Ensuring eSignature Legality for Employee Compliance Survey in United States

How to eSign a document: eSignature legality for Employee Compliance Survey in United States

hello and welcome to our webinar today I 9 compliance my name is Michelle Lancer Smith I'm the chief marketing officer here at ipe and I'd like to welcome you to our webinar today joining me is Anna pager she is our HR consultant certified and with lots of years of experience so welcome Anna thank you thank you I'm happy to be here and happy to talk about i-9 compliance well we have a jam-packed session today there is a lot of information to share with you and we're so excited hopefully we can be a big help and you can get a lot out of this well it's like to hear from people afterwards so please let us know in fact they're actually a bit of a quick survey afterwards where you can tell us what you think you're also going to get to the copy of today's slides and a certificate for your cherm credit and the recording as students it becomes available and of course a short little survey won't take you very long at all so why don't we go ahead and get started oh you know I do have a question for you Anna what experience do you have with Diana well since I've worked with a lot of different companies as an HR consultant I've seen really all of it I've been asked a million question when questions when it comes to i9 and I'll talk about some of those horror stories more later today okay I can't wait to hear them well our agenda today is I'm going to just spend a few seconds here telling you about ETA and then I'm going to turn it over to Anna and Anna and I are going to talk about completing and correcting 99i 9 verification for distributed workers and what to do in case of an i9 audit or if ice comes to visit you so and we will have a try to answer some questions at the end of the session so who is ETA well we were founded in 2001 we're here located in Chicago Illinois and we provide full human capital management solution that's HR and payroll and time and labor solutions to companies around their nation we specialize in serving clients with an hourly workforce and clients that have employees typically that our blue-collar hourly move from site to site customer to customer and only have lotsa lots of website our real claim to fame is really our workforce management solution we that is where we started and where we kind of grew up in that customer base that I just described they have some really challenging time and labor needs you know you got Union shift differentials pay differentials minimum wage meal break compliance and things like that and our time and labor and our workforce management system really helps companies get a hold of that and that is the type of complex world that we work in in the kind of complex world that we love to serve on top of that companies like that probably like yourselves require a good support system so we offer 24/7 support every day of the year to everybody that's premium sort support for everybody it's not a cat add-on or anything like that we give it to everyone and because of that we have a great retention rate you can see some of the clients here on the bottom of the screen and our client sizes range from you know a hundred employees to ABM a hundred and thirty thousand employees or the US army or right now we are supporting the US census but we like to focus in companies that are in the service industry and factoring industry construction industry and staffing industries and of course the federal government alright that's a little bit about EPA let's get on to i9 Anna I believe though you'd like to cover a legal disclaimer sure the contents of this is not considered legal advice ultimately it's our opinion and I don't have the specific details to your case to advise you on anything particular all right so why is it important to talk about I ninth well I name's really considered one of the most complicated forms to complete they have over nine hundred pages of associated guidelines handbooks and websites published by the government alone I mean honestly I've seen HR professionals with over 25 years of experience still struggle to complete perform accurately there's a lot of simple mistakes that can really come back and huge fine so it's very important to follow the instructions and always check with the Department of Labor on their website if you're ever I'm sure of anything just don't risk it yeah that's amazing that there's that many documents out there absolutely oh well how soon can you have employees start filling out their high nine so really as soon as the employee accepts the job offer as much as we want to get a head start it's very important because we really can't ask me the candidate for verification or any kind of sensitive information before the employee accepts the offer okay I mean I've seen cases where interviewers actually ask applicants to come in and bring their authorization work documents it's really something you don't want to do it could be really misconceived as discriminatory good note so who exactly has to fill out an i-9 essentially all US employers must fill out an i-9 to verify every employee's eligibility of the employment so there's always a few rare exceptions in particular people who are hired on or before November 6 of 1986 people employed by casual domestic work in other words you know the kids that mowed your lawn you don't necessarily have to verify his employment eligibility independent contractor is another workers or staffing agencies these are exceptions because this agency itself should be completing the i-9 for those employees they're not your employee and of course anyone who's not physically working on US soil so really it's going to be a very rare occasion