HR Governance & Operating Risk
HR governance is more than policy enforcement — it’s about setting up a resilient system of accountability, control, and defensibility across every core HR process.
HR isn’t just a people function — it’s a system of authority, decision-making, and liability that must hold up under scrutiny. Whether it’s handling payroll, enforcing disciplinary action, or defending hiring decisions, every HR process carries operational and legal risk. That’s why governance in HR isn’t optional — it’s foundational.
In this section, we explore how HR governance frameworks help organizations clarify authority, enforce policies, and build trust — internally and externally. You’ll learn how to:
- Establish a defensible structure of decision-making and accountability
- Identify and mitigate operational risks across HR processes
- Build documentation and audit trails that stand up in legal or regulatory reviews
- Implement internal controls and segregation of duties to prevent abuse or fraud
- Understand your exposure to compliance risk, and how to manage it proactively
This goes far beyond compliance checklists. HR governance is about embedding trust into the system — so that the right things happen, in the right way, with the right accountability.
Each page in this section addresses a different facet of HR governance and operating risk, grounded in proven models and real organizational practice.
Governance doesn’t stop with written policies — it’s about what happens in practice, day after day, across dozens of sensitive decisions. This section shows how to build an HR function that can both enable people and protect the organization.