Manajemen | Fakultas Ekonomi Universitas Maritim Raja Ali Haji joeb.79.6.339-343
Journal of Education for Business
ISSN: 0883-2323 (Print) 1940-3356 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/vjeb20
Human Resource Regulation and Legal Issues: Web
Sites for Instructional and Training Development
John Kohl , Milton Mayfield & Jacqueline Mayfield
To cite this article: John Kohl , Milton Mayfield & Jacqueline Mayfield (2004) Human Resource
Regulation and Legal Issues: Web Sites for Instructional and Training Development, Journal of
Education for Business, 79:6, 339-343, DOI: 10.3200/JOEB.79.6.339-343
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.3200/JOEB.79.6.339-343
Published online: 07 Aug 2010.
Submit your article to this journal
Article views: 24
View related articles
Citing articles: 1 View citing articles
Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at
http://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=vjeb20
Download by: [Universitas Maritim Raja Ali Haji]
Date: 12 January 2016, At: 23:32
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Human Resource Regulation and
Legal Issues: Web Sites for
Instructional and Training
Development
JOHN KOHL
MILTON MAYFIELD
JACQUELINE MAYFIELD
Texas A&M International University
Laredo, Texas
A
major function of any human
resources department is ensuring
compliance with all relevant personnelrelated laws and regulations (Cascio,
1998). Noncompliance can prove costly
to organizations for many reasons—
including fines, government-imposed
sanctions, and operating restrictions—
and can even have an adverse impact on
an organization’s public image (Cascio,
1991). Unfortunately, the sheer number
of employment-related regulations can
make the task of full compliance daunting for any human resources (HR) professional. The extensive scope of this
undertaking makes it vital that HR training or instructional programs provide
participants with (a) the tools necessary
to keep abreast of current and emerging
regulations and (b) information on how
to meet these requirements. Fortunately,
the Web provides just such an instructional tool (Brown & Nielson, 1996;
Hannah, 1996; Hein & Stalcup, 2001;
Ragothaman & Hoadley, 1997; Urbancic, 1998).
In this article, we present a select set
of HR regulation–related Web sites that
are useful for management instruction
programs dealing with personnel issues.
We also discuss the relevance and possible uses of these sites through an
overview of the Web’s unique role in
communicating HR regulatory and legal
information, present a list of some of
ABSTRACT. In this article, the
authors present a set of useful Web
sites for enhancing and supplementing
human resource courses and training
programs, especially those that deal
with the legal and regulatory aspects
of the human resources (HR) function.
These Web sites provide valuable
information on pertinent HR compliance issues as well as information that
can help practitioners determine
whether they are in compliance with
federal, state, and local employment
guidelines.
the more useful HR regulatory sites
along with a brief description of each,
and conclude with further suggestions
on how these sites can be used and integrated into a human resources instructional program.
We also highlight the increasingly
important role that the Web plays in
information dissemination (Hein &
Stalcup, 2001; Kilger, 1995; Morrison,
Kim, & Kydd, 1998; Pettijohn, 1996;
Urbancic, 1998). The constantly evolving area of HR regulation has proved to
be a relatively rich ground for the emergence of a number of personnel- and
employment-related Web sites. Partly in
response to the vast and varied array of
employment regulations with which
organizations must comply, most federal and many state and local regulations
have been placed on the Web so that the
affected parties can have easy access to
the needed information.
Additionally, many government
agencies either have a mandate to educate the public about their functions and
associated regulation or have determined that such education helps to
increase compliance with their regulations. In accordance with such educational strategies, these government
agencies have sought to increase public
awareness of regulatory issues by developing extensive Web sites designed to
provide the public and HR professionals
with training materials, tips for ensuring
compliance, and the complete text of
many HR laws, regulatory guidelines,
and legal findings.
A number of civic-minded individuals and organizations also have developed Web sites that aid the HR professional in locating and using relevant
information on regulatory compliance.
Although such sites can be more difficult to locate than the sites provided by
government offices, privately developed
sites often offer a wealth of information
that makes the search worthwhile.1 Similarly, a number of companies2 have
developed promotional Web sites that
help organizations better understand
and successfully meet personnel regulations and laws. These promotional sites
tend to be easier to navigate and use
than those created by individuals, but
they often are relatively thin on useful
information—frequently acting as little
July/August 2004
339
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more than advertising for the company’s
services. However, there are still a number of very useful corporate Web sites
providing free information that cannot
be found easily through other means.
Before the advent of the World Wide
Web, much of the information provided
by these Web sites was not readily accessible to the general public (Brown &
Nielson, 1996; Hannah, 1996; Kilger,
1995; Pettijohn, 1996; Urbancic, 1998).
To obtain comparable knowledge, managers were often faced with the choice of
either paying large fees to private organizations for regulatory updates and consultation or enduring delays in gathering
needed data from governmental agencies.
The Web’s emergence has improved vastly the accessibility and speed of obtaining
needed HR regulatory information. Such
Internet-accessible information also provides an opportunity for enhancing any
HR instructional program, especially
those that are centered around legal and
regulatory issues. In the following section, we present a select set of useful Web
sites for human resource students and
practitioners.