that you're not completing an i-9 okay well perform look there's a lot of boxes for sure so section one must be completed and signed by the end of the employees first day of work it doesn't have to be filled out in a hardcopy but it could be you can use an online template provided by the government or go through an onboarding program like EPA's both of these online options have built-in features that really help you complete all the sections of the i-9 ensuring compliance if you decide to use an electronic template provided by the government do note that it needs to be printed out afterwards and signed by the employee if it is not printed and signed manually it is considered incomplete whether the employee is filling out a hard copy or an electronic version you must provide instructions and it's really in your best best case to do so because ultimately you're liable for any errors on that form okay so can employers highlight sections on the form that help the employees know you know which section of course certainly you can include small notes or highlight items to help them along the way it's again it's something to help the employees fill it out correctly one of the things you want to make clear to the employee that all fields must be incomplete so if you look at our example you'll see there's a lot of not applicable Zoar naa and that's because those are required field so you want to make sure something is on that form I've had clients really upset because they had to go back and put in those n/a can be a hopefully not in the employee sections but yeah ia done you were in the other okay cool all right well so are there any special considerations for employers who want a verified absolutely so if you're using e-verify the employee if they provide an email address you need to enter that into the e-verify database what that does it allows the employee to view any updates on their verification status employees are also required to provide their social security number if you're using e-verify if a company does not participate in any verify then you cannot require the employee to provide a social security number if the social security number is provided you're not allowed to ask for any documents to verify that number and doing so again may constitute an unlawful discrimination section one is all about the employee access station basically it's a formal claim saying that they are authorized to work for this section you do not need to verify any part only make sure it's completed properly all required fields must be filled out again for some this this may mean that they fill in the space with a nod off not applicable and again I recommend that for any unfilled fields you just provide an n/a as you can see in our example yes this is alright so I think I can fuse on confused so you clear it up and I'm sure a lot of folks out on the phone lands are kin and employer and the NA then in the employee section if there's employee Lisa blank no absolutely not you must have that employees fill out that and and this is where the benefit of an online complaint or the online system such as EPA's is going to come into play because employees cannot move forward without completing all sections which includes that not applicable section which is relevant if you are using a hard copy you want to make sure to review that document carefully and check that all fields are complete so I recommend doing it right in front of the employee you know let them know this is where what's missing and have them complete it when reviewing the work authorization section on part one only one box can be selected okay all right well it's an employee select option three or four and provides an alien number or an admission number should the employer ask to see a document no in fact at this stage of the game you're really not asking for any of your documents so an employee is not required to prevent any document to complete this section so what if they change their citizenship status are they required to update them section one no there's actually no requirement for them to update the attestation section but they can if they choose to so once the employee is finished with section one review the form and make sure if you're using a hard copy that everything is legible if you're using a template make sure that the form has actually been printed in the point employee signed off and dated that form and that at least one of the boxes either the preparer translators section have been selected and that that employees filled out all the fields either with the relevant information or not out non-applicable so obviously since IPE sells full HD m and has an onboarding solution with i9 I know the answer to this question but I'm gonna ask it anyway our electronic signature is considered compliant absolutely they're considered compliant yes if they are we're good to go all right easy peasy buddies in the paper oh yeah for compliance definitely all right so a lot of our clients have employees that need help when it comes to filling out the i-9 cuz English is their language or what have you so how can employees get help filling out the form from under absolutely employees can have help but employees must sign the form even if a preparer or translator helps them so the preparer or translator who help must provide their name address or contact information and sign and date the form and of course the state needs to match the date that the employee sign and dated it the section can be important for minors unable to present documents or disabled employees who cannot physically complete the form in the case of a minor a parent or a legal guardian to fill out section 1 for the minor and in section 2 in place of the document be marked month minor under age 18 a list from