could mean carving out space to review your handbook on a quarterly, bi-annual, or annual basis. The more often you schedule routine tasks, the fewer changes (and surprises!) you will have at year’s end.

These types of tasks are also included in our HRInsidr Compliance Prep Calendar. When the task comes up, it reminds you to make space on your calendar to perform this maintenance. I like to block off 2-3 hours on my calendar for a project to ensure it gets completed that month.

Safeguards

Safeguards protect confidentiality. Ensuring you’re following the same protocol every time you update an employee’s file. That you are purging information according to the file’s expiring date, and that you are proactively determining and understanding how confidential personal information moves through your company is a critical step to preventing overwhelm. Performing the same action every time comes with a level of trust to help you ensure your files are safeguarded.

In compliance, it’s important to understand who you’re doing what for. Notices inform employees of critical steps they need to take when selecting healthcare or filing their taxes, notifying managers of their responsibilities with new legislation, or vendors when contracts expire.

Assuring that what you are doing is actually servicing the needs of who you are working for will help ensure you aren’t spinning your wheels and wasting time on compliance efforts that are meaningless to company stakeholders.

Taking lessons learned and ways of working from the technical space and applying the systems approach mentality to HR compliance can help you relax. When there is a process that is expected, you can set ways of working that will help you decrease your overwhelm.

As the responsibilities continue building up in HR, the most important thing to do is not to tackle everything but to see where you can automate and develop ways to trust your systems to do the work for you.

The information contained in this site is provided for informational purposes only, and should not be construed as legal advice on any subject matter.