High-volume hiring compliance: 6 Form I-9 mistakes to avoid

In high-volume hiring, the pressure is sky-high, and the timelines are tight. Getting hundreds or thousands of employees onboarded and ready for their first day is enough of a challenge without adding essential compliance into the mix.

Thousands of new hires mean thousands of I-9 forms to check—and when you’re racing against the clock, thousands of opportunities for errors. A forgotten signature here, a typo in a Social Security number there, and you could be looking at some significant fines—not to mention the risk of legal action.

Thankfully, a lot of these errors are entirely preventable with the right process and tech. In this article, we’ll run you through some of the most common I-9 mistakes we see organizations make, and what you can do to avoid them.

Understanding I-9 compliance when hiring at scale

Form I-9 compliance is an essential part of the talent acquisition process—whether you’re hiring one employee, or a thousand of them. The process is designed to verify an employee’s right to work in the United States, and ensures that organizations and employees stay compliant with federal immigration laws.

The end-to-end process involves three key steps:

• Employees fill out section 1 of the Form I-9.
• Employers review the information, inspect employee documentation and relevant certification, and fill out section 2 attesting that they appear genuine.
• Employers submit documentation within three business days of their employees’ start date and keep records of all documentation.

This seems simple enough when you’re just running compliance for one new hire. But when volume hiring, the stakes are much higher to get this essential legal process right. Organizations’ usual safeguarding processes and checks can become stressed at scale. Strict deadlines, mountains of paperwork, and challenges with process management within small internal teams can delay timely form submission.

From a people management perspective, this can have a huge impact on organizations’ ability to onboard new hires and get them ramped and delivering value as quickly as possible—as well as impacting whether or not new hires are paid on time.

But I-9 compliance errors can also have a significant impact on the bottom line. Penalties for I-9 mistakes range from $281 all the way up to $2,789—and if these stack up, it’s a hefty bill for your organization.

Top mistakes to avoid in I-9 compliance

I-9 errors cost businesses time, money, and potentially their reputation if a case ends up in court. And even seemingly minor mistakes can have huge financial and legal implications.

In a high-volume hiring context, here are the 6 mistakes we see crop up most often: 

1. Failure to complete Section 1 accurately.
2. Not verifying employment authorization within 3 business days.
3. Accepting expired documents.
4. Not properly completing Section 2.
5. Ignoring uncorrected technical errors.
6. Lack of internal audits and monitoring.

We’ll get to these challenges—and their fixes—in more detail in a second, but for now take heart: All of these scenarios are preventable with the right processes, training, and technology in place.

Detailed analysis of top I-9 mistakes

To know how to fix your most common I-9 errors, you first need to know how to identify the parts of your process where things are falling through the cracks. Think of this as a root cause diagnosis: By pinpointing the exact areas where errors are most likely to pop up, you can effectively optimize your procedures and prevent future mistakes. 

In the next section, we’ll guide you through the most frequent I-9 compliance issues and equip you with some practical solutions to resolve them.

1. Failure to complete section 1 accurately

Each new hire who joins your organization is required to fill out and sign section 1 of the I-9 form by their first day of employment. This includes their full legal name and address, contact details, date of birth, and any relevant information relating to their immigration status if necessary. Common compliance errors here can range from misentering their phone number to forgetting to sign the form entirely. These are all usually honest mistakes — but they can all result in a penalty.

The fix: When an employee makes an error on section 1 of their I-9, it’s your job to make sure it gets corrected before it’s submitted. Giving new employees clear instructions with an explainer sheet or checklist prior to filling out their form will help increase accuracy. Meanwhile, using a digital process that can automatically upload, fill out, and scan forms alongside data input will also help teams scale this process internally when it comes to cross-checks.

2. Not verifying employment authorization within 3 business days

With I-9 compliance, timescales are tight. Employees and employers must fill out their respective sections of the form, verify documents, and submit the form within three business days of the employee starting.

In a high-volume hiring context, this time pressure is often compounded by operational bottlenecks. Teams simply lack the resources, or the people power, to process thousands of form I-9s on time—let alone make sure each one is error-free.

