Premium Essay

Legal and Safety

In:

Submitted By ftorres914
Words 947
Pages 4
Legal & Safety

Felisha Torres

HCS/341

Angela Thomas

March 12, 2012 Legal & Safety A huge effect of legal, safety, and regulatory requirements are significant when it comes to the human resource process. It is important for all human resource departments to be fully aware of safety, legal, and regulatory requirements for the protection of both the employer and the employee. I agree with the statement “Common sense and compassion in the workplace has been replaced by litigation.”. Furthermore, there have been many employee related regulations that have been set forth ; an example of such is the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA). The human resources process is built on legal, safety, and regulatory requirements that all HR personnel must abide by. The legal effect on the human resources process allows HR to do the right thing, to realize the limitations of your firms HR and legal department, and it allows the HR department to minimize the firm’s potential liability. Doing the right thing regarding the HR department will give each individual an equal chance at employment. Complying with state and federal laws is not only mandatory it is the “right thing to do”. There are certain results that can be a result of not doing the right thing; those things include low job satisfaction, poor job performance, poor employee morale, and could cause potential legal liability. Equal Employment opportunity laws also known as EEO laws were created to give individuals fair employment without regard of their sex, race, religion, age, and any disabilities they have. Realizing the limitations of the HR and legal departments are vital when trying to avoid lawsuits. The legal departments tries to limit the damage after it has occurred. The legal department keeps records, writes and implements good HR policies, and monitors HR decisions. The HR department tries

Similar Documents

Premium Essay

Legal, Safety, and Requirements

...Legal, Safety, and Regulatory Requirements Destiny Hill HCS 341 October 24, 2011 Legal, Safety, and Regulatory Requirements The development of the Human Resource Department has facilitated a safety net for all employees to fall under and build a stable environment for employees to feel safe and secure. In the health care environment the workplace is filled with different personality types. The differing needs creates a challenge for the department of human resource in maintaining a safe and comfortable workplace. To balance and create a structure environment the Department of Labor Law and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission have set laws in which must be complied by both the organization and the employee. The common sense and compassion in the workplace have been replaced with litigation to better serve and protect the workplace. Discrimination plays a vital role in employee satisfaction and should employees consider he or she is being discriminated against for any reason have rights to be protected. The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) enforces federal laws that make it illegal for any workplace to discriminate an employee because of race, color, religion, sex, national origin, age, disability, or genetic information (U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, n.d.). Training and education on preventing discrimination is emphasized by The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. The EEOC...

Words: 791 - Pages: 4

Premium Essay

Safety, Legal and Regulatory

...Legal, Safety, and Regulatory Requirements Celletta Tate HCS/341 Human Resources in Health Care 2/11/13 Gina Drake The safety, legal, and regulatory is the most important law an organization because the department involves employing, developing, utilizing, managing and understanding the staff in an organization. Legal concerns can play an important role in staffing, particularly in selection (Gomez-Mejia, Balkin, and Cardy, 2010). Many legal restraints, particularly federal legislation such as Department of Labor, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission affects the human resource process. Laws and regulatory requirements are currently in place to standardize and promote workplace safety. Organizations that have a wide range safety programs have resulted in a decrease of accidents, reduced workers’ compensation claims and lawsuits and less accident-related expenditures (Gomez-Mejia, Balkin, and Cardy, 2010). Many experts and managers in the human resource department have executed strategies to act in accordance with federal regulations to efficiently supervise employee health and safety in the workplace. An organization has the responsibility as authorized by all levels of government to offer all employees the assurance of a working environment free from health hazards. According to Gomez-Mejia, Balkin, and Cardy (2010), the two most basic workplace regulations that affect employees are workers’ compensation laws at the state level and the Occupational...

Words: 765 - Pages: 4

Premium Essay

Legal, Safety, and Regulation

...Legal, Safety, and Regulatory Requirements HCS 341 July 4, 2011 Legal, Safety, and Regulatory Requirements The phrase ‘common sense and compassion in the work place has been replaced by litigation’ is common in a majority of workplaces. Litigation is defined as carrying on with a legal contest by judicial process (Merriam-Webster, 2011). The phrase indicates that legalities have taken over the process of personally making sound judgments and being personally being aware of others issues. Concentration on workplace safety, legal issues, and other regulations has taken precedence to many aspects of our employment; in some cases, more so than customer satisfaction. The customers’ wishes and treatment in the past was always thought to be the most important thing and something that should never be negotiated. However, government and regulatory agencies have indicated that safety and legal rights of the employer, employee, and customer should be protected and primary concern. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) as well as the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) have set safety and regulatory guidelines which protect the employer from causing damage to property, employees, and customers. These guidelines can be viewed as protecting all parties involved in an organization as the employee is protected from workplace injury or exposure and the customer is protected from injury and exposure while being involved with an organization. The CDC has set guidelines...