These Web sites offer a wealth of
information for the HR specialist as well
as for the management generalist with an
occasional need for such specialized
information. To respond to the unique
needs of each reader, in Table 1 we crosslist each site by its potential relevance for
the major human resource functions of
staffing, development, retention, adjustment, and change (Cascio, 1998).
Web Sites
• Business.com’s Compensation Page:
http://www.business.com/directory/
human_resources/compensation
This page gives links to very useful
information on a wide variety of compensation-related topics including overtime, retirement, and benefits administration. The site also has a search engine
that facilitates the user’s searches on topics of interest.
• Center of Advanced Human
Resource Studies Working Paper Series:
http://www.ilr.cornell.edu/depts/CAHRS/
WPapers.html
This site provides free access to a number of cutting-edge HR research articles.
340
Journal of Education for Business
TABLE 1. Web Site Categorization
Web site
S
Business.com’s Compensation Page
Center of Advanced Human Resource Studies Working
Paper Series
The Colonel’s Links
Department of Labor
Employee Benefit Research Institute
Employment Statistics Homepage
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC)
The Federal Register
FirstGov.gov
General Salary Surveys
HierosGamos
HR-Guide.com
HR Policy Association
Human Resources Codes & Laws
Human Resource Executive
Internet Law Library
Job-Analysis.Net work
Jurist
LaborNet
Labor Unions and the Internet
Legal Information Institute
Minnesota Legislative Reference Library
National Labor Relations Board
Nolo
NPR’s Market Place
Occupational Safety and Health Administration
PELLS (Program for Employment and Labor Law Studies)
The Salary Calculator
Supreme Court Web Site
Workforce Management
Workplace Fairness
X
D
R
A
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
C
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
Note. The categories, adapted from Cascio (1998), are as follows: S = selection, D = development,
R = retention, A = adjustment, and C = change.
Although fully understanding many of
the papers may require technical expertise, the article concepts can be translated into implementation tools that give
organizations a competitive edge in the
area of human resources.
• The Colonel’s Links: http://www.
geocities.com/rainforest/3745/index.html
Although this site does not deal solely
with HR regulations, one is hard
pressed to find a more comprehensive
set of government-related links,
including many employment-related
links that are very useful to the practicing manager as well as the advanced
researcher. What is most unusual and
interesting about this Web site is its
completeness of information. One can
find here not only links to the United
States Code and the Code of Federal
Regulations but materials on such
items of more casual interest as the
presidential libraries, executive orders,
and even the Bill of Rights of the United States Constitution.
• Department of Labor: http://www.
dol.gov
This Web site provides both a set of links
to all bureaus associated with the Department of Labor (DoL) and a search function of selected DoL documents. The
DoL also gives the site user information
helpful for legal compliance assistance,
text of all DoL news and press releases,
and the text of documents from the DoL
library. DoL provides text for major federal regulatory laws, compliance information, and resources designed to help
organizations meet federal requirements.
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• Employee Benefit Research Institute: http://www.ebri.org
The Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI) has a mission “[t]o contribute to, to encourage, and to enhance
the development of sound employee
benefit programs and sound public policy through objective research and education.” The EBRI uses the site to help
fulfill this mission by communication of
its sponsored research findings to the
public, including studies about benefits
practices and improvement techniques.
The information can give valuable
insight to future labor and economic
projections regarding benefits and
retirement planning.
• Employment Statistics Homepage:
http://hr-software.net/EmploymentStatistics
A very useful and unique site, this page
provides Web-based calculators for a
number of HR-related legal analyses.
These analyses include affirmative
action plan statistics, a disparate impact
analysis, and even functions to help an
HR manager evaluate the reliability and
validity of selection methods. The site
also provides a number of case studies of
employment law judicial decisions, and
its calculators greatly facilitate both the
teaching and taking of related courses.
In addition, the calculators are helpful
not only for the student but also for the
HR professional charged with assembling such analyses.
• Equal Employment Opportunity
Commission (EEOC): http://www.eeoc.
gov
The EEOC’s homepage has links to a
number of sites with vital information for
employers including the text of Federal
discrimination laws, recommendations
on methods to comply with these laws,
and relevant publications from the office.
A very useful set of resources at this site
are employment statistics for various
protected groups broken down by occupation, industry, state, and metropolitan
statistical areas. Such data can be vital in
organizational compliance self-audits.
federal agencies and organizations.
These documents are invaluable
resources for determining HR compliance requirements, especially for government contractors.
This Web page is an easily navigated site
that directs the user to quick information
on U.S. and Canadian compensation and
benefits laws as well as to limited economic projections for these countries.
• FirstGov.gov: http://www.firstgov.
gov/Topics/Reference_Shelf.shtml#Laws
• Human Resource Executive: http://
www.workindex.com
The FirstGov site serves as a reference
center and link to all publicly accessible
U.S. Government Web sites. As a result,
this site serves as a hub for many additional sites that are relevant to HR compliance and regulatory issues.
The Human Resource Executive site
covers a wide range of topics that are
relevant to practicing HR managers.
The site provides timely articles on
numerous HR issues and links to other
useful HR Web sites. This site’s articles
on international HR practices and laws
are especially helpful.
