Lynch Laboral

Prevention

Employment compliance program for Peru

A working system that tells the company, month by month, which Peruvian employment obligations apply, who owns each one and how the regional office will know they have been met.

Request a review  Reference guide: Employment compliance
Who it is for
  • Regional HR and compliance teams accountable for several Latin American entities
  • Groups whose global compliance framework needs a Peruvian employment chapter
  • Local management teams that want to move from reacting to inspections to preventing them
  • Boards and audit committees asking for assurance on employment risk
When it makes sense
  • An audit has identified recurring gaps and the group wants them not to reappear
  • The global compliance program has no content specific to Peruvian labor law
  • The company has passed thresholds that trigger new obligations, such as a safety committee or internal work rules
  • Responsibility for employment obligations is split between HR, payroll, safety and legal with no single owner
  • Leadership changes have left gaps in who tracks what

Most multinational groups have a compliance framework covering anti-corruption, data protection and sanctions. Employment law is often absent from it, or reduced to a line saying that local subsidiaries must comply with local rules. In Peru, where the list of employment obligations is long and many of them are dated, that is not enough to give the regional office any real assurance.

The business problem

A mid-sized Peruvian entity has to manage recurring deadlines (CTS, the severance fund the employer deposits in May and November; gratificaciones, the statutory bonuses paid in July and December; monthly electronic payroll filings), obligations that switch on at headcount thresholds (an occupational health and safety committee from 20 employees, internal work rules above 100, a sexual harassment intervention committee from 20), and ongoing duties such as keeping attendance records and registering fixed-term contracts with the labor authority.

These obligations sit across HR, payroll, safety and legal. When nobody owns the whole list, items fall between functions and are discovered by SUNAFIL, Peru’s national labor inspection authority, rather than by the company. Our guide to employment compliance in Peru describes the full system; this service turns it into something the entity can run.

How we approach it

We start with an obligation matrix built for the specific entity: its headcount, activity, locations, contract mix and any collective agreements. We note which thresholds it is close to crossing, because an obligation that switches on mid-year is one of the most common sources of gaps.

Each line of the matrix is then given an owner, a frequency and a defined piece of evidence. We draft or adapt the policies, registers and procedures needed to make each control routine, and we design a short reporting format so that the regional office can see, without reading Spanish-language documents, whether the controls ran. The components are described in more detail in our note on building an employment compliance program, and the recurring dates in our employment compliance calendar.

What the engagement includes, and its limits

The engagement covers the obligation matrix, the annual calendar, adapted policies in English and Spanish, a control checklist, a reporting template and training for the managers who will operate it. Where the starting point is unclear, we usually recommend a prior employment audit.

A program only works if the company operates it. We design the controls and can review them periodically, but we do not execute payroll, keep the company’s registers or sign filings on its behalf. We do not certify that the entity is compliant, and no program can guarantee the outcome of an inspection.

Coordination with the parent company, finance and payroll

The program is designed to sit inside the group’s existing framework: same risk categories, same reporting cycle, same escalation lines. Finance receives the items that affect cost and provisioning, and the payroll provider is given a clear list of the controls that depend on their processing, such as benefit bases and filing dates, so that responsibility is explicit rather than assumed.

Getting started

We usually begin by reviewing the group’s current compliance framework and whatever documentation the Peruvian entity already has. From that, we propose the scope of the matrix and a realistic implementation sequence for the regional team to approve.

How we approach it

  1. Map the obligations

    We identify the obligations that apply to the entity according to headcount, activity, locations and contract types, and the thresholds it is close to crossing.

  2. Assign ownership

    Each obligation is given an owner, a deadline or frequency, and a defined piece of evidence that shows it was met.

  3. Build the controls

    We draft or adapt the policies, registers and procedures that make compliance routine rather than dependent on memory.

  4. Report and review

    We set up a simple reporting format for the regional office and review the program periodically as the law and the business change.

Frequently asked questions

How is a compliance program different from an audit?

An audit is a snapshot of where the entity stands today. A program is the set of owners, controls and reporting that keeps it compliant afterwards. Many companies start with an audit and then use its findings to design the program.

Can the program be integrated into our global compliance framework?

Yes. We design the Peruvian content to fit the structure, terminology and reporting cycle the group already uses, rather than creating a parallel system.

Who maintains the program once it is in place?

The company does, through the owners designated in the matrix. We can support it through periodic reviews or as part of an outsourced employment counsel arrangement.