C is still required though and for disabled employees who need help filling out the i-9 a representative connect system but again they must still fill out the translator preparer certification section whether or not they're using a preparer a box must still be checked in this section sometimes employees tend to skip over that because they don't think it's applicable to them since they didn't use a preparer so um all right prepare a question and is this kind of late earlier if the employer does highlighting manual in the sections is that considered a preparer health so if you're the employer and you have little notes little maybe post this or highlights no you're not actually preparing the document you're just using that as a guideline and a tool for the employee so you don't have to complete that now if the employer typed in all the answers for that employee on an electronic form then the employer would need to complete this section filing if you are only able to select one option and if the first box is checked did not use then the rest of the field can actually let see less length with no na is filling out here another common item of confusion is the Spanish version of the form Leah yeah if the employee uses a Spanish version of the i-9 they really do not need to fill out the translator box even though the Spanish version is really only meant to be a translation tool if an employee uses a Spanish version of the i-9 it should not be completed and retained you must really retain the English form in order to stay compliant so my recommendation would be to give that employee both forms using the Spanish form as a template to assist them in completing the English form there's also instructions in Spanish which you want to give them ok so I got another question here can minors active translators or absolutely minors connectives translators or preparers I'm sure this happens quite often in fact and they can help fill out the sections for their parents or whoever they're helping as for multiple preparers on an electric electronic form such as ours what happens is there would be an additional space to add at that preparer and if you're using a hardcopy then you would just print out another form and use that section and add it to the original form okay so if it's two little brothers or two little sisters okay all right absolutely all right well now let's go to section two how long do employers have to complete section this section really has to be complete within three business days of that employees first day so if you didn't have it sedated within the first three days even if it's because the employee didn't bring in the document you're still helped accountable for that violation so again my recommendation would be to talk to your new hires before their first day and make sure that they're bringing in their documents on their first day don't risk the three days if you can get it done the first day by all means get it you know let's let's run through and the steps you need to complete the form and make sure that we're ensuring that all the documents the employee presents is on the list of acceptable documents we're not going to cover the entire list of acceptable documents but if you ever are unsure of what the documents are you can certainly just go to the USCIS and see the full list of acceptable documents they even have pictures so it's very helpful but there's really three types of documents that they the employees can bring in first is a form on a list list a of the documents which establishes the identity of the work authorization the most common a document is a passport or a passport card list B documents is only one that establishes an employee's identity such as a driver's license or a state ID and lastly it is the list C documents which really establishes the work authorization for most US citizen this is the type of document would be like a social security card yeah okay so three and three you've got three days to get it done and there are three types of documents correct okay what is they have a lost document can you accept a receipt for a lost document you certainly can it's another important note about documents is you cannot require an employee to bring in specific documents so you can't tell them you know bringing your passport or bring me your driver's license in your Social Security card but what you can do is give them a guideline and give them examples of what are commonly used documents all right so with section 2 are you really supposed to be an expert on all documents certainly not if you can't be expected to so you know know all these all the details of each particular document what you want to do is you want to examine the document and if it looks genuine and the name on the document is the same as the name provided in section 1 then you're good to go ok well what if they don't match ah tricky tricky one what I would suggest is talking to the employee about why there's a discrepancy the most common reasons it wouldn't match is that they're using a nickname on a section and then if that's the case haven't correct that or if the document relates to a former last name and that wasn't listed on a section 1 then you would have them go back and add that former last name okay so can you expect or can you accept I should say expired document that is a very good question and the reason I say that is because in the past you could have accepted like an expired passport but that's actually changed making it a very common mistake so with this you just have them bring in another document from the list should that happen once you have a suitable document that you verified for validity and it relates to that employee presenting it enter the employees information in from section 1 record the document