• General Salary Surveys: http://
jobstar.org/tools/salary/sal-surv.cfm
This site displays information on average salaries for dozens of professions.
Although most HR professionals will
need more specific information when
developing compensation packages, the
site does provide a quick overview of
general wage expectations in a number
of states and cities.
• Hieros Gamos: http://www.hg.org/
practiceareas.html
Billed as the “#1 Legal Research Center,” this Web site provides information
in such legal areas as case precedents,
equal protection, employee benefits,
and labor/employment laws and regulations. This site’s international scope
also makes it useful for investigating
international HR legal requirements.
• HR-Guide.com:
guide.com
http://www.hr-
This site offers a virtual encyclopedia of
HR-related topics and methods. Articles
are included in such areas as benefits,
compensation, and job analysis. Each
general section is divided into several
topics, and with each section the reader
is provided with relevant information on
topical research and any legal issues
related to the subject.
• HR Policy Association: http://
www.hrpolicy.org/news
• The Federal Register: http://www.
gpoaccess.gov/fr/index.html
This organization provides a very useful
site for HR-related news briefs that are
categorized into topic areas such as
health care, wages, and labor law.
The Federal Register provides a centralized repository of executive orders and
rules, proposed rules, and notices for
• Human Resources Codes & Laws:
http://www.erieri.com/freedata/hrcodes/
index.htm
• Internet Law Library:
lawguru.com/ilawlib
http://
This site was created as a result of the
mission of the Office of the Law Revision Counsel of the U.S. House of Representatives to make the law more
accessible to the public. It provides
some of the most comprehensive
resources for information about U.S.
law, including federal laws, state laws,
and even international treaties.
Although the site’s large scope may
make locating information on a particular HR law difficult, it is a good place to
find information that is not available
through other means. Also, the site does
provide a search function to help the
user locate specific information.
• Job-Analysis.Net work: http://
www.job-analysis.net
This site is highly focused on job analysis methods, issues, and effectiveness.
As a result, the site covers information
on what is required to perform an effective job analysis, companion legal
issues, and specific methods for valid
job analysis development.
• Jurist: http://jurist.law.pitt.edu
The University of Pittsburgh’s School of
Law provides a very comprehensive and
up-to-date site that covers all aspects of
U.S. and international law, including
HR-related information. Also, a useful
in-site search engine and user-friendly
directory make it easy to find relevant
HR law information.
• LaborNet: http://www.labornet.
org/links/directory.html
LaborNet offers a very comprehensive
July/August 2004
341
set of links to union and labor organization Web sites. The site also provides a
news archive of labor-related articles
along with various opinion pieces on
labor issues.
• Labor Unions and the Internet:
http://www.ilr.cornell.edu/library/subject
Guides/laborUnionsAndTheInternet.html
This site gives extensive information on
topics and Web pages related to labor
unions. This site’s guidelines for general
Web site evaluation are especially useful.
Downloaded by [Universitas Maritim Raja Ali Haji] at 23:32 12 January 2016
• Legal
Information
Institute:
http://www.law.cornell.edu/topics/topic
2html#employment%20law
Many law schools of leading universities have Web sites that are similar to the
one operated by Cornell University.
Cornell’s site is especially useful for
researchers and practitioners because it
offers a set of very clear capsule summaries and overviews on HR regulations and related legal issues. Furthermore, each one of Cornell’s overview
pages also has links to relevant federal
and state statutes, recent related
Supreme Court and circuit court decisions, and suggested sources of information that are external to the Web. An
especially useful HR-related overview is
the one on employment discrimination
at http://www.law.cornell.edu/topics/
employment_discrimination.
• Minnesota Legislative Reference
Library: http://www.leg.state.mn.us/
lrl/links/labor.asp
The Minnesota legislature provides a
well-maintained set of HR- and labor
legislation–related links. The site’s brief
descriptions for each targeted link are
especially helpful.
• National Labor Relations Board:
http://www.nlrb.gov
The National Labor Relations Board’s
(NLRB) Web site provides the full text of
the National Labor Relations Act, contact information for the regional offices,
and information on how to file a certification/decertification election and how to
file an unfair labor practice complaint. In
addition to this information, the site provides the text of all NLRB cases filed
from the mid-1980s through today.
These cases can be very useful for gain342
Journal of Education for Business
ing a better understanding of how the
board makes its rulings and decisions.
• Nolo: http://nolo.com
Nolo provides an easily navigated general legal advice Web site that also has a
great deal of information on employment laws, especially those that relate to
workers’ rights. This site has many useful attributes including a feature, “Plain
English Law Centers,” which presents
employment law topics in easy-tounderstand language, and even an
advice column where users can post
their questions. The site also posts many
useful links to Web listings of statutes
and cases.
• NPR’s Market Place: http://www.
marketplace.org
These well-designed Web pages are provided as a companion site to the National
Public Radio (NPR) show and give a
good overview of late-breaking and
emerging employment regulations. The
site synthesizes information drawn from
the week’s reports as well as from an
archive of selected stories from previous
broadcasts and shares information on
state and international personnel law,
along with commentary on how these
laws might affect organizations.
