It's a misconception that could cost you: There’s no “one-stop-shop” to obtain every mandatory workplace posting for free. To meet the latest federal, state and local posting requirements, you need to look beyond workers’ comp insurance providers and government agencies. Rather, it’s in your best interest to choose a reputable service that monitors changing laws, provides the latest postings and guarantees 100% compliance year-round.
Why Your Workers’ Comp Provider Isn’t the Solution
While it’s true that workers’ comp insurance providers often distribute certain posters to their clients, it’s not enough. These providers typically distribute only a few of the required federal postings, such as OSHA’s safety poster. But they don’t address state and local postings – a fast-growing, constantly changing area of posting compliance. In addition, they rarely supply updated postings that cover the most recent employment law changes.
Do you really want to put your company at risk for fines and legal issues because you cut corners with an incomplete service?
No One-Stop Shop for Free Government Posters
In lieu of your workers’ comp insurance provider, you may think your next best option is to turn to government agencies. But this is problematic, too. Government agencies don’t work together to issue the necessary postings, and they don’t notify you when changes occur. This means there’s no single resource for every poster you must display in the workplace at any given time.
In fact, you may be surprised to learn that 175 different agencies are responsible for issuing more than 390 posters (federal and state). In a single state, you’re looking at up to 23 postings issued by nine different agencies for federal/state compliance. Further still, approximately 22,000 local jurisdictions (city/county) have authority to issue their own posting requirements.
Doing it yourself is risky! Poster Guard® Poster Compliance Service guarantees that posters are 100% compliant with current regulations, or we’ll pay the government fine, no matter the amount.
How “Free” Workplace Postings Cost You Time, Effort and Internal Resources
Perhaps the above stats don’t sway you; you’re still interested in managing posting compliance on your own. To cover all the bases, you must be prepared to:
- Determine names and contact information for each government agency responsible for issuing posters. It’s up to you to figure out which agencies are responsible for enforcing each posting requirement applied to your business — and where/how to contact them.
- Contact multiple agencies and follow up to obtain postings. Once you know what posters you need and the agencies that provide these, you must contact each agency to request the postings. Most postings can be downloaded from government websites, but others must be requested by phone and received by mail.
- Make adjustments to satisfy size/font requirements. If you download postings from government websites, you must research and confirm that all printouts comply with legal requirements for size, font, color and layout.
- Post individual paper sheets and maintain posting centers. Once you’ve obtained the required postings and confirmed required sizes, fonts, etc., you need to mount the individual paper sheets at each posting location throughout your business, including applicant areas and employee break rooms.
- Continually monitor laws and government websites for posting changes. In addition to securing the appropriate postings, you regularly must check with the issuing agencies to determine when/if the posters change. Government agencies release new and updated postings frequently, and these agencies don’t notify businesses when employment law changes occur.
- Determine whether posting changes are mandatory. Whenever you discover a posting change, you must determine if the change is “mandatory” (requiring a new or updated posting) or “non-mandatory” (a nice-to-have, but not legally required). Agencies rarely make this designation for you on their websites.
- Pinpoint effective date of new posting requirements. Government websites don’t always indicate when a poster change goes live. If the effective date isn’t listed on the posting itself, you must research the underlying posting law to clarify the effective date of the law and the posting requirement (which may be two different dates!).
Head spinning? The do-it-yourself maze becomes even more complex if you’re a larger business with multiple locations.
As you can see, something you thought was “free” is anything but. Government-issued posters are not free when you consider the significant time, effort and internal resources needed to manage posting compliance on your own — especially when your business operates in multiple states.
Take Back Your Time by Turning to the Compliance Leaders
With Poster Guard® Poster Compliance Service, you can shift the research and execution of workplace posting compliance to industry experts. Our posting solutions – from the base service to industry-specific, applicant area, foreign language or remote worker postings -- are guaranteed to be 100% compliant with current laws. Your business is protected with complete, year-round labor law coverage (no matter how many changes) at the federal, state, county and city levels.