title the issuing authority the numbers and if there's an expiration date from that original document that the employee presented enter the date the employee will begin work and provide the name signature and the title of the person completing section 2 as well as the Dayton complete record the business name and the address of the employer so if your company has multiple locations which i think is a common issue is which which address should they use the answer is really the address of where the i9 is actually being completed return the documents back to the employee ok can for section 2 the verifier can they take copies of those documents from Blue Plate and make a copy and then later out fill out the section 2 they're too busy to do it write that in there yes they can but again I'd like to remind you that there is a three-day deadline - so I think it's in your best interest to just get it done right there and then but if you certainly are overwhelmed you can put it to the side and and get it done later and as far as photocopies are concerned you just want to make sure you're being consistent in your practice so if your practice is to make copies of those documents then you want to do so for your entire workforce you can't just go I'm gonna copy Michelle but not Anna oh that can be considered discrimination discrimination no I wouldn't even have thought of that I've gotta make copies for everybody then make it a process procedures ok so it is a very tricky document it looks you know when you look at this up here look at that section what happens if you fill that out long well it's recommended to use the American date format like shown in you know in the highlighted section here of the instructions but other formats are certainly acceptable as long as it's clear which format is being used corrections aren't required for the correct date format another common mistake I've seen relates to the various slots for the dates which can be confusing so look at the actual form you can see an option for today's date in other words the date you're verifying the document and an option for the employees first day of work so also don't forget don't leave any boxes blank on this section even if they're not relevant to what's what's going on moving on then you know a lot of our clients have workers that are across a lot of locations there is a distributed labor force they're in different states and so on and in HR isn't always on site so how do you get the i-9 completed that's a very very good question and it comes up more often than I personally care to admit but the requirements don't change simply because you're in a different location those requirements remain the same you still have to view and verify an employee's documents within three business days and it still has to be the original document I mean I've heard of stories of people I've heard yeah people are using web cameras FaceTime to verify documents know that this is really not acceptable or not compliant photocopies are really not acceptable for any of these documents you can't hold your phone up to a webcam and say look at HR app seriously I absolutely do not have to be involved you're right it could be you know you can't really tell whether that's an original document of coffee at work you know if that's even the person so it's don't you got to get it in person I gotta get it in person and know this can be a challenge especially if you have a distributed workforce so oftentimes this is going to fall into an authorized representative and what an ultimately an authorized representative is is someone you're authorizing to make the complete this form on your behalf but really be careful as to who you pick because those mistakes could cost you in the long run so this is often going to be the site manager so if you have a site manager you want to train them on how to complete these forms and if it's not then you know the next best thing would be maybe a notary or maybe an HR connection that you have but I do want to kind of caution people about notaries because their very first instinct is to notarize that document be aware of that they're not to notarize this document and in fact I found that notaries in particular are going to need a lot of hand-holding oftentimes they really don't know what they're doing with this document you really need to walk them through what needs to be done okay well I'm sure you know a lot of folks are wondering I guess somebody they're going to be a great employee but they don't bring in two people work in three days and I'm going to miss the deadline I don't want to lose them and I can't get somebody else but do I have to turn them or can I just make it inactive so I completely understand and that unfortunately happens more often than we'd like it to happen what you want to make sure you're doing is that employee is not working before you're off and you've reviewed their documentation so if if it's the case you don't necessarily have to terminate them you could put them into an inactive status but you want to make sure that they're not physically working until they're they've been verified in active status okay well that's that's reasonable all right so let's move on then section section 3 yeah that although this section it does not need to be completed for new hires so for every new hire you can leave this section entirely blank no an April yay yeah and the reason for that is you want to leave a blank so that if you're Rivera fiying a rehire a comes up in the future you have that blank space here to use so there's three reasons to use this section to Rivera fires fire with documents to update an employee's name change and to complete rehiring instructions so again for rehire the question I guess that I think would come up is