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Why Employment Law?

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Reflection Paper #1 – Why Employment Law?
Tieera Hill
Metropolitan State University

Reflection Paper #1 - Why Employment Law? Human resource management (HRM) can be defined as, “the process of hiring and developing employees so that they become more valuable to the organization” (Human Resource Management, 2015). When thinking about HRM within an organization, it is very important to have a great understanding of employment law since it may be applied to many workplace situations. The human resources department of a place of business needs to have an infinite amount of knowledge about employment law so that interactions with employees can directly model what may be acquired by the law concerning legal rights or expectations. When taking a HRM course at a university that involves employment law, its good to have an understanding of why you're taking the course in terms of your level of expertise, if you're looking to expand your knowledge on the subject, and what you hope to gain from taking it. Overall, having an understanding about why I'm taking this kind of course is a great way to get me to think about my personal learning expectations.
Employment Law Course
Experience Level Employment law is, “The body of law that governs the employer-employee relationship, including individual employment contracts, the application of tort and contract doctrines, and a large group of statutory regulation on issues such as the right to organize and negotiate collective bargaining agreements, protection from discrimination, wages and hours, and health and safety” (Employment Law, n.d.). I don't really have any direct experience with employee law in terms of applying it to any of my job positions since I'm not employed in the area of HRM. However, I've taken many business classes throughout my educational career, which has of course given me the chance to learn about many of the laws briefly when they're mentioned involving other business related concepts. One class that I can recall taking in the spring of 2014 called Human Resource Management: A Strategic Framework really placed a lot of emphasis on many of the employment laws. Some of the laws that were mentioned that I learned about in this course includes the Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, The Equal Pay Act, the Age Discrimination in Employment Act, the Family and Medical Leave Act, the Fair Labor Standards Act, etc...
Expansion of Knowledge and Expertise Currently I'm employed as a Part-time Educational Assistant as well as a part-time hair stylist and I've never really had the opportunity to be employed in the area of HRM. In 2013, I obtained my Associate's degree in Business and Management from the Minneapolis Community and Technical College. After obtaining this degree, I've looked for many job opportunities involving business, but many of them haven't hired me due to me not having any management experience. So I've been content with sticking to both of my part-time jobs, but now as I'm getting closer to finishing my Bachelor's degree from Metropolitan Sate University (MSU), I'm seeking to find more job opportunities surrounding my major. I'm in the Individualized Degree Program at MSU and the major that I’ve created is entitled, “Interpreting Business by applying the different aspects of Marketing, Communication, and Entrepreneurship.” I'm planning to make a few changes to my degree because I've suddenly became a lot more interested in HRM and I think it happened after taking that class I've already mentioned as well as a few other courses I've taken in the HRM area. The changes that I'll be making to my degree will mostly include the addition of more HRM courses like this one. So I'm not an HRM professional, but I'm taking this class in hopes of gaining more insight about employment laws.
Course Learning Goals After taking this course, there are many learning goals that I have and one of them includes being about to use some of the appropriate legal terminology. This is because I believe you need to be able to be knowledgeable about the different terms that are used throughout the legal system. Another learning goal I have includes being able to successfully identify legal issues when they occur within the workplace and understand how to deal with them appropriately. I'd also like to learn about the reasons for why its important to remain current with the changes in labor as well as employment laws and be able to state an employment law and know more in-depth information about what it means. Other learning goals include successfully applying the basic legal principles to facts that may be seen in the workplace and recognizing when a legal issue within the workplace may require the involvement of a lawyer. Overall, I'd like to learn as much as I can,which is essentially what every student aspires to do when taking a course.
Conclusion
In conclusion, I don't have any direct experience with employment law in HRM in terms of job positions that I've had, but I've taken many college courses that have briefly touched on it. In the class that I took in the spring of 2014, I was able to learn about the legal side of HRM and it served as a great introduction for me in terms of my learning experience with employment law. I'm taking this class with hopes of expanding my knowledge of the legal side of the business world by leaning about legal terminology, how to successfully identify legal issues in the workplace, different forms of legal remedies that may be available under employment laws, etc... Overall, I look forward to a great online learning experience where I can gain insight from other student's perspectives on a subject that we are all interested in learning about.

References
Employment Law [Def. 1]. (n.d.). In The Free Dictionry Online, Retrieved May 13, 2015, from http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Employment+Law
Human Resource Management [Def. 1]. (2015). In Business Dictionary Online, Retrieved May 13, 2015, from http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/human-resource-management- HRM.html

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