Words: 755 - Pages: 4

Free Essay

Legal, Safety, and Requirements

...Legal, Safety, and Regulatory Requirements Lisa Christopher HCS/341 September 12, 2011 Michelle Calvin-Casey Legal, Safety, and Regulatory Requirements In examining the effect of legal, safety, and regulatory requirements, and its impact on the human resource department process as they relate to many different entities of operations within an organization. These entities impact the human resource department by ensuring the rights of the employer and employees are covered by the National Labor Relations Broad; its purpose is to protect the rights of the employee and the employer. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission; it is a protection which there cannot be no discrimination that is based on race, color, national organ, religion, sex, age, and disability. Safety and Health Administration; has the role in which issues standards in controlling employees that are exposed to health and safety hazards that are in the work place. All these commissions were set in to place by the United States to ensure the protection of both employees and their employers from any forms of unfair acts between each other. The persons that work within the human resource department has been versed in all the laws and regulations and are expected to abide by these laws and rules to prevent any law suits that can be filed against any organization (Gomez-Mejia, Balkin, & Cardy, 2010). Individuals need to completely understand that anyone holding a position within the human resource department...

Words: 748 - Pages: 3

Premium Essay

Legal, Safety Requirements

...Legal, Safety and Regulatory Requirements Zujeiry Roque HCS/341 Mike Sawyer April 22, 2012 Legal, Safety and Regulatory Requirements The legal, safety and regulatory impact the human resource department a great dealsince it has to do with the equality and fair treatment of all employees. There are several laws that protect both the employer and the employee such as: Fair Labor Standards Act (FSLA), Immigration Act of 1990, Executive Order 11246 and Equal Pay Act. These laws and regulations were put into place to protect businesses and their employees. In this paper I will discuss all four regulations and the effect that they have had on the workplace. Fair Labor Standard Act (FLSA) The Fair Labor Standard Act (FLSA) establishes minimum wage, overtime pay, recordkeeping, and youth employment standards affecting employees in the private sector and in Federal, State and local governments (dol.gov). Under this as act, covered non exempt workers are required to get minimum wage at no less than $7.25 per hour which became effective in 2009 and overtime pay rate at no less than one and one-half times the regular rate is required for a 40 hour work week. Children 18 years and younger cannot do dangerous work and children 16 years and under cannot work at all. When this act was put into place it affected over 700,000 workers and it was one of the factors that ended the Great Depression. This act also helped with putting an end to child labor as well as employees that...

Words: 800 - Pages: 4

Premium Essay

Legal, Safety & Regulatory

...all related to personal experience and knowing right from wrong, utilizing good judgment to accomplish the task at hand. However in today’s society, rules and regulations are set and enforced to control any and all situations. Liability has become the front-runner of all actions. Additionally, these rules and regulations often cause hindrance to the medical staff and community. (Younis, Barhem, & Hamidi, 2009). The human resource manager must be aware of any and all legal, safety, and regularity requirements when hiring and maintaining employees for the healthcare facility. Each employee must be kept abreast of these requirements in order to protect the facility from frivolous, or sometimes, even reputable lawsuits. It is the manager’s responsibility to create a working environment with the safety, protection and well-being in mind, as well as establishing a good and reputable company to work for. One of the organizations that keep them current and up to date is OSHA. OSHA, Occupational Safety & Health Administration, along with the CDC,...

Words: 766 - Pages: 4

Premium Essay

Legal and Regulatory Safety

...Regulatory Issues in Health Care Fremgen (2009) defines medical laws or actions set by the federal government and the court system that have binding legal force that address legal rights and obligations affecting patients and protecting the individual rights of patients and health care employees. 50 state have statutes for medical practice acts which apply to precisely to the way that medicine is practiced in a particular state. Laws begin as act acts which define the meaning of “practice of medicine” and set the requirements and procedures for licensure. Medical practice acts also establish what can be considered as unprofessional conduct in particular states. Examples of unprofessional conduct include practicing medicine without a license, practicing healthcare or the inability to practice health care while under addiction or mental illness, felony convictions, insufficient record keeping, employing unlicensed persons to practice medicine, and prescribing drugs in excessive amounts. We currently live in a litigious society. Medical providers must balance providing quality and keeping abreast with current health care regulations to protect themselves from health care law suits (Fremgen, 2009). Laws are enforceable rules set by a government authority. An article related to a regulatory issue in health care will be analyzed to reflect how laws affect the regulatory process in health care. The Four Categories of Law Laws fall into different categories which include constitutional...