what would you do if you've rehired someone twice within a three year run out of room right right so you would need to fill out the new rehire section and attach it to the original I nine but honestly my best practice for rehires is to start with a fresh uniform and I'm going to tell you why that's it you might have an i-9 one that's on an older version there may be mistakes in that form don't know who filled it out in the past and the form might be missing all sorts of things could happen you could imagine I've seen it all so again my recommendation is to start fashion and the reason why you take those precautions is it if there's penalty absolutely and they are promptly for costly penalty so again the Reve verification section can be very confusing because there's several reasons and exceptions that you don't need to reader if I such as you citizens Nash non citizen nationals and lawful permanent residents any list from the be documents because list be documents you it's used to verify identity do you never really have to read their apply cases because you only need to Rivera Phi in case where the work authorization has last keep track of the expiration dates and ribéry verify them as early as possible to avoid any non-compliance you must request employee document and read verified before they actually expire I suggest notifying the employee ninety days before the expiration date on their documents and establish a date when they're going to bring in the updated document to Rivera Phi employees must present unexpired documents either from list eggs or list these showing the work authorization again you may not ask for the specific documents and the Rivera fication documents do not need to be the same as the originals that were presented what do you do if you need to be verify an employee but they use an older version the first go-around do you have to redo the entire i9 no no no no you definitely don't have to redo the entire nine but what you should do is complete the verification section on the most up-to-date version so just get the newest form and complete it there okay all right so we got more to fill out on this section you're not through it yet no no no so there's there are three parts of this section and each are used for different purposes so Part A is for name changes the most common case being marriages for this section you have to fill in the employees new name sign and date the section Part B is where you provide the employees rehire date you can use a section on an i-9 for employees where rehired within three years of the original hire date and of course finally there's Part C which is used for documentry verification this part again is similar to part two an employee brings in a document and you record the document in this section if you have to Rivera Phi the employee more than once you should get a new section of part 3 to fill out and attach that i9 whatever part you're filling out all other sections need to be filled out with an na to complete in compliance again that ending comes into play but again if you're working on an i-9 for a new employee you want to leave this section blank okay so if it's somebody with a name you fill out section a and everything else correct if it's a rehire you fill out section B everything else is n/a correct okay all right so if for employers that have seasonal workers which is a lot of our Commerce you know it presents a lot of challenges do employers have to fill out their rehire section every season Oh Michelle that is a great question and I share that question so often I actually had to look this one up the first time it was out but essentially no for seasonal employers they don't have to complete the rehire section for returning seasonal employees but it all really depends on their practice and how they treat their seasonal workers at the end of the season if you're marking them is terminated then you may have to complete a new hire or rehire section for every season but if you're marking those employees is an active with an intention of continued employment and this is per the DHS regulations then you don't have to fill out any form you can just refer to the USCIS if you have any other questions on that okay well correcting your I nine hopefully from all these things that Ana's talked about we kind of convinced you probably should do an i-9 audit and look at your procedures so when you are going through your iodine how do you correct them if you have to make corrections the best way to correct the form is to strike through any incorrect information enter the correct information then initial and date that do not use whiteout speed please please mental notes do not usually why not remove any record of any changes made and doing so it's going to lead to an increased liability for you if you have previously made any changes in whiteout instead just attach a note to the corrective form explaining what happened and be sure and sign and date the note what other mistakes or changes you make on an i-9 they should always be signed and dated and explained in some fashion to keep an audit trail another na question the NA rule is new for a lot of employers can you go back and edit your i9 to add in all the N ace that's a great question yes but again you have to kind of keep in mind that correcting the process mirrors the original process so you as the employer may only correct sections that pertain to the employer so if section 2 in section 3 for any issues you discover in section 1 you really need to go back to the employee to have them correct that error so to correct multiple errors you can redo the section on a new form and attach it to the old form a new i9 can also be completed if major errors need to be corrected and again a note should always be included