Every major HR decision — who to hire, how to pay them, when they can take leave, how to discipline them — sits inside a dense layer of employment law. HRM5065 teaches that layer not as a list of rules to memorize, but as a framework HR professionals must apply to real, ambiguous workplace situations.
Anti-discrimination and accommodation law
HRM5065 covers Title VII of the Civil Rights Act (prohibiting discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, and national origin), the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA, requiring reasonable accommodation for qualified individuals with disabilities), the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA), and the interactive process employers must engage in when an employee requests an accommodation — a specific, documented back-and-forth process, not a single yes/no decision.
Leave law and wage and hour compliance
The course covers the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA, providing eligible employees up to 12 weeks of unpaid, job-protected leave for qualifying reasons) and the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), which governs minimum wage, overtime eligibility, and the exempt/non-exempt classification that determines whether an employee is entitled to overtime pay — a classification HR professionals get wrong often enough that FLSA misclassification is one of the most common sources of employer liability.
Key topics in HRM5065
- Title VII of the Civil Rights Act: protected classes and prohibited discrimination
- The ADA and the interactive process for reasonable accommodation requests
- The Age Discrimination in Employment Act (ADEA) and age-based protections
- The Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA): eligibility, qualifying reasons, job protection
- The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA): minimum wage, overtime, and exempt/non-exempt classification
- At-will employment and its exceptions (public policy, implied contract, good faith and fair dealing)
- Designing legally defensible HR policies and documentation practices
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Worked example: the ADA interactive process in action
- Situation: An employee with a documented back injury requests a standing desk as an accommodation
- Interactive process step 1: HR meets with the employee to understand the specific limitation and how it affects the job
- Interactive process step 2: HR consults with the employee's supervisor on operational feasibility and any alternative accommodations
- Decision: The standing desk is approved as a reasonable accommodation that doesn't create undue hardship
- Documentation: The entire interactive process is documented in writing, protecting the employer if the accommodation is later questioned
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Employment-law case analyses and compliant-policy design assignments.
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Frequently asked questions
When an employee with a disability requests a workplace accommodation, the Americans with Disabilities Act requires the employer to engage in an interactive process — a good-faith, collaborative dialogue between the employer and employee to identify the precise limitation, explore potential accommodations, and determine whether a reasonable accommodation exists that doesn't create undue hardship for the employer. It is not a single decision point but an ongoing conversation, and courts have found employers liable not necessarily for denying an accommodation, but for failing to engage in the interactive process at all — for example, ignoring a request or refusing to discuss alternatives. HRM5065 teaches that documenting each step of this process (the request, the dialogue, the alternatives considered, and the final decision and rationale) is essential because if a denied accommodation is later challenged, thorough documentation demonstrating good-faith engagement is the employer's primary defense.
The Fair Labor Standards Act requires non-exempt employees to be paid overtime (typically 1.5x their regular rate) for hours worked beyond 40 in a week, while exempt employees (who must meet specific duties tests and, in most cases, a minimum salary threshold) are not entitled to overtime regardless of hours worked. Misclassification — commonly, treating an employee as exempt when their actual job duties don't meet the legal exemption criteria — means the employer has been failing to pay required overtime, sometimes for years, and back-pay liability accrues for every affected pay period, not just going forward once the error is discovered. HRM5065 teaches this as a high-liability area specifically because classification is often done informally based on job title or salary alone ("they're salaried, so they must be exempt") rather than a rigorous duties-test analysis, and misclassification claims frequently become class or collective actions when the same job title is misclassified across an entire employer's workforce.