Words: 1950 - Pages: 8

Premium Essay

Legal, Safety, and Regulatory Requirement

...Effects of Legal, Safety and Regulatory Requirements Teresa A. Davis University of phoenix Mary Newby HCS/341 Aug 27, 2012 Legal, Safety, And Regulatory Requirement In the United States, human resources managers must follow state and federal laws related to employment, labor relations and wages. Human resources managers must have a strong understanding of the Fair Labor Standards Act, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Family and Medical Leave Act, Americans with Disabilities Act and applicable state laws. What is Title Vll? Title VII, the federal law that prohibits most workplace harassment and discrimination, covers all private employers, state and local governments, and educational institutions with 15 or more employees. In addition to prohibiting discrimination against workers because of race, color, national origin, religion, and sex, those protections have been extended to include barring against discrimination on the basis of pregnancy, sex stereotyping, and sexual harassment of employees. Currently, Title VII doesn’t include discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation. However federal legislation adding sexual orientation as a protected class against discrimination (the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA)), has been proposed in recent years. Many states have employment discrimination and harassment laws as well and may include even more protected classes – such as marital status and...

Words: 780 - Pages: 4

Premium Essay

Legal Safety and Regulatory Paper

...Legal, Safety, and Regulatory Requirements Paper HCS – 341 Human Resources in Healthcare Instructor John Hulsebus, MBA, SPHR We define compassion as an empathetic emotional response to another person’s pain or suffering that moves people to act in a way that will either ease the person’s condition or make it more bearable (Lilius, 2003). The legal, safety, and regulatory impact on the human resource department greatly vary by which type of business and which type of employees. The rights of both employer and employee are covered by several different entities such as the National Labor Relations Board, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. These have been set in place by the United States so as to protect both employer and employee from unfair acts on either’s part. In the few following paragraphs the effect of legal, safety, and regulatory requirements on the human resource process, an insight into the statement “Common sense and compassion in the workplace has been replaced by litigation”, and a brief look at the impact of the Department of Labor, U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, The American’s Disability Act of 1990 on the human resource processes. The individuals within the human resource department must be well versed in all the laws and regulations as set by the United States as they are expected to abide by these laws and rules. Once the potential employee has signed an employment contract...

Words: 969 - Pages: 4

Premium Essay

Legal, Safety, and Regualatory Requirements

...Legal, Safety, and Regulatory Requirements tina Okoroafor HCS/341 1/22/12 In the U.S., the human resources department must always operate and function with the rules and regulations that are required by law. The providers of the rules and regulations are the department of homeland security, the equal employment opportunity commission, the American with Disabilities Act of 1990 and the U.S. Labor department among other human resources required laws that are to be followed at all times. The purpose of these laws is for employers to give employees the necessary provisions that they require to be successful in whatever that they do in the society. Human resource process requires that HR managers hire employees, provide compensation and Benefits to employees, engage in  performance management and evaluation of employees as well as firing and hiring employees, provide employee health safety and prevent employee discrimination and sexual harassment among others(Walsh, 2009. P.299). Currently, the workplace are being regulated by the workers’ compassion laws at the state level and the OSHA or occupational safety and health act of 1970 at the federal level with all this Acts that is been implemented on both the employees, employers, and the organizations themselves if not developed adequately will lead to a serious criminal lawsuit against everyone that are involved. In most workplaces, today the managers and employees so not fear that they are been sued by someone...

Words: 1040 - Pages: 5

Premium Essay

Legal, Safety, and Regulatory Requirements

...Legal, Safety, and Regulatory Requirements When reading the statement, “Common sense and compassion in the workplace has been replaced by litigation”, I realize that many people may have very different ideas on whether they agree or disagree with the statement. In my opinion, I believe that this does not have to be the status quo. I strongly believe that it is up to the organization and how they treat their employees as to whether litigation in the workplace supersedes compassion and common sense. Let’s take a closer look into this. Employee-Related Regulations In today’s society there has been a drastic increase of lawsuits against employers, which has resulted in heightened awareness and acceptance of employees filing legal claims against a negative workplace situation. Some of the organizations and laws created for the purpose of protecting employees include the Department of Labor, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and the American’s with Disabilities Act of 1990. These laws and organizations address issues such as discrimination in the workplace, sexual harassment, safety in the workplace, senseless firing, and denial of employee rights. Unfortunately, several of these human resource laws are very complex. For example, according to Gomez-Mejia (2012), the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 is extremely long and there are over 1,000 different disabilities that affect over 43 million Americans (p. 95). Due to the complexity and...