in the file regarding the reasons you made the changes to an existing i9 or completed any y9 so when you're doing a self audit do you have to go through all the terms and asses employees you really should and you should go through all the sections as well for the term employee file you can sort through the ones that no longer you don't you no longer need to retain them but for the mistakes that you do find just put a note showing that you know this was a mistake that you've done and you're not able to make the correction these employers don't all go with you the good-faith effort will benefit you in the case of a government audit so I guess that goes to my next question how long do you have to keep the i9 this is a great question and to stay compliant you want to retain an employee's can let me repeat myself here I'm sorry to say in compliance you must retain an employee's completed form for as long as that individual works for you and even after their employment has ended in the case that they've been terminated it's either three years after the date of hire or one year after their state of employment is terminated so here's an example we start with an employee's first day of work then we add three years to that date next take the date of termination and add one year to that date from those two calculations Poli seek the late to date guys later and in this case three years from the employees first date was later than one year since the termination so is there a limit then to how long you can keep terminated employee i-9 so no there's really no limit but again you don't want to keep things that could get you in trouble those those forms could be foes mistakes sure and anything that an auditor doesn't need the thing you want to get back save yourself a headache keep it simple so one trick I use I'll share with you guys is whether your processing is process when you're processing the employee termination set yourself a reminder in the calendar one year or two years whenever the data is that you need to remove their i9 from their file that way it keeps you compliant okay so since I knives contain personal information about your employees how should you store your own name no matter how you choose to store the i-9 want to make sure that you're able to present them within three days of being requested so if you're storing original paper or hard copies you must keep them separate from the employee personnel files I'd recommend maybe a binder of current employees and then in a binder of past or terminated employees and make sure please please please make sure that they're locked up securely if you're using an storing an electronically storage system that that also comes with certain safeguards that you need to consider any storage system must have ways to prevent unauthorized access you want to be able to ensure that there's an audit trail there's no altering or changes there's a way to track the changes that are being made and can be accessed by anyone to inspect the forms include a quality assurance program and a detail index is always helpful particularly when it comes to records so that you can easily access and make sure you're producing a high degree of readability when displayed on screen or reproduced on paper are you required to retain the original I nine forms with signatures or will photocopies or best efforts work so employers to complete and retain the i-9 in paper format really should retain the original documents handwritten signatures photocopies are really not acceptable employers may choose to scan them and upload the originals as long as they're the original signed form to retain them electronically on these forms you want to make sure they're securely stored in an electronic format and the original paper form can it send be destroyed but again I want to caution you because it's a little bit harder to correct once they've been scanned in so make sure that they're missed mistake-free when you're scanning both ends well it sure seems like it's a lot easier to go with a system that has high nights in within the yawn absolutely absolutely I honestly cringe I cringe at the thought of paper i-9 because there's so many mistakes the Kennedy made and you know with our system and it doesn't let you move on if you don't put an na we're supposed to put it in a the electronic signature is good stored right there it's secure Apple Atlantis see if they're not supposed to see it absolutely gets rid of all the headaches alright well width i9 comes some other scenarios some not so good what happens if ice shows up in your office what would you do about our you're right now worst case scenario right always in my opinion it's the best of us is prevention so have a designated officer appointed to coordinate between agents and your company's own legal team and you know what train your front facing personnel you know the the receptionist the secretary whoever's at the front desk train them as to who they need to contact and what to do in a case of a site visit company-wide you should issue a set of standard operating procedures so that employees know their right work with your immigration counsel to set up best practices and standards for your old company when faced with ice agents always contact your immigration legal counsel read any warrants presented and make sure that that won't check if it's signed by a judge or if it's just a department of homeland security more what are the locations to be searched and what items are being subpoenaed know that you do not have to answer any other questions and you can request legal counsel if you're required to actors to provide representative for your company this extends to the your employees as well so any questions from agents about your employees names their