Everyone knows that legal issues can be tedious, dry, and difficult to interpret, especially if you don´t have a company legal advisor handy. An extremely successful and widely used tool, over 110 various organizations and associations are presently using "How to Comply with Federal Employee Laws" to help them interpret and easily understand the technicalities of employment law for practical and everyday application.
What is "How to Comply with Federal Employee Laws" (HCFEL)?
Vizia Enterprises publishes an employment law business guide entitled the same as their CD-ROM. In January 2000, they published this information on an interactive CD-ROM format accompanied by a 240-page written text.
HCFEL was authored by Sheldon I. London who is a partner in the Washington, D.C. law firm of London and Satagaj. The firm serves as Legislative Counsel to fourteen national trade associations which have a combined membership exceeding 50,000 American businesses. Mr. London has played a prominent role in helping business groups establish a forceful presence in Washington.
He states, "From the time the idea for How To Comply With Federal Employee Laws came to me, I have had a singular mission - to make it the most useful reference an employer can rely on to answer the basic questions involving compliance with federal employment laws."
What is HCFEL intended to do?
Legislation and legal terms can be a nightmare to interpret, let alone understand. HCFEL was designed to make understanding federal employment laws easy.
In fact, over the past two years, Vizia Enterprises states that their product has gained national recognition for making these significant laws easy to understand. For example, over 80 national and regional professional associations have endorsed it, and 30 business schools use it as a course reference.
How does it help HR professionals?
HCFEL translates difficult, theoretical legislation into practical guidance and information on Federal Employee Laws. For example, some commonly asked employment questions include:
How is the information presented?
As an example, under Age Discrimination, HCFEL highlights where "trouble spots" in the law can occur, specifically "Help Wanted Ads" and "Employment Applications". HCFEL points out where problems in language and overall content of these documents can occur, as in the description of the individual preferred, and the "date of birth" in Employment Applications.
The program also states why these "errors" tend to become problematic and how the language used tacitly impacts readers and employers.
You can purchase the CD-ROM and 240-page text for $119.95 as well as receive a free Workplace Bulletin Board wall poster.
There is also a 30-day money back guarantee for both the book and the CD-ROM if you are not completely satisfied. Vizia Enterprises gives you the option of receiving discounts on multiple user-licenses and quantity orders.
This is an excellent resource for HR professionals and employers of all sizes as these two groups are the most heavily impacted by their actions with respect to employment laws. HCFEL has clearly taken a lot of the interpretive work out of understanding the important issues in federal employment law.
The information clearly indicates to users what should be their main concerns, and priorities surrounding the topic of interest as well as gives reasons for why these should be priorities.
They also make it easy by linking laws and personnel forms so that you don´t have to keep clicking around the information to find the related topics and forms.
One great feature of HCFEL is that it has a comprehensive keyword search that enables users to quickly and easily find the information they´re looking for.
HCFEL has also compiled a useful listing of FAQ´s for certain topics. Therefore, they are reinforcing specific useful information with their main information body that simplifies the search process even further as there are increased ways of finding and interpreting the same information.
The presentation of material is good but it could be better. It is well-organized with fast, punctuated facts and let´s you know exactly what is important. However, as legal information often is, it is presented in a plain, dry manner. My suggestion would be to incorporate some eye-catching, fun, colorful graphics and icons into the material. This would make the information easier to digest and probably easier to remember and find in the future.
HCFEL has also integrated useful checklists into their material. They provide an online checklist as an example. However, the questions could be improved as they are rather general and basic. For example, in dealing with OSHA requirements, one question asks, "Do all employees know what to do in emergencies?".
Depending on the size of your company, it is very difficult to ensure what your employees know and don´t know. Most of the problematic questions are company size-dependent, i.e. "Are all exits visible and unobstructed?"
Many of these questions have very little use; not in the sense that the questions are useless, but that employers don´t realistically have the resources and time to ensure that all these concerns are appropriately resolved. Nevertheless, these questions will put your employer in the right direction and will remind them of where their priorities should be.
Finally, for the amount of time and effort that HCFEL will save you, it is definitely worth the price. For only $119.95, you not only receive all of the information on the CD-ROM, but also a 240-page reference text. I haven´t seen many products that are as useful in their practical application as HCFEL; all employers should keep a copy of this information on hand to address the convoluted and often ambiguous areas in employment law.
Vizia Enterprises, LLC is located in Rochester, New York. As aforementioned in the "about the author" section, the program was designed and written by Sheldon I. London. Mr. London is a partner in the Washington, D.C. law firm of London and Satagaj. The firm serves as Legislative Counsel to fourteen national trade associations which have a combined membership exceeding 50,000 American businesses. Mr. London has played a prominent role in helping business groups establish a forceful presence in Washington. For more information, please check out their site at www.viziaenterprises.com