Professional Certificate in HR Compliance

What you will be able to do

• Navigate the federal, state and local employment law landscape
• Run hiring, pay and leave processes that stand up to an audit
• Take a complaint and run a fair, documented workplace investigation
• Build handbooks, policies and retention schedules that hold up
• Prepare for agency charges and run an annual compliance calendar

What is inside

6 modules, 30 lessons. Each module ends in a graded quiz and most carry an assignment.

1. 01

   The Employment Law Landscape

   Why HR compliance exists, the landmark US federal employment laws at a working-concepts level, how federal, state, and local rules layer on top of each other, the UK contrast that matters for an overseas office, the agencies that enforce the rules, and how compliance work actually gets organized inside a real company.

   5 lessons · 15 quiz questions

2. 02

   Hiring Compliance

   Everything that happens before an employee's first paycheck, done legally and provably. Job ads and job descriptions that do not discriminate, applications and interviews that stay inside the lines, background checks run through the Fair Credit Reporting Act process, work authorization and Form I-9 discipline, the new-hire notices that actually fire on day one, and the records that make all of it defensible three years later, worked through the hiring practices of Cascade Manufacturing.

   5 lessons · 15 quiz questions

3. 03

   Pay, Hours and Leave

   Wage and hour compliance is where HR mistakes turn into money fastest. This module walks through exempt and non-exempt classification, overtime mechanics, the contractor versus employee line, pay equity and transparency, and the leave landscape from FMLA to ADA accommodation, all through the payroll realities of Cascade Manufacturing.

   5 lessons · 15 quiz questions

4. 04

   Harassment Prevention, Complaints and Investigations

   How to define harassment and discrimination correctly, meet the employer's duty through prompt remedial action, build a complaint intake employees actually trust, run a defensible workplace investigation from planning through findings, and calibrate discipline while preventing retaliation, the most commonly charged violation of all, told through cases at Cascade Manufacturing.

   5 lessons · 15 quiz questions

5. 05

   Policies, Handbooks and Records

   The documentation layer of HR compliance: how the policy hierarchy separates stable rules from volatile procedures, what belongs in a handbook and what quietly creates contracts, how acknowledgments and version control let you prove what was in force on any past date, required postings and event triggered notices as a managed category, records retention run as a maintained schedule rather than memorized numbers, personnel file hygiene and the files that must live somewhere else, and HR data privacy in the United States contrasted with the United Kingdom under the General Data Protection Regulation. Taught through Cascade Manufacturing, a 300 employee maker of industrial pumps and valves with plants in two US states and a small sales office in Manchester.

   5 lessons · 15 quiz questions

6. 06

   Audits, Agencies and the Compliance Calendar

   How Cascade finds its own problems before a regulator does. You will design a self-audit program, run Form I-9 and personnel file audits neutrally, work a wage and hour audit in four passes, respond calmly and correctly when an agency charge or investigation arrives, brief employment counsel in ten minutes, report honest metrics to leadership, and build an annual compliance calendar that survives turnover. This module carries the course capstone.

   5 lessons · 15 quiz questions · assignment