• Occupational Safety and Health
Administration: http://www.osha.gov
The Occupational Safety and Health
Administration (OSHA) displays a
wealth of information on federal safety
standards. This site has information on all
OSHA guidelines and what organizations
can expect during an inspection. Especially useful are representative examples
of noncompliance instances that have
resulted in worker deaths. These cases are
posted so that organizations can learn to
avoid common workplace hazards and
create a safe working environment.
Another very useful site feature is a database that allows users to access brief summaries of all OSHA inspection cases.
• PELLS (Program for Employment
and Labor Law Studies): http://www.
people.virginia.edu/~jhv3q/PELSWeb/
links.html
The University of Virginia provides
links to a number of very useful Web
pages. These sites include commercial
and governmental pages that deal with a
wide variety of labor legal issues and
provide links to a select set of law firms
that have special expertise in employment law issues.
• The Salary Calculator: http://www.
homefair.com/homefair/calc/salcalc.
html?dg=ns&cid=homefair
This site is valuable for comparing cost
of living differences between different
locations. This information can assist
preparation of compensation packages
when the prospective hire will have to
relocate. Especially useful are the international compensation comparisons that
are displayed on this site.
• Supreme Court Web Site:
http://www.supremecourtus.gov
Although not focused mainly on
employment regulations, this Web site
literally gives the last word on personnel
law. The Supreme Court Web site provides the texts of decisions and very
useful information about the process of
Supreme Court hearings.
• Workforce Management: http://
www.workforceonline.com
Much like the Human Resource Executive site, Workforce Management offers
a number of timely and useful articles
about HR topics. In general, this site
tends to focus more on news items.
However, it does include a helpful
advice feature called “Dear Workforce,”
a column written by HR experts in
response to reader questions.
• Workplace Fairness: http://www.
workplacefairness.org/default.php
This site provides information designed
to promote work practices that will
increase the quality of work life for
employees and improve workplace outcomes for employers. It gives information on workers’ rights, relevant breaking news, and resources for finding out
more about these subjects.
Conclusion
The Web offers a wide range of timely,
relevant information resources that effectively communicate the legal issues
intrinsic to the five critical functional
instructional areas of human resource
management: staffing, development,
Downloaded by [Universitas Maritim Raja Ali Haji] at 23:32 12 January 2016
retention, adjustment, and management
of change (Cascio, 1998). For example,
the data in Table 1 represent a wealth of
expertise, even though these sources are a
mere sample of possible ones. Equally
important, qualified Web sites can serve
two key goals of HR instruction: traditional education in pertinent subject areas
and professional development for the
24/7 workplace.
The Web sites listed in Table 1 can be
used for achieving the first goal of traditional education in the five HR subject
areas because they communicate many
important facts about emerging trends,
regulatory changes in the status quo,
and archival data. Although these sites
most likely would be incorporated as an
ancillary to traditional HR texts, other
applications should also be considered.
A useful alternative would be to base
the majority of human resource management course work around designated
Web sites. In this scenario, participants
could be instructed to retrieve assigned
Web materials as foundations for course
lectures, including those that discuss the
impact of HR regulations on organizational outcomes. Furthermore, Webfocused instruction is compatible with
distance education courses as well as
more orthodox classroom settings.
Second, Web site–based HR instruction is valuable in student and professional development for the rapidly
changing, 24/7 work place. The role of
human resource information systems
has expanded greatly during the past
decade. Many organizations rely heavily on intranet communications and
continuously available online HR information centers, including personnel policy and training modules. This increased
emphasis on Web sites as conduits for
HR operations is largely a result of
rapid change, demands for work-family
balance, flexible schedules, and the
objective of promoting employee loyalty through respect for personal control
over time (McCormick, 2000).
These pivotal work place trends are
aptly modeled with Web-based HR
instruction. Under such conditions and
according to the premises of social
learning theory (Robbins, 2003), students are more likely to become familiar
with and practice skills that will
increase their chances for successful
adjustment to their employment settings. This expectation should hold
especially true for Web sites related to
HR law because organizations constantly must keep their members updated on
legal trends or run the risks of costly litigation. Similarly, HR legal developments can be communicated swiftly to
employees via Web site referrals that are
included in intranet messages or “justin-time” training programs.
In conclusion, HR Web sites often
are the most expeditious channels for
keeping students informed on relevant
legal developments and trends. The
educational strategy presented in this
article allows the instructor flexibility
to match learning materials with the
specific requirements of each student
group and to encourage active participation at the same time. Finally, HR
law–related Web sites also bring the
benefit of professional development to
the classroom setting.
NOTES
1. These include notable sites such as the
Hieros Gamos page, the HR Policy Association’s
page, and Workplace Fairness.
2. Especially useful sites are provided by Business.com, Human Resource Executive, and Nolo.
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business classes with the World Wide Web.
Journal of Education for Business, 71(6),
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Cascio, W. F. (1991). Costing human resources
(4th ed.). New York: PWS Publishing.
Cascio, W. F. (1998). Managing human resources:
Productivity, quality of work life, profits (5th
ed.). New York: Irwin McGraw-Hill.
Hannah, R. (1996). Internet sources for business
educators. Journal of Education for Business,
76(4), 209–214.