The fix: The right tech can be a game-changer for teams hiring at scale. Tools like Workbright’s Smart I-9 help organizations scale their I-9 efforts quickly and compliantly, with automatic document verification, automated reminders, and a user-friendly interface for employees to complete their I-9 in record time. See how WorkBright helped AllWork increase onboarding capacity by 350%.

3. Accepting expired or incorrect documents

As part of the I-9 process, organizations must verify each new hire’s identity and right to work according to the documentation they provide. But reviewing hundreds or even thousands of employee identification and right-to-work documents in one go would have anyone seeing double. 

Throw in a huge array of differing formats each with their own unique identifiers, layouts, and expiration dates, and it can quickly become a mammoth task to make sure all of them are both valid and current for your new hire. 

Employers can’t be pursued if they think employees’ documentation appears genuine in good faith and it turns out to be fraudulent — however, doing this repeatedly is likely to cast scrutiny on your process.

The fix: Ensuring your internal teams are fully trained and up to speed on changing I-9 requirements is an essential part of maintaining an efficient process. Newer team members assisting in any I-9 processes must have full training on acceptable documentation as outlined in Lists A, B, and C—but teams must also schedule in a regular refresh to ensure familiarity with all different types of documents.

4. Not properly completing section 2

Alongside ensuring employees do their due diligence in section 1, employers must make sure they fill out their own part of the form I-9 accurately, too. Section 2 requires employers to examine and log supporting documentation, enter essential details including the employee’s start date and the date the documents were examined, and attest that the supporting documentation is the real deal. 

Common errors here are similar to those of section 1—but making sure the dates are correct is essential to make sure the process goes through without a hitch.

The fix: Much like verifying employee documentation, making sure your team completes section 2 accurately relies on continuous staff training. Any internal team members dealing with I-9 processing and submission must know how to fill out this portion of the form correctly and record documentation. Buddy or peer-to-peer training formats can help drive mutual accountability here to make sure practical skills stay fresh.

5. Ignoring uncorrected technical errors

The I-9 process isn’t known for its accuracy — but the good news is if you do spot errors, you can (and should) correct them, even if you think it’s too late. Because even if you spot some types of error after submission, making an effort to proactively correct these in good faith will keep you in good standing from a compliance perspective, and may reduce your risk of penalty significantly.

Technical mistakes, such as forgetting to enter an address, date of hire, or date of birth, all fall under this remit. These must be corrected by the relevant party who filled out the form in the first place.

The fix: Having no errors on your I-9 forms is obviously the best form of defense. But the second best one is having a great process to proactively identify and correct I-9 errors before they spiral into huge fines. Much like verifying employee documentation, tech like WorkBright is on your side here, automating real-time error checking at the click of a button. 

Once you’ve identified the errors, the next step is to correct them according to I-9 guidelines: Delete the incorrect information, enter the right information, sign, date, and add additional details.

6. Lack of internal audits and monitoring

I-9 mistakes happen more often than you’d think. But not having a great internal auditing process in place makes them significantly more likely to happen—and this is where organizations can fall down at the final hurdle.

Internal I-9 audits are your organization’s critical failsafe against I-9 errors, because they offer an efficient way for you to check that your I-9 processes stay consistent, standardized, and fully compliant.

The fix: Creating an efficient internal I-9 audit process will help your organization proactively identify your biggest compliance risk factors, address inefficient workflows, and scale best practices around identifying and resolving errors. For best results, an I-9 audit should be run annually at a minimum, while teams can implement informal spot checks at more regular intervals.

Error-free, lightning-fast I-9 compliance with WorkBright

We’re all only human—and even in the best processes, I-9 mistakes can and do still happen. Mitigating these mistakes is part of the process and ongoing training. But the right technology can help high-volume hiring teams maximize their internal resources, give their process a speed boost, and scale their efforts while minimizing the risk of errors.

To further support your compliance journey, check out WorkBright’s Ultimate Guide to I-9 Compliance. This comprehensive guide covers everything you need to know, addressing over 40 common questions from HR and recruiting professionals. From remote inspections to audit trails, our guide provides the clarity and insights necessary to ensure your I-9 processes are error-free and efficient.