Employment Laws and HRM Strategy Essay

Describe the scenario that you have selected and its corresponding employment laws. The human resource scenario the writer selected is the need for seasonal employees who may be from another country. Employment laws for the state of Mississippi will be a base used to solve this issue. Mississippi Wage and Hour Laws from the Employment Law Handbook insures that seasonal workers are provided with a minimum wage, meals and breaks, vacation, sick leave, severance and holidays. Mississippi currently does not have any state laws requiring or regulating these requests. Mississippi uses federal guidelines as a base for establishing employment laws. The federal law as of today requires a minimum wage of 7.25 dollars. The federal law for overtime is also followed by Mississippi. Meals and breaks according to federal law are not defined. Breaks taken by an employee that are less than twenty minutes must be paid and lunch breaks thirty minutes or more do not need to be paid as long as an employee can do whatever he or she likes during this period according to the Department of Labor. Vacation leave is determined to the employer since Mississippi legislature does not have any established guidelines on this matter. Sick leave, Severance pay and holidays are all determined by an employer in the state of Mississippi due to established laws in this state (Mississippi Wage and Hour Laws, 2012). In August of 2012 Mississippi held a committee meeting on immigration reform. Governor Phil Bryant wanted to reaffirm a law preventing undocumented immigrants from recovering public benefits. The Mississippi Senate will have to take into consideration the United States Supreme Court rulings and federal appeals when drafting Mississippi legislature for immigration laws. The Mississippi state immigration law would have to comply with E-Verify laws and constitutional laws are not violated. President Barack Obama passed a deportation deferral to immigrants earlier this year but states can pass their own immigration reform laws such as Arizona and Alabama (Cherry, 2012). The United States Department of Labor established an act called The Migrant and Seasonal Agricultural Worker Protection Act or (MSPA) in order to protect these types of workers. The act protects employment related migrant and seasonal workers. The MSPA ensures that each nonexempt farm contractor and agricultural seasonal association disclose their terms and conditions of employment to each migrant worker. The terms and conditions of employment must be explained to the migrant and seasonal worker at the time of recruitment (Department of Labor, 2012). The job must description must also explain worker protection, amount of wages due to a migrant worker and provide an itemized statement of earnings and deductions (Department of Labor, 2012). The Migrant and Seasonal Agricultural Worker Protection Act also guide housing and transportation. The federal guide line ensures that housing and transportation provided meets federal and state guidelines with proper licensure and insurance which is enforced by the wage and hour division. The federal guidelines require records must be kept for at least three years which includes name, permanent addresses and social security numbers (Department of Labor, 2012). The Fair Labor Standards Act or (FLSA) requires that workers on large farms are paid minimum wage but they are excluded from overtime premium pay. The FLSA prevents children under the age of sixteen from working during school hours and working certain jobs deemed too dangerous. Children that are employed on their families’ farm are exempt from the Fair Labor Standards Act (Department of Labor, 2012). The Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) require employers that want to use foreign temporary workers with H-2A visas get a labor certificate from the Employment and Training Administration. The certificate ensures that there are not enough able, willing and qualified United State workers available to do the work. The Immigration and Nationality Act standard of the H-2A program is enforced by the wage and hour division (Department of Labor, 2012). Recommend a plan to manage the HRM situation within the confines of the law. Justify your approach to your scenario to HR management. The human resource management plan the writer recommends would be based on performance. Job performance and task performance represents what an employee contributes to an organization that employs them. Migrant workers would benefit from this type of grading system if the work performance is factory based. Task performance is the product of employees performing actions leading to the production of raw materials into goods and services. Studies have been performed to show job performance management provides feedback and measurement improves employee performance leading to better organizational performance (Stewart, Brown, 2011). The writer believes migrant workers may show citizenship behavior. Employees often show citizenship behavior by going the extra mile for the company, volunteering for special projects, following organizational procedures even if they are not convenient for the employee and defending the business where the employee works (Stewart, Brown, 2012). The writer would focus on counterproductive behavior before it starts. Counterproductive behavior is behavior from an employee that is harmful to a business. An employee can exhibit two types of counterproductive behavior: 1) production deviance 2) property deviance occurs when employee sabotage equipment, destroys materials and products and misuse expense accounts. The counterproductive behavior can also be extended to gossiping about coworkers and showing favoritism. The writer would create a manual of policies and procedures explaining how this behavior is prohibited and have disciplinary consequences set in place if this behavior is exhibited. The writer would not use performance appraisals as much. The main goal would be to give feedback to an employee and listen to any problems they may be having. State how a competitive advantage may be gained by ensuring HRM practices meet the necessary employment laws. A competitive advantage can be gained by ensuring human resource strategies are followed. A company must have an employee handbook, benefits package, job descriptions and a payroll system in place to ensure human resource strategies are at an advantage to the company. The steps above can be followed also to keep in compliance with legal employment issues. Laws and regulations are important to ensure equal rights to disabled worker, employment eligibility for migrant workers with the use of an I-9 form, drug screening and work place harassment. A competitive strategy can lead to effective human resource department and a successful business (Managing Employees, 2012). Speculate what might happen if the situation was not handled in accordance with the appropriate employment laws. A business that does not follow employment laws can face state and federal criminal charges. A business can avoid costly law suits by following laws to ensure employees are treated fairly. A company’s compliance can save money that would be used to repair a damaged reputation. Specific laws protect employees from immutable characteristics such as sex, race, age and religion. Characteristics such as tattoos, nose piercings and long hair are not covered by federal and state laws. State laws can set a basis by not discriminating against marital status or sexual orientation and may not conflict with federal laws. The writer speculates that if state and federal discrimination laws are broken a company can face many damaging hardships (Stewart, Brown, 2012). References Cherry, Daniel (2012). Lawmakers Gearing Up for Immigrant Reform Battle Retrieved from http:www.mpbonline.org on November 18, 2012 Stewart, G., Brown, K. (2011). Human resource management (2nd ed.). Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley and Sons Managing Employees (2012). Retrieved from http:www.mississippi.org on November 18, 2012 Mississippi Wage and Hour Laws (2012). Employment Law Handbook, Retrieved from http:www.employmenthandbook.com on November 18, 2012 The Migrant and Seasonal Agricultural Worker Protection, (2012) Department of Labor Retrieved from http:www.dol.gov on November 18, 2012