Hein, S. E., & Stalcup, K. A. (2001). Using World
Wide Web utilities to engage students in money,
banking, and credit. Journal of Education for
Business, 76(3), 167–173.
Kilger, M. (1995). Workforce diversity and the
Internet. Journal of Education for Business,
71(1), 19–22.
McCormick, S. C. (2000). HFR=smart. Workspan,
43(7), 12–16.
Morrison, J. L., Kim, H-S, & Kydd, C. T. (1998).
Journal of Education for Business, 73(5),
264–269.
Pettijohn, J. B. (1996). The “Web Street Journal”
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Ragothaman, S., & Hoadley, D. (1997). Integrating the Internet and the World Wide Web into
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Robbins, S. P. (2003) Organizational behavior
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July/August 2004
343
ISSN: 0883-2323 (Print) 1940-3356 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/vjeb20
Human Resource Regulation and Legal Issues: Web
Sites for Instructional and Training Development
John Kohl , Milton Mayfield & Jacqueline Mayfield
To cite this article: John Kohl , Milton Mayfield & Jacqueline Mayfield (2004) Human Resource
Regulation and Legal Issues: Web Sites for Instructional and Training Development, Journal of
Education for Business, 79:6, 339-343, DOI: 10.3200/JOEB.79.6.339-343
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.3200/JOEB.79.6.339-343
Published online: 07 Aug 2010.
Submit your article to this journal
Article views: 24
View related articles
Citing articles: 1 View citing articles
Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at
http://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=vjeb20
Download by: [Universitas Maritim Raja Ali Haji]
Date: 12 January 2016, At: 23:32
Downloaded by [Universitas Maritim Raja Ali Haji] at 23:32 12 January 2016
Human Resource Regulation and
Legal Issues: Web Sites for
Instructional and Training
Development
JOHN KOHL
MILTON MAYFIELD
JACQUELINE MAYFIELD
Texas A&M International University
Laredo, Texas
A
major function of any human
resources department is ensuring
compliance with all relevant personnelrelated laws and regulations (Cascio,
1998). Noncompliance can prove costly
to organizations for many reasons—
including fines, government-imposed
sanctions, and operating restrictions—
and can even have an adverse impact on
an organization’s public image (Cascio,
1991). Unfortunately, the sheer number
of employment-related regulations can
make the task of full compliance daunting for any human resources (HR) professional. The extensive scope of this
undertaking makes it vital that HR training or instructional programs provide
participants with (a) the tools necessary
to keep abreast of current and emerging
regulations and (b) information on how
to meet these requirements. Fortunately,
the Web provides just such an instructional tool (Brown & Nielson, 1996;
Hannah, 1996; Hein & Stalcup, 2001;
Ragothaman & Hoadley, 1997; Urbancic, 1998).
In this article, we present a select set
of HR regulation–related Web sites that
are useful for management instruction
programs dealing with personnel issues.
We also discuss the relevance and possible uses of these sites through an
overview of the Web’s unique role in
communicating HR regulatory and legal
information, present a list of some of
ABSTRACT. In this article, the
authors present a set of useful Web
sites for enhancing and supplementing
human resource courses and training
programs, especially those that deal
with the legal and regulatory aspects
of the human resources (HR) function.
These Web sites provide valuable
information on pertinent HR compliance issues as well as information that
can help practitioners determine
whether they are in compliance with
federal, state, and local employment
guidelines.
the more useful HR regulatory sites
along with a brief description of each,
and conclude with further suggestions
on how these sites can be used and integrated into a human resources instructional program.
We also highlight the increasingly
important role that the Web plays in
information dissemination (Hein &
Stalcup, 2001; Kilger, 1995; Morrison,
Kim, & Kydd, 1998; Pettijohn, 1996;
Urbancic, 1998). The constantly evolving area of HR regulation has proved to
be a relatively rich ground for the emergence of a number of personnel- and
employment-related Web sites. Partly in
response to the vast and varied array of
employment regulations with which
organizations must comply, most federal and many state and local regulations
have been placed on the Web so that the
affected parties can have easy access to
the needed information.
Additionally, many government
agencies either have a mandate to educate the public about their functions and
associated regulation or have determined that such education helps to
increase compliance with their regulations. In accordance with such educational strategies, these government
agencies have sought to increase public
awareness of regulatory issues by developing extensive Web sites designed to
provide the public and HR professionals
with training materials, tips for ensuring
compliance, and the complete text of
many HR laws, regulatory guidelines,
and legal findings.
A number of civic-minded individuals and organizations also have developed Web sites that aid the HR professional in locating and using relevant
information on regulatory compliance.
Although such sites can be more difficult to locate than the sites provided by
government offices, privately developed
sites often offer a wealth of information
that makes the search worthwhile.1 Similarly, a number of companies2 have
developed promotional Web sites that
help organizations better understand
and successfully meet personnel regulations and laws. These promotional sites
tend to be easier to navigate and use
than those created by individuals, but
they often are relatively thin on useful
information—frequently acting as little
July/August 2004
339
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more than advertising for the company’s
services. However, there are still a number of very useful corporate Web sites
providing free information that cannot
be found easily through other means.
