Employment laws and regulations overview

Employment Laws

The purpose of this research report is to find out the employment laws which are most important to be considered for a Human Resource Department. This research also aims to provide the solutions to avoid the litigation in hiring and firing processes.

The role of a Vice President in the HR department brings along a number of responsibilities. One of the most important is to make sure that all the employment laws which are in place must be monitored properly in order to run the organization smoothly. In my organization I consider the laws related to the working hours as most important amongst all the employment laws. The maximum working hour time for an employee should not exceed 48 hours in a day. Apart from this, an employee cannot work more than 11 hours straight without taking a break. An employee is not allowed to work for seven days a week he must take one day off. Employment laws related to working hours are crucial to increase the productivity of the organization as the health of the employees must be taken into consideration. It is important that the employees maintain a healthy work life balance.

The employment discrimination laws will also be monitored closely. Steps will be taken in order to make sure that there isn't any kind of discrimination in any process of the organization. This applies to all kinds of discrimination including sex, pregnancy, age, origin, race, and religion. The organization has obtained a zero tolerance policy in employee discrimination cases. The organization has policies and procedures which are present just to solve these issues. Employees are encouraged to raise their voice against any unfair practices in the organization. (Cases and Materials on Employment Laws, 1987) Discrimination is one such issue that can demoralize the whole workforce and can start a rift within the organization and can result into grouping within the organization which can hamper the overall productivity. The Human Resource Vice President is a crucial position in an organization; he has to manage all the provisions of the service of the HR department and design program and policies for the entire organization. (Clyde W. Summers, 2002)

The major areas include:

2

Employee Services

Counseling

Staffing

Recruiting

Organizational Development

Compensation administration

Employee Relations

Training

Documentation

Employee Safety

The primary objectives of this position are:

Development of a better workforce

Development of the HR department

Safety at the workplace

Personal Development

Continuous Improvement in processes

Often the job description is not detailed and that causes confusion for the employees. The employees have often filed a case against the employer for assigning jobs which were not a part of the job description In order to avoid that the job description should be well documented and well communicated. In this way the employee cannot file a lawsuit against the employer because everything has been mentioned in the job description and is well documented and managed.

The most important function of the HR department is Recruitment. Hiring and Firing are interlinked in a way. If the right people have been hired in the first place then firing would not be required. The need of firing comes up either from a wrong personnel hiring or if that employee has not been trained correctly. There have been instances recently in which the employers have been sued by the employee because of a flaw in the hiring process and the company had to pay him million of dollars because of that. (Muhl Charles, 2001) In order to avoid that the following are the steps that can enable an organization to avoid possible litigation.

A fair and transparent hiring process. This can be aided with a structured graded interview. The candidates are examined in various stages in which they have fair and equal opportunity to show their skills. Each phase has separate marks and candidates are graded according to their abilities.

A proper and structured and documented hiring plan.

Accurate job description

All the requirements should be listed carefully. E.g. Education Requirements, Technical skills, traveling etc.

Record the interviews of the candidates, this can help in the court hearings.

In case of any lawsuit take advice from a legal lawyer which is a specialist in the employment laws.

Build a scorecard which records the scoring of different skills and points allotted to the candidates. This will look like the following table.

POISTION:

INTERVIWED BY:

SKILL A

SKILL B

SKILL C

SKILL D

TOTAL

CANDIDATE A

CANDIDATE B

It is a common perception that an employee can sue the company for firing him. However this is far from being correct, an employer has the right to fire anyone that has been employed for a reason. The problems arise when there is a flaw in the firing process. Sometimes firing is the only option that an employer has so he must be careful when taking such an action. (Lipsig, Ethan; Mary C. Dollarhide, 1996). The following are the main points that should be kept in consideration for an organization to avoid a lawsuit: