An HR Audit Checklist You Can Work Through in One Afternoon
Before you pay anyone to review your HR, you can ask yourself the right questions. This checklist walks through nine areas of people management, from hiring to grievance handling, and turns each into plain questions an owner or HR lead can answer from the files on hand.
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Share your requirementsWhat is hr audit checklist for growing businesses?
An HR audit checklist is a list of questions that tests whether each part of your people management works in practice: hiring, onboarding, records, policies, pay process, leave and attendance, performance, exits and grievance handling. Answer them honestly from real files. Gaps show where to fix first. GullyHR also runs a paid outside HR audit when you want an independent review.
by the GullyHR consulting team
The starting point
When businesses ask us for this
- You suspect HR is held together by one person's memory, but you cannot say which parts.
- A manager left and nobody could find the offer letter, the notice record or the last appraisal.
- You have policies on paper, yet staff and managers describe different rules.
- Leave and attendance numbers are argued about every month before pay is processed.
- Appraisals happen late, or only for some people, and nobody trusts the ratings.
- A complaint came in and you were not sure who should hear it or how to record it.
- An investor, bank or new senior hire has asked how HR is run and you had no tidy answer.
What the work covers
Work through the nine areas one at a time. For each, pull the real documents, pick the last two or three cases, and answer the questions below with yes, partly or no, writing a line of evidence beside each answer. Mark the partly and no answers, then rank them by how much harm a failure would cause and how easy the fix is. That ranked list is your first improvement plan. If the answers expose areas where you cannot judge the quality yourself, an outside review fills that gap. GullyHR offers that as a paid HR audit, and the checklist helps you prepare for it.
Hiring: is there a repeatable way from request to offer?
Is there an approved role request and a job description? Do interviewers use the same questions? Is the reason for each hire written down? Who approves the offer, and is the offer letter kept?
Onboarding: does day one and the first weeks follow a plan?
Is there a joining checklist with an owner? Are documents collected before or on joining? Does each new person know their manager, their goals and the main policies? Is there a check-in after the first weeks?
Records: can you find any employee's file in minutes?
Is there one file per person with offer, address and identity documents, role changes and warnings? Who can see it? Is it paper, sheet or system, and is there a copy? What happens to it after someone leaves?
Policies: do written rules match what managers do?
Which policies exist, and when were they last read by a person who is not their author? Do employees acknowledge them? Do managers apply them the same way? Where there is no policy, what is the unwritten rule?
Pay process: is the monthly pay cycle repeatable and checked?
Who sends inputs for attendance, leave, joiners, leavers and changes, and by when? Who checks the output before it is paid? Where is the approval kept? How are pay questions from employees answered?
Leave and attendance: is the record trusted?
Where is leave applied for and approved? Do balances match the policy? How are late marks, absences and shift changes recorded? Who reconciles before pay inputs are sent?
Performance: do reviews happen and mean something?
Are goals set? Are reviews held on schedule for everyone? Do ratings link to any decision on pay, promotion or support? Is there a written plan when performance falls short?
Exits: does leaving follow a set path?
Is there a resignation record, a handover list and an exit conversation? Are assets and access recovered? Is final pay handled by a defined step? Are exit reasons looked at together?
Grievance handling: do staff know where to take a problem?
Is there a stated route for complaints, and a person or group who hears them? Are complaints logged and closed with a written outcome? Do managers know what to do when someone raises one?
The process
How it runs
Gather the files
Collect offer letters, the policy folder, the leave and attendance record, last cycle's pay inputs, appraisal forms, exit files and any complaint log. Missing files are themselves an answer.
Pick real cases
For each area choose the last two or three actual cases, such as the last hire, the last exit and the last complaint. Test the questions against these, not against what the policy says should happen.
Answer and note evidence
Mark each question yes, partly or no, and write where the evidence sits. If you cannot find it in a few minutes, record that.
Rank the gaps
Score each gap for harm if it fails and ease of fixing. High harm and easy fix go first.
Decide who fixes what
Assign each gap to an owner. Mark the ones that need a policy written, a process designed, software, or an outside view.
What you receive
- A nine-area checklist with yes, partly and no answers and a line of evidence for each
- A ranked gap list with an owner against each item
- A short list of documents to create first
- A list of questions to bring to an outside HR audit, if you decide to commission one
Who it is for
- Founders and owners who run HR themselves and want a quick read on how healthy it is.
- A first HR hire taking over from a manager or an accounts person.
- Companies about to grow headcount, open a second location or bring in an investor.
- HR leads preparing for an outside review who want their evidence ready.
- Family-run businesses where HR practice grew by habit and was never written down.
Why GullyHR.
We built the checklist from the way owner-led Indian businesses actually run HR: a founder, a few managers and one person who keeps the files. The questions are short, tied to real cases and written so a non-specialist can answer them. When you want an independent view, our audit uses the same areas, so your preparation carries over.
Design the process
Map how the work runs today, then write the procedure, the forms and the approval route it should follow.
Strengthen management
Settle the structure, the roles and the decisions each level can take without the owner.
