50 Fun Facts About Human Resources

Which 1938 US law created the federal minimum wage and time-and-a-half overtime after 40 hours?

It is considered the last piece of New Deal legislation and also banned "oppressive child labor".

What was the first federal minimum wage set under the FLSA in 1938?

That is about $5.72 in 2025 money; the federal rate has sat at $7.25 since 2009.

What hourly federal minimum wage took effect in July 2009?

It was the final step of the Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2007 and was still the federal floor in 2025; many states set higher rates.

How many weeks of unpaid, job-protected leave does the FMLA guarantee eligible employees?

Employees need 12 months of service, 1,250 hours worked and an employer with 50-plus staff within 75 miles.

Which president signed the Family and Medical Leave Act into law in February 1993?

It was one of the first bills of his presidency, after his predecessor had vetoed similar measures.

Which president signed the Occupational Safety and Health Act on December 29, 1970?

The act created both OSHA and NIOSH, the research institute.

Which section of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 bans employment discrimination?

The same act created the EEOC to enforce it.

Which federal agency, established in July 1965, enforces workplace anti-discrimination laws?

Its commissioners can bring a "commissioner's charge" even without a complainant.

The Age Discrimination in Employment Act protects workers starting at what age?

Since 1986 it has also barred mandatory retirement in most sectors.

Which president signed the Equal Pay Act on June 10, 1963?

It was part of his New Frontier program and requires equal pay for equal work regardless of sex.

Which president signed the Americans with Disabilities Act on July 26, 1990?

Unlike the Civil Rights Act, it also requires employers to make reasonable accommodations.

Under the ADA, employers with at least how many employees are covered?

The same 15-employee threshold applies to Title VII and the Pregnancy Discrimination Act.

The National Labor Relations Act of 1935 is better known by what name?

It aimed to fix the "inequality of bargaining power" between employers and workers.

The 1947 Taft-Hartley Act, which curbed union power, became law over which president's veto?

Many congressional Democrats joined Republicans to override him.

Which automaker's 1963 South Bend plant closure gave momentum to the 1974 pension law ERISA?

Thousands of workers lost most of their promised pensions, which made reform politically urgent.

COBRA lets departing employees keep their group health coverage. What do the letters actually stand for?

The 1985 budget law also covered tobacco price supports, railroads and the postal service.

How much notice of a mass layoff does the WARN Act require from employers with 100+ workers?

Notice must also go to the union, the local mayor and the state's dislocated-worker unit.

USERRA, signed in 1994, protects the civilian jobs of which group?

It applies to all uniformed services and their reserve components.

GINA, enacted in 2008, prohibits employers from discriminating on the basis of what?

It passed the Senate 95-0.

The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act was the first bill signed by which president?

It resets the 180-day clock for equal-pay claims with every discriminatory paycheck, reversing a Supreme Court ruling against Ledbetter in her case against Goodyear.

Which document must every US employer complete to verify a new hire's identity and work authorization?

It was mandated by the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986.

Which is the only US state to have modified at-will employment by statute?

Its 1987 Wrongful Discharge from Employment Act requires good cause once a probationary period ends.

The at-will employment doctrine is usually traced to an 1877 treatise by which author?

His book was titled Master and Servant.

In April 2024, which US agency issued a rule banning non-compete agreements nationwide?

English courts had refused to enforce non-competes as far back as Dyer's Case in 1414.

Which Welsh mill owner demanded an eight-hour working day as early as 1810?

His slogan was "eight hours labour, eight hours recreation, eight hours rest", and he tried it at New Lanark.

Who wrote The Principles of Scientific Management, voted the 20th century's most influential management book?

He honed his stopwatch methods solving a machine-shop problem at Bethlehem Steel in 1898.

The Hawthorne studies of the 1920s were conducted at a plant belonging to which company?

The Hawthorne Works in Cicero, Illinois, made electrical relays; workers seemed to get more productive with every lighting change.

Which Harvard professor's Hawthorne studies work founded the human relations movement?

He was appointed professor of industrial research at Harvard Business School in 1926.

In what year did Abraham Maslow publish "A Theory of Human Motivation"?

He never drew the famous pyramid himself; someone else added that later.

In Herzberg's two-factor theory, what are the conditions that merely prevent dissatisfaction called?

Salary and safe conditions are hygiene factors: their absence upsets people, but their presence does not motivate.

Who developed Theory X and Theory Y, the contrasting models of how managers view workers?

He worked them out at MIT's Sloan School in the 1950s, building on Maslow.

Peter Drucker's 1954 book that introduced MBO, or managing by objectives, was titled what?

He wrote it after finding almost no books on business management in General Electric's library; in 1959 he coined "knowledge worker".

Which economist first used the term "human resource", in his 1893 book The Distribution of Wealth?

He mentioned it without elaborating; the modern sense dates to a 1958 report by E. Wight Bakke.

Which university opened the first School of Industrial and Labor Relations in 1945?

It remains a top training ground for HR and labor-relations professionals.

SHRM, the world's largest HR body, was founded in 1948 under what name?

It ran on volunteers until 1964 and adopted the SHRM name in 1989.

In which Virginia city is SHRM headquartered?

It moved there from Berea, Ohio, in 1984 and now has nearly 340,000 members in 180 countries.

The CIPD, the UK's professional HR body, was founded in 1913 under what name?

Thirty-four employers set it up at a conference in York.

How many personality types does the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator sort people into?

A mother-daughter team built it during World War II from Carl Jung's 1921 book Psychological Types.

Which Swiss psychiatrist's 1921 book inspired the Myers-Briggs test?

Its four dichotomies produce codes such as INTJ or ESFP.

"Onboarding" is management jargon coined in which decade?

Researchers call the same thing organizational socialization.

Input gathered on an employee from peers, subordinates, supervisors and even customers is known as what?

One of the earliest employee surveys of this kind was run at Esso Research and Engineering in the 1950s.

According to the Peter principle, every employee in a hierarchy tends to rise to what?

Laurence Peter and Raymond Hull meant the 1969 book as satire.

Which HR thinker's 1997 work is credited with the "HR business partner" model?

He organizes HR into shared services, centers of expertise and business partners.

Who founded LinkedIn, launched in May 2003?

Microsoft bought the network in 2016 for $26.2 billion, its largest acquisition at the time.

HR software giant Workday was founded in 2005 by executives from which company after Oracle acquired it?

David Duffield and Aneel Bhusri launched the product in 2006; the 2012 IPO valued it at $9.5 billion.

Which Supreme Court ruling that pregnancy bias was not sex discrimination led to the 1978 Pregnancy Discrimination Act?

The act amended Title VII and exempts employers with fewer than 15 employees.

Which HR representative on The Office is portrayed as a nag for reciting company policies?

Fiction is unkind to HR in general: Dilbert's Catbert is billed as the 'evil director of human resources'.

In 1914 Ford doubled its line workers' daily pay from $2.50 to what?

A year earlier the company had suffered a turnover rate of 380 percent, even though $2.50 was considered a fair wage.

In the comic strip Dilbert, which character is the 'evil director of human resources'?

Other HR protagonists include Philippa in the BBC sitcom dinnerladies and the title character of the 2010 Israeli film The Human Resources Manager.

According to HR Magazine, which company set up the first personnel management department in 1900?

Owner John Henry Patterson created it to handle grievances, discharges and safety after a series of strikes and lockouts.