documents or identifications are not required to be answered and employees can decline all right I know this may seem like a silly question but I've heard it before can you film the officers when they are on site that is not at all a silly question that is a very good question I think because it's going to vary from state to state but most often you can even if the officer tells you you cannot record them but you want to be sure to check the status in rulings in your particular state no matter what the state ruling is though you can always take notes of their actions where they went who they talk to a list of their officers whatever was present et cetera this is your right and they can't take these notes from you or make you stop taking notes and I would highly recommend taking notes and getting photocopies of any paperwork that they flashed you so there are different types of site visits that ice makes absolutely there are work sites parades and fun and knowing what to expect an either situation can help reduce the risk of a violation and of course your stress so in the case of an ice raid you will not have any notice or warning and agents will most likely enter with the judicial search warrant there there are got a right there yep there you go so if you look our example here you can see that this comes from a course this means that it's actually been signed by a judge and it's followed due process with this warrant officers can arrest unauthorized workers they can enter private areas of your business and seize relevant documentation only is there elicited of course on that warrant officers are allowed to request original documents rather than copies but is your right to make copies of whatever documents they're taking as they're leaving officers should also leave you with an inventory of any property and employees arrested and in the case that the agents enter into your business after not a full-scale raid but rather they're only seeking out a specific employees work removal or deportation they're most likely entering with an administrative more and the difference here is important because this warrant is not signed by a judge and has not passed your due process so it has a limited reach and scope as you can see on the example for this warrant it comes from the Department of Homeland Security looks more like a memo as opposed to an official legal document in my opinion when agents are entering under this warrant you have the right to deny them access beyond your Lobby and you're not requiring to tell them anything about any specific employee such as where they're at or even if they're working that day so let's talk a little bit more about raid first spotted okay so an audit is similar to a raid in that you will most likely have no idea that that one is coming until they actually show up on your doorstep in the case of an audit you would receive a notification of inspection which often is in the form of a subpoena for your i9 records and other documents required to verify your compliance if violations are discovered during the inspection the employers are always given a warning or notice of an intensifying at this point the employer has a chance to either negotiate a settlement with ice or request a hearing before the office as chief administrator hearing officer within 30 days of receipt of that notice so let's talk about some of the penalties the consequences for i9 violation oh yeah those are big all here today right right so averaging over $2,000 per violation the cost for an i-9 violation and other civil fines are really high amounting in a total of one hundred and five point four million dollars in 2017 alone and statistics are putting 2018 enforcement actions at 50% higher fine so there are even higher we don't have the full number for 2018 just yet but hiring employees without complying with the employment eligibility verification requirement is a violation of the law and if you failed to properly complete or retain the i9 you could definitely be subject to civil penalties and in determining the amount of penalty the following factors may be considered a the size of the business whether or not the good faith of the employer and the seriousness of a violation whether or not the individual was unauthorized alien and the history of previous violations of the employer so note that criminal penalties may also apply in the event the employer engages in a pattern of practicing of knowing knowingly hiring or continuing to employ unauthorized aliens for engaging in fraud or otherwise misusing identity documents so it's very very serious okay if you fill out the i-9 in good faith and get my nursing just little things incorrect like not dating it or putting a ID in the wrong this column does the government give you a warning or do they just depends on the person conducting Mia audit usually if you're completing an i9 audit you're correcting your mistakes and trying to maintain compliance and good faith then you'll probably receive a warning again in determining the amount of the penalty the what's consider to suffice the business and all that wonderful stuff that I just talked about yeah okay Wow so much I also much should know much well we've got some questions coming in so can you be penalized if the employee or even the employer writes outside the box and he says the employer can take notes a little of the employee can make right outside the box are they writing outside the box that information that supposed to be inside the box are they just taking them do or we don't know well I mean I'll answer both so if they're just writing notes that's fine again the document just needs to be clear and legible so as long as the document the information night it's supposed to be in the correct boxes in the crash