8.1 Employment Law Context and Compliance Triage

The Workplace Domain and Legal Awareness

The SHRM BASK (Body of Applied Skills and Knowledge) organizes HR knowledge into three functional domains — People, Organization, and Workplace. The Workplace domain covers U.S. Employment Law & Regulations, Risk Management, Corporate Social Responsibility, Managing a Global Workforce, and the workforce structure and technology that connect them. Employment law is the anchor: it sets the legal floor under hiring, pay, leave, accommodation, safety, and termination.

A SHRM-CP candidate is not tested as an attorney. The exam asks whether HR can recognize when a workplace issue touches protected rights, gather facts fairly, apply policy consistently, and escalate to counsel when the matter is complex or high-risk. HR adds value by building a reliable pathway from concern to review to decision to correction — not by issuing legal opinions from memory.

Coverage Thresholds — Which Law Applies When

The single most useful fact set for the Workplace domain is which statute attaches at which employer size. A 12-person startup, a 30-person firm, and a 60-person company face different obligations. The table below distinguishes the major federal laws by year, requirement, and coverage trigger.

Note the traps: ADEA's threshold is 20, not 15, and it only protects workers 40 and older. The NLRA protects non-union employees too — a group of coworkers discussing pay is engaged in protected concerted activity. FMLA stacks a second test: the employee must also have worked 1,250 hours over 12 months. Only private employers with 50+ are simultaneously covered by Title VII, the ADA, and FMLA.

Compliance Triage in Practice

Good triage begins with intake. HR asks what happened, who was involved, when it occurred, whether there is immediate safety or retaliation risk, what policy applies, and what documentation exists. HR preserves confidentiality to the extent practical but never promises absolute secrecy, because that can block an effective investigation. Use this sequence:

1. Identify the concern type and any immediate safety or retaliation risk.
2. Gather facts through the proper intake or investigation process.
3. Review applicable law, policy, past practice, documentation, and decision authority.
4. Escalate to legal or compliance experts when the issue is complex, sensitive, or legally significant.
5. Communicate next steps, protect records, and monitor follow-through.

Retaliation deserves special attention: it is consistently the most frequently filed EEOC charge. When an employee recently filed a complaint, requested accommodation, took leave, or participated in an investigation, any adverse action against them carries elevated risk. The safest SHRM-CP answer slows the decision enough to review timing, consistency, and documentation — without freezing legitimate performance management.

Disparate Treatment, Disparate Impact, and the Interactive Process

Two discrimination theories recur on the exam. Disparate treatment is intentional — treating someone less favorably because of a protected characteristic. Disparate impact is unintentional — a neutral policy or test that disproportionately screens out a protected group and is not job-related and consistent with business necessity. A height requirement, a strength test, or an AI screen can each create disparate impact even with no intent to discriminate.

HR should be able to distinguish the two because the defense differs: disparate treatment turns on motive and consistency, while disparate impact turns on validation and business necessity.

Under the ADA, when an employee requests accommodation, the employer must engage in the interactive process — a good-faith, individualized dialogue to identify the limitation and a reasonable accommodation that does not impose undue hardship. HR should never reject a request reflexively or demand a diagnosis; it should clarify the functional limitation and explore options. The same individualized posture applies to the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (PWFA), effective 2023, which extends accommodation duties to known limitations arising from pregnancy or childbirth.

Finally, distinguish exempt vs. non-exempt status under the FLSA. Misclassifying a non-exempt worker as exempt (denying overtime) is one of the most common and costly wage-and-hour errors, and it is a frequent SHRM-CP fact pattern. Classification turns on salary level and the actual duties performed, not on a job title alone.