Before the advent of the World Wide
Web, much of the information provided
by these Web sites was not readily accessible to the general public (Brown &
Nielson, 1996; Hannah, 1996; Kilger,
1995; Pettijohn, 1996; Urbancic, 1998).
To obtain comparable knowledge, managers were often faced with the choice of
either paying large fees to private organizations for regulatory updates and consultation or enduring delays in gathering
needed data from governmental agencies.
The Web’s emergence has improved vastly the accessibility and speed of obtaining
needed HR regulatory information. Such
Internet-accessible information also provides an opportunity for enhancing any
HR instructional program, especially
those that are centered around legal and
regulatory issues. In the following section, we present a select set of useful Web
sites for human resource students and
practitioners.
These Web sites offer a wealth of
information for the HR specialist as well
as for the management generalist with an
occasional need for such specialized
information. To respond to the unique
needs of each reader, in Table 1 we crosslist each site by its potential relevance for
the major human resource functions of
staffing, development, retention, adjustment, and change (Cascio, 1998).
Web Sites
• Business.com’s Compensation Page:
http://www.business.com/directory/
human_resources/compensation
This page gives links to very useful
information on a wide variety of compensation-related topics including overtime, retirement, and benefits administration. The site also has a search engine
that facilitates the user’s searches on topics of interest.
• Center of Advanced Human
Resource Studies Working Paper Series:
http://www.ilr.cornell.edu/depts/CAHRS/
WPapers.html
This site provides free access to a number of cutting-edge HR research articles.
340
Journal of Education for Business
TABLE 1. Web Site Categorization
Web site
S
Business.com’s Compensation Page
Center of Advanced Human Resource Studies Working
Paper Series
The Colonel’s Links
Department of Labor
Employee Benefit Research Institute
Employment Statistics Homepage
Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC)
The Federal Register
FirstGov.gov
General Salary Surveys
HierosGamos
HR-Guide.com
HR Policy Association
Human Resources Codes & Laws
Human Resource Executive
Internet Law Library
Job-Analysis.Net work
Jurist
LaborNet
Labor Unions and the Internet
Legal Information Institute
Minnesota Legislative Reference Library
National Labor Relations Board
Nolo
NPR’s Market Place
Occupational Safety and Health Administration
PELLS (Program for Employment and Labor Law Studies)
The Salary Calculator
Supreme Court Web Site
Workforce Management
Workplace Fairness
X
D
R
A
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
C
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
Note. The categories, adapted from Cascio (1998), are as follows: S = selection, D = development,
R = retention, A = adjustment, and C = change.
Although fully understanding many of
the papers may require technical expertise, the article concepts can be translated into implementation tools that give
organizations a competitive edge in the
area of human resources.
• The Colonel’s Links: http://www.
geocities.com/rainforest/3745/index.html
Although this site does not deal solely
with HR regulations, one is hard
pressed to find a more comprehensive
set of government-related links,
including many employment-related
links that are very useful to the practicing manager as well as the advanced
researcher. What is most unusual and
interesting about this Web site is its
completeness of information. One can
find here not only links to the United
States Code and the Code of Federal
Regulations but materials on such
items of more casual interest as the
presidential libraries, executive orders,
and even the Bill of Rights of the United States Constitution.
• Department of Labor: http://www.
dol.gov
This Web site provides both a set of links
to all bureaus associated with the Department of Labor (DoL) and a search function of selected DoL documents. The
DoL also gives the site user information
helpful for legal compliance assistance,
text of all DoL news and press releases,
and the text of documents from the DoL
library. DoL provides text for major federal regulatory laws, compliance information, and resources designed to help
organizations meet federal requirements.
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• Employee Benefit Research Institute: http://www.ebri.org
The Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI) has a mission “[t]o contribute to, to encourage, and to enhance
the development of sound employee
benefit programs and sound public policy through objective research and education.” The EBRI uses the site to help
fulfill this mission by communication of
its sponsored research findings to the
public, including studies about benefits
practices and improvement techniques.
The information can give valuable
insight to future labor and economic
projections regarding benefits and
retirement planning.
• Employment Statistics Homepage:
http://hr-software.net/EmploymentStatistics
A very useful and unique site, this page
provides Web-based calculators for a
number of HR-related legal analyses.
These analyses include affirmative
action plan statistics, a disparate impact
analysis, and even functions to help an
HR manager evaluate the reliability and
validity of selection methods. The site
also provides a number of case studies of
employment law judicial decisions, and
its calculators greatly facilitate both the
teaching and taking of related courses.
In addition, the calculators are helpful
not only for the student but also for the
HR professional charged with assembling such analyses.
• Equal Employment Opportunity
Commission (EEOC): http://www.eeoc.
gov
The EEOC’s homepage has links to a
number of sites with vital information for
employers including the text of Federal
discrimination laws, recommendations
on methods to comply with these laws,
and relevant publications from the office.
A very useful set of resources at this site
are employment statistics for various
protected groups broken down by occupation, industry, state, and metropolitan
statistical areas. Such data can be vital in
organizational compliance self-audits.
federal agencies and organizations.
These documents are invaluable
resources for determining HR compliance requirements, especially for government contractors.
This Web page is an easily navigated site
that directs the user to quick information
on U.S. and Canadian compensation and
benefits laws as well as to limited economic projections for these countries.
