HR Due Diligence Checklist
10 May, 2021How to create a comprehensive and confidential HR Due Diligence brief.
Due Diligence is a deep-dive into a company’s current and historical operations to create a brief that supports a business goal. For Human Resources (HR), the brief may be a response to a potential contract from a municipality or other organization that has employment and anti-discrimination policy requirements for its vendors. Other HR due diligence applications are submissions to regulatory bodies or as an internal review, at the behest of a board of directors.
In addition to these HR-specific briefs, HR policies and data on HR practices are common components of due diligence briefs in preparation for mergers & acquisitions (M&A), partnerships, licensing agreements, and other business-to-business affiliations.
Elements of an HR Due Diligence Brief
An HR due diligence brief requires collecting and reporting data on the number of executives, managers and employees and their titles and duties, and may also document demographic data on age, racial and ethnic backgrounds, records of performance evaluations, absenteeism, health issues and other sensitive information. The brief generally also includes a compendium of HR department policy statements.
Confidentiality is Essential.
The majority of HR records are confidential information, protected by federal and state laws and other regulatory bodies. Failure to maintain confidentiality during the due diligence process exposes a company to potential lawsuits and the possibility of data breach and identity theft.
Maintaining confidentiality during due diligence is complicated by the collaborative nature of the process. The due diligence project manager assembles a team that includes not only HR personnel, but also lawyers, accountants, data analysts and other professionals. While the project manager can make efforts to enforce confidentiality, some team members may be in remote locations, where the security of servers and other electronic devices can be suspect.
The Clock is Ticking.
The due diligence team is invariably working against the clock. Whether the brief is being prepared for submission to a board of directors or a regulatory body or is part of a bid for a company takeover, the team is racing to complete the complex process as quickly and efficiently as possible. Since a due diligence brief can easily require hundreds of documents sourced from dozens of locations, the task is a daunting one.
A Due Diligence Checklist speeds the process while ensuring confidentiality.
While the content of an HR due diligence brief varies based on the content of the proposal, the process itself and its structure are similar. Which is why ShareVault created a Due Diligence Checklist software platform designed to:
- Assemble and organize a large number of documents
- Speed the process of document review and brief development
- Ensure every aspect of brief development is secure, even for team members in remote locations.
ShareVault’s Checklist automates the HR Due Diligence process.
ShareVault’s Due Diligence Checklist has been used by HR departments and due diligence teams in a host of industries to prepare their briefs. Here’s why they choose ShareVault:
- Upload the ShareVault Due Diligence Checklist to a secure virtual data room (VDR) and it will automatically create a Table of Contents with folders (called “hierarchal tags” in ShareVault)
- Add and/or delete documents with the click of a mouse. Individual documents can be linked across multiple folders
- Team members have real-time access to files, based on a set of permissions, anytime, anywhere, from any device and any web browser
- Collaboration is assured even with members in remote locations
- ShareVault features accelerated document review functionality that speeds brief development
- ShareVault’s powerful search functions allow a team member to locate important documents quickly and easily. Search results are sorted by relevance, with synopses showing how the searched keyword(s) are used in context
- ShareVault search provides “zoomable” thumbnails for a quick peek of a document’s first page, and “infinite scrolling” to quickly scan a document to determine its relevance
- The due diligence program manager has a set of permissions that control who has access and to which documents. The program manager can increase security with two-step password verification
- ShareVault’s VDR provides maximum protection with files encrypted with AES-256 and file connections are via HTTPS over Secure Sockets Layer (SSL)
- Additional controls can put an end-date to access and the ability to delete and/or shred documents, even after they have been downloaded
- ShareVault’s security measures work even with a collaborator is working from a remote location of unknown security quality
- Page-level Tracking provides an audit of user interaction, by date/time, activity, group, user or tag. Results can be viewed as a scrollable list or on a graphical timeline
24-hour Support
ShareVault knows that with a due diligence brief, time is everything. That’s why ShareVault provides round-the-clock support from our IT team, who can answer questions and resolve issues quickly and efficiently.
ShareVault: Focus on your proposal, not the Software!
The value of a great HR and due diligence team is their ability to clarify and maintain HR department policies. ShareVault’s Due Diligence Checklist allows the team to focus on that value, without cumbersome and time-consuming document processing or concerns about security.
LEARN MORE:
HR Issues in Due Diligence: 6 Ways to Boost Due Diligence & Maximize the Value of Your Deal
ShareVault Due Diligence Checklist in M&A
HR Issues in M&A - Seller: Whitepaper: The Seller's Guide to M&A HR
HR Issues in M&A - Buyer: Are You Exit Ready? Six Areas of Your Company To Examine as If You Were a Buyer
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