5EML Employment Law

Unit Overview

Employment law (5EML) is a unit of study within CIPD level 5 course that covers understanding the regulations that have been put in place by the government and other legislators on ensuring that the persons employed within the organisation are protected. As a unit, 5EML should prepare the HR professionals in ensuring that the practice that are put in place within their organisations to guide the activities of the employees are aligned to the legal frameworks provided within the specific country.

The unit facilitates mastery of skills and knowledge that is required to promote the legal compliance standards set within a human resource department of an organisation. Due to the critical role of human resource professionals within the organisation, this unit is important for them to provide awareness, knowledge and vital principles that should be applied in facilitating legal compliance within the workforce and management of the employees.

Unit Objectives

This unit is primarily aimed to prepare the human resource professionals for practice in the general world. Some of the main objectives that are targeted by this unit include:

• Be able to understand the importance of employee regulation and means of enforcing the regulations in practice

• Know various techniques to manage recruitment and selection legally

• Exhibit knowledge of managing change within the organisation in compliance with provided legal frameworks

• Understand means of managing pay and working time in accordance to the law

• Ensure the staff are treated legally, including implementing legal guidance against discrimination and bias, within the workplace

• Appropriately and legally manage performance and discipline issues within the organisation.

Unit Applicability

The course is suitable to almost all members of the organisation who are tasked with management duty. The human resource professionals are required to develop and implement people practices within the organisation. This unit helps the to understand the extent to which the employment laws glide the desired people practices ensuring that they operate within the provisions of law and avoid conflicts between organisational practices and regulations. Other managers including executive and line managers also need to ensure that they pursue this unit to gain an understanding and insights on legal and professional practice in their various areas of management.

These are groups of people with critical influence on the wellbeing of the employees within the organisation. They make critical decisions on aspects such as scheduling, setting of employee payments and handling disciplinary and performance issues, which are critical aspects that are guided within the legal frameworks put up by the organisation. As such, the unit could be highly beneficial in ensuring that the practice of these professionals is not against the provided legal guidance and frameworks.

Unit Content

The nit covers diverse areas of study which focus on understanding set legal principles and frameworks. Some of the mostly covered areas include:

Principles and Enforcement of Employment Law

5EML provides the human resource professionals and other learners pursuing the unit with an understanding of various objectives and significance of the employment regulation. The learners should be able to understand the issues of fairness, social justice and employee protection as they relate to the process of handling people practices within the organisation.

Additionally, this unit guides the professionals in understanding effective approaches to enforcing the employment law. The learners are introduced to tribunals and courts systems which are critical in ensuring that the organisations follow the stipulated legal frameworks and employees have the opportunity to report any illegal practices or experiences within the workplace.

Discrimination Law

5EML understands that most people practices revolve around handling various employees through different techniques and strategies. As such, the unit provides learners with the opportunity to understand the position of the law on treating employees’ equality.

Within the unit, professionals are guided in understanding the need to avoid cases of discrimination and provide specific guidelines that should be implemented to achieve a status of social justice and fairness within the organisation in implementing the people practices. This area of the unit covers the regulations against discrimination and the appropriate approaches of dealing with violations of the set legal frameworks.

Contract Law

Contract law is one of the most critical aspects of regulations that guide employee-employer relationships 5EML guides the process of setting up this relationship through providing the various standards that should be met in setting up an agreement that is legally binding.

This unit guides in understanding the elements of a legally acceptable contract, the specific terms of the contract and the legal obligation for both parties to keep their part of the agreement. HR professionals and managers in general need to ensure that they go through this unit to prepare themselves for the task and duties that require them to enter into agreements with other stakeholders such as employees and suppliers.

Expected Outcomes

At the end of this unit, the learner is expected to have critical awareness of employee law. This expectation involves being able to not only define the terms and principles but exhibit mastery of the principles and application in their specific organisations or line of practice.

The unit further expects the professionals to have the practical ability to implement the principles learned in their organisations, ensuring that it is compliant to the law. Through completing this course, HR professionals and managers should be able to set organisational policies and practices that do not conflict with the legal framework and principles.

Wrap Up

At the end of the unit, a CIPD level 5 assessment is conducted. The assessment requires presenting a written paper responding to prompts that are provided on the topics covered. The student should provide responses based on the 5EML learned materials and content and ensure that they give context to their responses.

This context is provided through providing relevant examples that are applicable in the different areas of practice. This assessment is effective in measuring the accomplishment of unit goals and objectives as well as ensuring that the learners are able to use the theoretical information learned within real-life situations by providing contextual responses.