• FirstGov.gov: http://www.firstgov.
gov/Topics/Reference_Shelf.shtml#Laws
• Human Resource Executive: http://
www.workindex.com
The FirstGov site serves as a reference
center and link to all publicly accessible
U.S. Government Web sites. As a result,
this site serves as a hub for many additional sites that are relevant to HR compliance and regulatory issues.
The Human Resource Executive site
covers a wide range of topics that are
relevant to practicing HR managers.
The site provides timely articles on
numerous HR issues and links to other
useful HR Web sites. This site’s articles
on international HR practices and laws
are especially helpful.
• General Salary Surveys: http://
jobstar.org/tools/salary/sal-surv.cfm
This site displays information on average salaries for dozens of professions.
Although most HR professionals will
need more specific information when
developing compensation packages, the
site does provide a quick overview of
general wage expectations in a number
of states and cities.
• Hieros Gamos: http://www.hg.org/
practiceareas.html
Billed as the “#1 Legal Research Center,” this Web site provides information
in such legal areas as case precedents,
equal protection, employee benefits,
and labor/employment laws and regulations. This site’s international scope
also makes it useful for investigating
international HR legal requirements.
• HR-Guide.com:
guide.com
http://www.hr-
This site offers a virtual encyclopedia of
HR-related topics and methods. Articles
are included in such areas as benefits,
compensation, and job analysis. Each
general section is divided into several
topics, and with each section the reader
is provided with relevant information on
topical research and any legal issues
related to the subject.
• HR Policy Association: http://
www.hrpolicy.org/news
• The Federal Register: http://www.
gpoaccess.gov/fr/index.html
This organization provides a very useful
site for HR-related news briefs that are
categorized into topic areas such as
health care, wages, and labor law.
The Federal Register provides a centralized repository of executive orders and
rules, proposed rules, and notices for
• Human Resources Codes & Laws:
http://www.erieri.com/freedata/hrcodes/
index.htm
• Internet Law Library:
lawguru.com/ilawlib
http://
This site was created as a result of the
mission of the Office of the Law Revision Counsel of the U.S. House of Representatives to make the law more
accessible to the public. It provides
some of the most comprehensive
resources for information about U.S.
law, including federal laws, state laws,
and even international treaties.
Although the site’s large scope may
make locating information on a particular HR law difficult, it is a good place to
find information that is not available
through other means. Also, the site does
provide a search function to help the
user locate specific information.
• Job-Analysis.Net work: http://
www.job-analysis.net
This site is highly focused on job analysis methods, issues, and effectiveness.
As a result, the site covers information
on what is required to perform an effective job analysis, companion legal
issues, and specific methods for valid
job analysis development.
• Jurist: http://jurist.law.pitt.edu
The University of Pittsburgh’s School of
Law provides a very comprehensive and
up-to-date site that covers all aspects of
U.S. and international law, including
HR-related information. Also, a useful
in-site search engine and user-friendly
directory make it easy to find relevant
HR law information.
• LaborNet: http://www.labornet.
org/links/directory.html
LaborNet offers a very comprehensive
July/August 2004
341
set of links to union and labor organization Web sites. The site also provides a
news archive of labor-related articles
along with various opinion pieces on
labor issues.
• Labor Unions and the Internet:
http://www.ilr.cornell.edu/library/subject
Guides/laborUnionsAndTheInternet.html
This site gives extensive information on
topics and Web pages related to labor
unions. This site’s guidelines for general
Web site evaluation are especially useful.
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• Legal
Information
Institute:
http://www.law.cornell.edu/topics/topic
2html#employment%20law
Many law schools of leading universities have Web sites that are similar to the
one operated by Cornell University.
Cornell’s site is especially useful for
researchers and practitioners because it
offers a set of very clear capsule summaries and overviews on HR regulations and related legal issues. Furthermore, each one of Cornell’s overview
pages also has links to relevant federal
and state statutes, recent related
Supreme Court and circuit court decisions, and suggested sources of information that are external to the Web. An
especially useful HR-related overview is
the one on employment discrimination
at http://www.law.cornell.edu/topics/
employment_discrimination.
• Minnesota Legislative Reference
Library: http://www.leg.state.mn.us/
lrl/links/labor.asp
The Minnesota legislature provides a
well-maintained set of HR- and labor
legislation–related links. The site’s brief
descriptions for each targeted link are
especially helpful.
• National Labor Relations Board:
http://www.nlrb.gov
The National Labor Relations Board’s
(NLRB) Web site provides the full text of
the National Labor Relations Act, contact information for the regional offices,
and information on how to file a certification/decertification election and how to
file an unfair labor practice complaint. In
addition to this information, the site provides the text of all NLRB cases filed
from the mid-1980s through today.
These cases can be very useful for gain342
Journal of Education for Business
ing a better understanding of how the
board makes its rulings and decisions.
• Nolo: http://nolo.com
Nolo provides an easily navigated general legal advice Web site that also has a
great deal of information on employment laws, especially those that relate to
workers’ rights. This site has many useful attributes including a feature, “Plain
English Law Centers,” which presents
employment law topics in easy-tounderstand language, and even an
advice column where users can post
their questions. The site also posts many
useful links to Web listings of statutes
and cases.