Develop people
Train the managers who have to run it — the review, the difficult conversation, the handover.
Automate HR
Configure the agreed process in software, so the document and what people actually do stay the same thing.
The difference
What changes
- A one-page list of what exists, what partly exists and what is missing in each area.
- Gaps ranked by how much harm they could cause and how easy they are to fix.
- Evidence collected in one place, ready to show a new senior hire, adviser or auditor.
- A clear view of which gaps you can fix yourself and which need outside help.
What it looks like
Sample checklist extract: leave and attendance
Each question gets yes, partly or no, a line of evidence and an owner.
| Evidence to look for | Answer | Owner | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Is leave applied for and approved in one place? | Request records for the last month | Partly: some by message | HR lead |
| Do balances match the written policy? | Policy and three sample balances | No: not checked | HR lead |
| Is attendance reconciled before pay inputs go out? | Signed-off input sheet | Yes: reviewed by manager | Finance |
| Is there a rule for shift changes and late marks? | Written rule and examples | Partly: unwritten | Operations |
Illustrative only. The answers shown are made up to show the format. Your questions and evidence depend on your policies, sites and the systems you use.
Before you enquire
This is not the right fit if
We would rather say so here than after a call. If one of these describes you, the links alongside point to what will serve you better.
- You need to know whether you meet a specific labour law or statutory duty; that is for your own legal or compliance adviser.
- You want someone independent to read your records and test them; a self-check cannot replace that.
- You already know the problem is hiring only; the recruitment and interview audit goes deeper there.
- You want payroll computed or filings made; GullyHR does not offer those.
HR Audit →Recruitment and interview audit →HR process audit →
How we are measured
Before work starts, we record where you stand. Every later report compares against that baseline.
We choose the measures with you at the start, from the list on this page, and only the ones your data can support. We do not promise a result. We promise a baseline, and a report that shows the change against it, whichever way it went.
This engagement is measured on
- Areas with a named owner
- Cases that followed the written process
The measures we choose from
Time-to-hire
Days from approved vacancy to accepted offer.
90-day attrition
New joiners who leave in their first three months.
Annual attrition
Leavers over the year, by team and by manager.
Payroll and statutory errors per month
Corrections after the run, and returns filed late.
Open compliance gaps
Obligations without an owner or a due date.
Employees with written goals
Share of the team that knows what it is measured on.
Review completion rate
Reviews finished on time, not just started.
Manager training coverage
Managers who have been taught the part of the job they were promoted into.
Working together
Who does what
| Activity | GullyHR | Your team |
|---|---|---|
| Answering the checklist | Provides the questions on this page. | Pulls the real files and answers honestly. |
| Ranking the gaps | Offers the harm and ease method in a discovery call. | Judges what matters most to the business. |
| Independent review | Carries out a paid HR audit with findings and a sequenced plan. | Gives access to records and people. |
| Legal checks | Does not give legal advice or compliance support. | Asks its own qualified adviser about legal duties. |
Where the software fits
A spreadsheet is enough: one tab per area, columns for the question, the answer, the evidence and the owner. GullyHR software can later hold employee records, leave, attendance and pay inputs in one place, but the checklist does not need it.
Ways to engage us
- Self-check
- Use this page on your own. No contact with GullyHR is needed.
- HR Audit
- A paid, evidence-based outside review of how your HR runs, with ranked findings and a sequenced plan. The first conversation is free.
- Recruitment and interview audit
- A paid review of hiring only, for companies whose main worry is how they select people.
Good to know
Questions we are asked
An HR audit checks how your people processes work in practice. This checklist groups them into nine areas: hiring, onboarding, records, policies, pay process, leave and attendance, performance, exits and grievance handling. For each, it asks what exists, who owns it and whether the last real case followed it.
For a small team with files in reach, an afternoon is a fair expectation for a first pass. Larger or more scattered setups take longer, and chasing missing documents is usually the slowest part.
No. It tests whether your HR runs in an orderly way, not whether you meet any specific law. GullyHR does not give legal advice or compliance support. Ask your own qualified adviser which statutory duties apply to your business.
Whoever holds the files: the founder, HR lead or office manager. If answers differ between them, note both. Disagreement about how a process works is itself a finding.
A yes needs evidence you can show: a document, a record, a dated form. A process that exists only in someone's head is a partly. A document that nobody follows is a partly at best.
Rank them by the harm if they fail and the effort to fix. Start with high harm and easy fixes. Some gaps need a policy written, some a process designed, some a system. Our policy and process pages cover each.
When you cannot judge quality yourself, when the owner is too close to the work, when an investor or senior hire wants independent assurance, or when the self-check shows many partly answers across several areas.
No, the audit is a paid engagement. The first conversation is free, and a written quote follows a short scoping call. The price depends on headcount, locations, the areas covered and how deep we go into records.
This is a self-assessment on your evidence. The audit is carried out by us: we read the records, test sample cases, interview people and give ranked findings with a sequenced plan.
Yes, if you want. Fixes come under separate pages such as HR process design, policy development and HR software. You can also take the plan and carry it out yourself.
Read on
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