Welcome to Lawshelf’s video-course on employment and employment benefits. This course takes a survey of the employment process and focuses on the most common issues that employers and potential employees have in the process. It also focuses on many issues relevant to the process of transitioning between jobs, including notice, termination, compensation, benefits and references.

This is an introductory level course and no prior experience or knowledge of employment law is required.

The course begins with the hiring process, from creating legal job advertisements to applications and interviews. We also look at the factors that employers may and may not consider in the candidate selection process and on privacy issues that come into play.

We then continue with job screening and testing. We will look at common tests and their roles in the screening process and at background checks and disclosures required by many employers.

We will next turn to compensation and benefits. We will discuss compensation required by law and non-standard types of pay, such as tips, backpay and overtime. We will also look at other compensation issues, including wage garnishment. Our discussion of employment benefits includes healthcare benefits under the Affordable Care Act and other healthcare legislation. We will also discuss the myriads of voluntary benefits that many employers offer.

Next, we turn to time off, including leave, absences, holidays, personal time, jury duty and military service. We will also discuss special rules that apply to agricultural workers and child workers.

The second half of the course first discusses how and why people leave jobs. We will look at resignation rules and the unusual cases in which resignation can lead to contractual liability. We also look at the “constructive discharge rule,” in which resignation due to poor conditions may be considered tantamount to a discharge.

Modules 6 and 7 look at post-employment compensation and benefits including severance pay, unemployment insurance, health insurance under “COBRA” and retirement benefits. We will also discuss the transferability of retirement accounts and pensions.

The last two modules discuss involuntary termination. While many employees are “at will,” some employees with employment contracts may not be fired except for cause. We will also discuss cases in which other employees may not be fired except for cause. We will cover layoffs, which are often subject to federal or state regulation. The last module also discusses non-discrimination and whistleblower statutes that make it illegal to fire even “at will” employees on certain grounds.

This course should enhance the abilities of anyone who deals with human resources to deal with hiring, personnel maintenance and transitions more easily and effectively.

Best of luck and we welcome your feedback.