thread 1    Regulations are any laws, restrictions or standards that are set for businesses by the government or accredited government agencies that must be followed in order to avoid consequences.  “The adaptive abilities of firms to navigate the environmental dynamics within which they operate are widely recognized as being among the major organizational capabilities that determine survival and growth.” (Shu & Lewin, 2016)  Employers generally cannot change the regulations that they must adhere to but they can implement certain business practices that make it easier to comply with the regulations while the focus remains on the business.   “Compliance with laws and regulations can be a constraint and/or an opportunity for a compensation manager.” (Newman, Gerhart, & Milkovich, 2017, p. 652)  Our course text speaks specifically about compensation managers in their examples but these strategies can be applied in a sort of discipline in order to create a better working regulatory environment.  The first thing out text describes is to “join professional associations to stay informed on emerging issues and to act in concert to inform and influence public and legislative opinion.” (Newman, Gerhart, & Milkovich, 2017, p. 653)  This can be helpful to keep at least one person in the business up to date to make sure if there are any changes that the business can address them in a timely manner in order to avoid confusion and possible monetary repercussions.  The other advice out text gives to study and review other practices from similar business; this may give an idea of what other companies are changing.  In order for this to be effective the results of the changes must also be reviewed, to know if it was a successful approach.                The Family Leave and Medical Act was passed in 1993 and is related to workplace compensation in various ways.  “The purpose of the act is to provide all eligible employees with leave of up to 12 weeks per year for specified family and medical reasons.” (erieri.com, 2013)  A compensation manager can help maintain compliance by staying up to date on the minimum requirements of this law.  The manager may also help the business by creating a specific company policy for these types of situations that exceed the minimum requirements.  A compensation manager will have the necessary knowledge to know if this would be feasible strategy for the company without cutting into the profit margins.  “More state legislatures are noe moving toward some form of paid family and medical leave for workers.” (Newman, Gerhart, & Milkovich, 2017, p. 480)  Having an extended Policy on these issues may also be attractive to future employees, as these things are becoming more important to job seekers.Bibliographyerieri.com. (2013). Chapter 2: The Law and Compensation Benefits. Retrieved from erieri.com: https://www.erieri.com/dlc/onlinetextbook/law-and-compensation-benefitsNewman, J. M., Gerhart, B., & Milkovich, G. T. (2017). Compensation. Boston: McGraw Hill.Shu, E., & Lewin, A. Y. (2016). A resource Dependence Perspective on Low-Power Actors Shaping Their Regulatory Environment: The Case of Honda. Organizational Studies, 38(8), 1039-1058. Retrieved from https://journals-sagepub-com.ezproxy.liberty.edu/doi/full/10.1177/0170840616670432?utm_source=summon&utm_medium=discovery-providerthread 2  What kinds of proactive activities can an employer undertake to enhance the regulatory environment? Next, choose 1 law that relates to the administration of compensation and benefits in the workplace and describe how you would maintain compliance.            It is not easy for an employer to keep up on all the compliances required by law. It definitely is an undertaking for employers, BUT it is something that needs to be done. There are several proactive ways to deal with our regulatory environment and there are key roles/positions in a company that need to know about these regulations. Top management must know and be trained on compliance laws. Human Resources is probably the most affected by the laws and are required to be tuned into all of them and all times. Sometimes work can get in the way of this, so its always good to “join professional associations to stay informed on emerging issues and to act in concert to inform and influence public and legislative opinion” (Molkovih, Newman, Gerhar., pg. 653, 2017). A good organization to be a part of is the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM). Once an employer signs up with them, they will receive emails regularly with updates on regulations and laws and other HR functions from hiring, training, coaching, discipling, and firing. They have annual conferences that a professional can attend and they have local chapter (which I call mini SHRM’s) that you can attend monthly in your local area. To me this organization is the best one to join. Their resources are unlimited.            But there are other ways to stay compliant and that is by, “constantly reviewing compensation practices and their results” (Molkovih, Newman, Gerhar., pg. 653, 2017). It is always a good idea to have check’s and balances when hiring and selecting wage criteria. There are several Human Resource Information Systems (HRIS) out there that will give you this data. Each year I need to comply with the Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) and I need to report to them the gender and ethnicity of each employee. This is done by entering in an employee into the HRIS system and filling in the appropriate data as to whether the employee is a female and/or a male. It also requires me to enter in the ethnicity; white, black, Asian, Hispanic, etc. Then each year all I need to do is run a report. This lets the EEO know that we are not discriminating against gender and/or ethnicity. Another way to keep on top of compliance issues is to, “consult with legal counsel” (Molkovih, Newman, Gerhar., pg. 653, 2017). They will help when dealing with the fair treatment of all employees.            One law that I think can be difficult to keep compliant and keep track of is the Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA). There first must be a policy in place. On the SHRM website there are “Express Request” resources that help Human Resource Managers do their jobs well. One discusses the common mistakes when doing FMLA and they are: “Having no FMLA Policy, Counting Light-Duty Work as FMLA leave, Silent and/or Untrained Managers, Missed Notices, and Incomplete Certifications” (SHRM, 2019). It’s always good to have a policy so that the employees will know what is and what is not allowed. FMLA is a law and, “applies to all public agencies, all public and private elementary and secondary schools, and companies with 50 or more employees. These employers must provide and eligible employee with up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave each year” (DOL, 2019). In the policy it would indicate what reasons an employee is eligible to take the FMLA and would have all the criteria needed.              To maintain a law like this, there are ways to keep track of how to fill out the forms correctly and how to manage the 12 weeks the employee can take. The difficult part is managing the employees 12 weeks because some may just be out for a major medical reason for let’s say, four weeks and then they come back which is easy to track (4 – 12 = 8 weeks left for the year), some may be out for a medical reason and then come back part time which would require tracking hours vs. days. This can get complicated. With HRIS systems and payroll systems you can track all this information so it makes it easy to track. As long as the person who is inputting the information is done correctly, then the output will be good. Again, it’s always good to have checks and balances. Have a co-worker (who is in the HR department) check data entry to be sure it is entered in correctly. With all the compliance regulations, its always good to sign up for extra reading material and/or websites to be a part of and legal counsel is always a good idea to have.ReferencesBiblegateway.com. (2019). Matthew 20: 1-16https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew+20&version=NASB  Molkovih, G.T., Newman, J.M., & Gerhart, B.A. (2017). Compensation (12th ed.). New York,NY: McGraw-Hill. ISBN: 978125991851SHRM. (2019). FMLA: Common Mistakes to Avoid. Retrieved from:https://www.shrm.org/ResourcesAndTools/tools-and-samples/exreq/Pages/Details.aspx?Erid=1402U.S. Department of Labor (DOL). (2019). FMLA (Family & Medical Leave). Retrieved form:https://www.dol.gov/general/topic/benefits-leave/fmla