box fine you can read it so here's kind of a tricky one our eyes it up to you to determine if a document is or not you're definitely not considered an expert on documents there's really no way we can know off of everything again you've got to use your best judgment and your good face is going to be considered in this one right if it looks like a legitimate document and you have no question it pertains to the person in front of you then you're fine okay well here's a question from one of you guys out there that says do we need to Rivera fie all employees on a yearly basis or only you know on the retire so if you're you can Rivera fie on the rehire and not on a yearly basis you can do an audit and see if there's anything going wrong but definitely just don't go and read verify everybody are we responsible for checking the employee files for expiration dates are on the i9 yes but you only need to be verify spired documents in Section two so if your ID is expired you don't have to read by Rivera Phi that the work authorization expires certainly have to be verify that okay all right let's see what other questions do we have here of the years ago one if no preparer or translator is used to complete section one do you have to put in n/a in those boxes requesting translator info and so who put n/a in those boxes employee or the employer so you should leave those fields blank that's one of the beauties of the form one of the very people that part can actually be less lengthy just have to select did not use a translator or preparer let's see what else oh then there's just tons of questions on it do you need the initial of the employee signing or the hiring manager when correcting the form so when you're doing an audit and you notice that you know something in section 1 is incorrect that needs to actually go back to that employee to be corrected if it's something in section 2 or 3 you don't have to go back to the hiring manager whoever filled out that form you're doing me on it and you can make the correction again initial and data okay so the employee when they make the correction have to initial and date it yes they definitely should so where do I nail a completed I night never ever mail an i-9 anywhere they have that very so I was definitely a trick question please don't mail it has a highly sensitive data on they're not meant to be mailed to any government agency okay do you can you intermix your employee file so like you get resume or their application can you put their i-9 and their application in the same file no definitely not the i-9 is separate from the employee personnel record again it has a lot of sensitive data that a the hiring manager doesn't even really need to know so it needs to be kept separate ok all right so we have time for two more questions so this one's the I have a hundred plus employees that have been employed for at least five years should I have them fill out new i-9 or recertified so you have a hundred employees that have been working with you for five years you wouldn't want to go ahead and have them all recertified or anything like that unless you find an error and you need to you know correct the error in the audit but that's more of an audit that's not a recertification you shouldn't have your entire workforce complete all knowing that you're done you hire them they're still working for you if you're done yes well this filled out right correct as long as you have the i9 that the trick you have to have the original iodine okay all right so last question if no preparer or translator is used to complete section one do you have to put in in a and those faxes requesting translator in there like you just answered that does a repeat question no we're not I'm gonna go ahead and have the n/a is put in one more time what would you do is just again that's the one section that you would leave without the n/a you would simply check off that they did not use the apparently there talk about that all right Wow good question why are you good good question thank you Anna what a what a lot of great information thank you thank you guys for being so active well we are about at an hour and I just want to thank everyone for joining us and thank you Anna for your great information but a great session when you exit today we're gonna ask you to just a few quick questions and then you know we'd like to show you more about our system where you can get this the whole automated and not have to deal with a lot of some of the issues that we talked about if you're using paper please select it up please like come come see a demo or take a tour so at ipe we'd like to your HR Payroll time and labor provider we have a full human capital management suite from applicant tracking helping you get those people in-house and recruited using job boards and so on human resource management module with on morning which of course includes inés electronic I nine and also all the other reporting that you need like OSHA and EEO and so on workers comp a Ben admin system as part of that to help manage your your benefit of course a flexible time labor scheduling payroll intact to handle the payroll for you and you the taxes and the each day along with that and we have a performance management module we also have another one up there learning management tool so we can do the whole thing and I think really make a difference it makes more efficient help you save some money and and make your employees happy because they get paid right they can see the checks on it ESS you know things work out well cool well great being with you today again my name is Michelle Lancer Smith so Susannah pager thank you for being with us thank you everybody and in IPE we'd like to be your human capital management provider have yourself a great day thank you