July 15, 2011 Plan-Prevent-Protect

The Department of Labor's Spring 2011 regulatory agenda is now available. This agenda outlines all of the regulations the Agency expects to have under active consideration for promulgation, proposal or review during the next six to twelve months.

The regulatory agenda focuses on supporting the "Plan / Prevent / Protect" strategy to increase compliance. You'll remember this strategy from the Spring 2010 Regulatory Narrative (here's what we had to say last year).  In short, this strategy places more emphasis on employers managing their own compliance:

“We are going to replace ‘catch me if you can’ with ‘Plan/Prevent/Protect’. In various ways, employers and other regulated entities will be asked to assemble plans, create processes, and designate people charged with compliance. They will be required to implement these plans and evaluate their effectiveness in achieving compliance. While the Labor Department can be flexible about which path is chosen to achieve compliance, compliance will be non-negotiable under the ‘Plan/Prevent/Protect’ system.”

In this installment of The Proactive Employer podcast, we'll be discussing the "Plan / Prevent / Protect" compliance strategy and what it means for employers, as well as highlights from the  Department of Labor's live Q&A webchats from the week.