How University of San Francisco simplifies HR compliance in 38 states

The challenge

Keeping up with rapid expansion in new states is a full-time job

California labor law is complex. Like, notoriously complex. So much so, that when Catherine Finn (an HR leader with nearly three decades of experience) was brought on as an independent contractor at the University of San Francisco, she assumed following their home California law as a standard would cover them in every other state they had employees.

“Our thinking was: If it works in California, it’s got to work in all the other states, but we quickly realized that’s not true. Washington, Oregon, Colorado, and many other states have unique idiosyncrasies in their employment laws,” Finn said. “And all of a sudden we realized we had hundreds of employees across the country and we didn’t know all of the state requirements.”

After the pandemic, USF had rapidly expanded its remote work footprint with recruiters, and others employed across 38 states. They needed a better solution for managing it all—but an outside employment attorney was pricey. Their first strategic move was to bring on Finn full-time to tackle multi-state compliance. Their second strategic move was to use SixFifty’s automated employment law platform.

“We had a lot of catching up to do on this big compliance project…SixFifty has given me a lot of employment law information that I wouldn’t have known about otherwise.”

– Catherine Finn, HR contractor, University of San Francisco

The solution

Generate custom state policies and addenda in minutes with SixFifty

With SixFifty, USF moved nimbly in hiring outside of San Francisco and California by automatically generating all the documents, policies, and agreements they needed in just a few clicks. 

“We use this philosophy that if something that was beneficial to employees may not be required in your state, but it does in California, we were going to extend that to everyone—applying the highest level of benefits and policies across the board,” Finn said. “California tends to favor employee rights the most so we default to that, then generate addenda where needed using SixFifty for states that have stricter or more unique requirements.”

Tools used: 50-State Hiring Kit, Research module, Legal Updates, Policy Comparison Chart, State Addenda, Policy Library, Employee Handbook, Offer Letter

The results

Removing compliance headaches in one fell swoop

But the biggest benefit for Finn of using SixFifty? The peace of mind knowing USF has a documented record showing compliance.

“You can’t really measure the ROI of the platform as a simple cost savings,” Finn said. “In HR, the real benefit is in what doesn’t happen—the lawsuits we avoid, the enforcement actions we avoid.

“Our risk exposure has dropped tremendously since using SixFifty. I now have this record that shows we weren’t negligent in following state employment law.”

– Catherine Finn, HR contractor, University of San Francisco

Even still, SixFifty made much more financial sense for USF in tackling its compliance challenges. Finn noted that where she historically had to rely on outside counsel for handbook updates and policy revisions, she can now go to SixFifty.

“My last attorney charged $800 an hour, so I had to make sure to not call him with ‘small things’ or ask for certain tasks to go to a junior associate so I’d only be billed $300 an hour,” said Finn. “With SixFifty, I can get answers to those ‘small things’ on my own, and quite a bit quicker.”