• NPR’s Market Place: http://www.
marketplace.org
These well-designed Web pages are provided as a companion site to the National
Public Radio (NPR) show and give a
good overview of late-breaking and
emerging employment regulations. The
site synthesizes information drawn from
the week’s reports as well as from an
archive of selected stories from previous
broadcasts and shares information on
state and international personnel law,
along with commentary on how these
laws might affect organizations.
• Occupational Safety and Health
Administration: http://www.osha.gov
The Occupational Safety and Health
Administration (OSHA) displays a
wealth of information on federal safety
standards. This site has information on all
OSHA guidelines and what organizations
can expect during an inspection. Especially useful are representative examples
of noncompliance instances that have
resulted in worker deaths. These cases are
posted so that organizations can learn to
avoid common workplace hazards and
create a safe working environment.
Another very useful site feature is a database that allows users to access brief summaries of all OSHA inspection cases.
• PELLS (Program for Employment
and Labor Law Studies): http://www.
people.virginia.edu/~jhv3q/PELSWeb/
links.html
The University of Virginia provides
links to a number of very useful Web
pages. These sites include commercial
and governmental pages that deal with a
wide variety of labor legal issues and
provide links to a select set of law firms
that have special expertise in employment law issues.
• The Salary Calculator: http://www.
homefair.com/homefair/calc/salcalc.
html?dg=ns&cid=homefair
This site is valuable for comparing cost
of living differences between different
locations. This information can assist
preparation of compensation packages
when the prospective hire will have to
relocate. Especially useful are the international compensation comparisons that
are displayed on this site.
• Supreme Court Web Site:
http://www.supremecourtus.gov
Although not focused mainly on
employment regulations, this Web site
literally gives the last word on personnel
law. The Supreme Court Web site provides the texts of decisions and very
useful information about the process of
Supreme Court hearings.
• Workforce Management: http://
www.workforceonline.com
Much like the Human Resource Executive site, Workforce Management offers
a number of timely and useful articles
about HR topics. In general, this site
tends to focus more on news items.
However, it does include a helpful
advice feature called “Dear Workforce,”
a column written by HR experts in
response to reader questions.
• Workplace Fairness: http://www.
workplacefairness.org/default.php
This site provides information designed
to promote work practices that will
increase the quality of work life for
employees and improve workplace outcomes for employers. It gives information on workers’ rights, relevant breaking news, and resources for finding out
more about these subjects.
Conclusion
The Web offers a wide range of timely,
relevant information resources that effectively communicate the legal issues
intrinsic to the five critical functional
instructional areas of human resource
management: staffing, development,
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retention, adjustment, and management
of change (Cascio, 1998). For example,
the data in Table 1 represent a wealth of
expertise, even though these sources are a
mere sample of possible ones. Equally
important, qualified Web sites can serve
two key goals of HR instruction: traditional education in pertinent subject areas
and professional development for the
24/7 workplace.
The Web sites listed in Table 1 can be
used for achieving the first goal of traditional education in the five HR subject
areas because they communicate many
important facts about emerging trends,
regulatory changes in the status quo,
and archival data. Although these sites
most likely would be incorporated as an
ancillary to traditional HR texts, other
applications should also be considered.
A useful alternative would be to base
the majority of human resource management course work around designated
Web sites. In this scenario, participants
could be instructed to retrieve assigned
Web materials as foundations for course
lectures, including those that discuss the
impact of HR regulations on organizational outcomes. Furthermore, Webfocused instruction is compatible with
distance education courses as well as
more orthodox classroom settings.
Second, Web site–based HR instruction is valuable in student and professional development for the rapidly
changing, 24/7 work place. The role of
human resource information systems
has expanded greatly during the past
decade. Many organizations rely heavily on intranet communications and
continuously available online HR information centers, including personnel policy and training modules. This increased
emphasis on Web sites as conduits for
HR operations is largely a result of
rapid change, demands for work-family
balance, flexible schedules, and the
objective of promoting employee loyalty through respect for personal control
over time (McCormick, 2000).
These pivotal work place trends are
aptly modeled with Web-based HR
instruction. Under such conditions and
according to the premises of social
learning theory (Robbins, 2003), students are more likely to become familiar
with and practice skills that will
increase their chances for successful
adjustment to their employment settings. This expectation should hold
especially true for Web sites related to
HR law because organizations constantly must keep their members updated on
legal trends or run the risks of costly litigation. Similarly, HR legal developments can be communicated swiftly to
employees via Web site referrals that are
included in intranet messages or “justin-time” training programs.
In conclusion, HR Web sites often
are the most expeditious channels for
keeping students informed on relevant
legal developments and trends. The
educational strategy presented in this
article allows the instructor flexibility
to match learning materials with the
specific requirements of each student
group and to encourage active participation at the same time. Finally, HR
law–related Web sites also bring the
benefit of professional development to
the classroom setting.
NOTES
1. These include notable sites such as the
Hieros Gamos page, the HR Policy Association’s
page, and Workplace Fairness.
2. Especially useful sites are provided by Business.com, Human Resource Executive, and Nolo.
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