Words: 812 - Pages: 4

Premium Essay

Legal, Safety, and Regulatory Requirements

...Legal, Safety, and Regulatory Requirements Every organization is responsible for ensuring that the organization follows legal, safety, and regulatory requirements when dealing with the employees of the organization. This responsibility falls to the human resources department. The human resources department must be experts in these areas to fully be able to train the employees. Has common sense and compassion in the workplace has been replaced by litigation. Let us take a look at the past six years. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has show that all of the suits that have been filed have decreased in the last six years. In 2006 there were 403 suits filed compared to 2011 where only 300 suits filed. There were 294 civil right suits in 2006 and only 162 in 2011. Equal pay suits went down from 10 to two in the last six years. The Secretary of Labor report to the president reported that there were 53 Federal civilian workforce fatalities in 2010 that number has decreased to only 21 in 2012. The stats show that common sense and compassion have not been replaced by litigation. The Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSHA) was established in 1970 was “created to assure safe and healthful working conditions for working men and women by setting and enforcing standards and by providing training, outreach, education and assistance” (OSHA, 2010). Employers are not the only ones responsible for safety in the workplace. “Employers have to provide a safe and healthy...

Words: 787 - Pages: 4

Free Essay

Legal, Safety and Regulatory Paper

...Legal, Safety and Regulatory Paper Name Institution Legal, safety and regulatory paper It is important that legal, safety and regulatory requirement be considered by human resource departments to ensure that a company secures the best employees for their advertised jobs. A great number of individuals across the globe qualify for various job positions but one thing that determines how best fit they are is their level of commitment and the skills they have (Mathias and Jackson, 2010). A company has to ensure that an individual fit for the job conforms to the legal requirements as it is stipulated in the country’s constitution, thus acknowledging his or her rights as an employee. With the above in mind, common sense and compassion has been replaced by litigation because most companies do not consider the importance of their employees having the right to legal, safety and regulatory requirements when carrying out the recruitment process. It is common sense that people need to work as a nation and not bonded by employment discriminative lines whereby issues such as race, sex, color and religion are given an upper hand. Under title four of the Civil Right Act of 1964, the constitution of the United States America prohibits employers from discrimination anyone while carrying out their recruiting process (Renckly and Renckly, 2004). The market available consist of people who are willing to put their races, sex and color away and focus on achieving the same goal for the betterment...

Words: 783 - Pages: 4

Premium Essay

Legal, Safety and Regulatory Requirements

...Safety In The Workplace Kristy Roper HCS/341 January 17, 2012 Joseph N. Atkins Safety In The Workplace Data from the Bureau of Labor statistics states that over 4.1 million people were injured on the job in 2006 and 5,488 were killed in 2007 (Gomez-Mejia, Balkin, & Cardy, 2010). All levels of government have passed laws to regulate and maintain safety in the workplace. There are two basic levels of workplace safety laws that affect most workers. On a state level it is workers' compensation laws. On a federal level it is the Occupation Safety and Health Act of 1970 (Gomez-Mejia, Balkin, & Cardy, 2010). When it comes to the various objectives, policies, and operations of these two levels of law, one will notice how different they are. This paper will discuss the effects of legal, safety, and regulatory requirements in ensuring employee safety in the workplace. It will also discuss how the Department of Labor and the Occupation Safety and Health Act of 1970 play a vital role in workplace safety. Each state has its own workers' compensation laws, which means that the funding and enforcement of these laws differ by state. The main goal of workers' compensation is to provide compensation to workers who suffer job related injuries or illnesses. Workers' compensation was first established in the early twentieth century. Since 1948, all states have had workers' compensation programs, however it is mandatory in only 47 states(Gomez-Mejia, Balkin, & Cardy...

Words: 1008 - Pages: 5

Premium Essay

Legal, Safety, and Regulatory Requirements

...Legal, Safety, and Regulatory Requirements The legal, safety, and regulatory requirements of the U. S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), these three things are put in place and enforced by the Federal laws to protect employee rights. With these things in place for the employee does it mean that common sense and compassion in the work place has been replaced by litigation in today’s society? The legal side of the EEOC was put in place to protect employees, to enforce Federal laws prohibiting employment discrimination. Unfair treatment of an employee based on their race, color, religion, age (forty and over), national origin, sex, (including pregnancy), disability or genetic information (EEOC.gov). Also protects the employee from any retaliation by the employer if the employee has complained about job discrimination, or the employee has assisted with an investigation or lawsuit filed by an employee. The EEOC is a legal resource for any employee who feels that they have been discriminated against in any way shape or form, the employee can place a complaint with the EEOC and the complaint will be investigated to see if there is any truth to it or if the employee is just mad because they were released from their place of employment for something other than discrimination. On the safety side of the EEOC it is seems like a simple concept safety. Safety is the first thing all employers should look at and understand that safety is top priority for any job and all employees...

Words: 745 - Pages: 3