45 Fun Facts About HR

Which 1938 law created the American right to a minimum wage?

The Fair Labor Standards Act set a 25-cent hourly floor after the Supreme Court had struck down the New Deal's earlier wage rules.

What overtime rate does US federal law require after 40 hours a week?

Time-and-a-half kicks in after 40 hours a week, but the law's many exemptions leave some workers with no overtime right at all.

What federal minimum wage took effect in the US in July 2009?

$7.25 an hour is still the federal floor as of 2026, and after inflation it buys far less than the minimum did at its 1968 peak.

On which day is American Labor Day held?

The first Monday of September caught on as a workers' holiday state by state before Congress made it a federal holiday in 1894.

Which president signed Labor Day into federal law in 1894?

Grover Cleveland signed the Labor Day law on June 28, 1894, and his government then sent troops to Chicago to break the Pullman strike.

Which two groups promoted the original American holiday for workers?

The Central Labor Union and Knights of Labor staged the first parade in 1882 as a show of organized labor's strength, followed by a picnic.

Which federal agency, created in 1935, runs US union representation elections?

The National Labor Relations Board survived an early test when the Supreme Court upheld the 1935 Wagner Act that created it, in 1937.

Which Chicago event does May Day commemorate?

The Haymarket affair grew out of a nationwide May 1, 1886 strike for an eight-hour day, and days later a bomb exploded at a Chicago rally.

What does the Family and Medical Leave Act guarantee eligible private-sector workers for up to 12 weeks?

Unpaid leave is all it guarantees, and an employer can even require workers to use up their accrued paid vacation during that time.

Which president signed that leave law in February 1993?

Bill Clinton signed it on 5 February 1993, the first major bill he signed as president, barely a fortnight after taking office.

What happened to earlier versions of that leave bill?

They were vetoed twice: Congress passed versions in 1990 and 1992, and the president of the day struck down both before losing the 1992 election.

Which arm of the Labor Department administers the Family and Medical Leave Act?

The Wage and Hour Division handles complaints, and an employer that breaks the law can owe lost wages plus an equal sum in liquidated damages.

Which personality test, created by a mother and daughter, sorts people into 16 types?

Myers-Briggs results often fail to hold, as many people who retake the test just five weeks later get a different type.

Who designed the office cubicle?

Robert Propst, who ran Herman Miller's research arm, devised the system in the 1960s, and later deplored the cramped cubicle farms it spawned.

What name did that design carry when Herman Miller released it in the late 1960s?

Action Office II: the first version, Action Office I of 1964, sold poorly, so the redesign added the movable, fabric-covered panels that became the cubicle.

Which comic strip, launched in 1989, turned a put-upon engineer's cubicle life into office satire?

Dilbert was dropped by hundreds of newspapers in 2023 after creator Scott Adams called Black Americans a "hate group" in a video.

What does the Hawthorne effect describe?

The effect describing people changing behaviour when observed is named after Western Electric's Hawthorne Works, yet critics say the original studies showed little of it.

What were the original Hawthorne studies actually testing?

Lighting levels were tested from 1924 to 1927, and accounts found output did not track how bright or dim the room was.

Where was the factory that gave the effect its name?

Cicero, Illinois: Western Electric's Hawthorne Works sat just west of Chicago's city line, and the best-known experiments followed women assembling telephone relays.

Which Harvard Business School professor led the Hawthorne studies at Western Electric?

Elton Mayo concluded that people's work performance depends on their social relationships as well as the job itself.

Who is sometimes credited with writing the first résumé?

Leonardo da Vinci's so-called résumé was really a letter, written around 1482 to win the patronage of Milan's ruler.

Which country gave workers a legal 'right to disconnect' from work email in January 2017?

France adopted the rule to protect workers' health, as answering work email out of hours risked stress and sleep problems.

What do most of Europe and Asia call the document Americans call a résumé?

A curriculum vitae, Latin for course of one's life, does a résumé's job there, while in North America a CV usually means a much longer record.

What distinguishes a structured job interview?

Every applicant gets the same questions, and research finds more structured interviews give more valid, consistent ratings.

Which women's group launched Take Our Daughters to Work Day, first held in 1993?

The Ms. Foundation for Women created the day to help convince girls they could earn their own paychecks, and boys were later invited too.

Which tech company popularized letting employees spend 20% of their work time on side projects?

Google's 20% time let employees prototype their own ideas, and AdSense for content grew out of it.

What did Frederick Winslow Taylor call his approach to work efficiency?

Scientific management was derided by Lenin in 1914 as man's enslavement by the machine, yet in 1918 he urged Soviet Russia to study and teach the Taylor system.

Which 1970 statute governs hazards at work in the United States?

The Occupational Safety and Health Act came after years in which more than 14,000 US workers were killed on the job annually.

Which president signed that safety law?

Richard Nixon signed it on 29 December 1970; before that, federal protections for workplace safety were almost non-existent.

Which naturalist is credited with putting wheels on his study chair?

Charles Darwin put wheels on the chair in his study so he could get to his specimens more quickly.

Which psychologist's theory splits job factors into 'motivators' and 'hygiene factors'?

Frederick Herzberg found that pay and working conditions do little to satisfy staff, so he urged managers to make jobs more interesting instead.

Which Herman Miller office chair, launched in 1994, swapped foam padding for a breathable mesh?

Aeron designers Bill Stumpf and Don Chadwick dropped foam for a mesh they found moulded to the body and let air through.

Which 1999 Mike Judge comedy follows fed-up software workers who smash a broken printer in a field?

Office Space was a box office disappointment, but it sold well on home video and became a cult film.

What did the moving assembly line approach become known as?

Fordism is named for Henry Ford, whose moving assembly line at Highland Park in 1913 cut Model T assembly to about ninety minutes.

Which document usually accompanies a résumé to an employer?

A cover letter introduces the résumé and explains the applicant's interest; together with the application form, they are the first things a hiring manager sees.

Which company did Microsoft agree to buy for $26.2 billion in 2016?

LinkedIn was allowed to keep its own brand, culture and independence, with its chief executive reporting to Microsoft's Satya Nadella.

Which Ivy League university is home to a school for workplace studies founded in 1945?

Cornell's ILR School, a New York State college, was founded to help employers and employees work for the common good.

Under what name did Britain's CIPD, the professional body for HR, begin in 1913?

The Welfare Workers' Association's field grew fast in World War I, when munitions factories were required by law to appoint welfare workers.

What name is given to the idea that people in a hierarchy rise to a level of incompetence?

The Peter principle began as satire in a 1969 book, yet a 2018 study found star salespeople were likelier to be promoted and then to do worse as managers.

The US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission was created by which law?

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 created the commission, but it could not bring lawsuits of its own until Congress gave it that power in 1972.

What did a 1986 change to US age-discrimination law generally outlaw?

Mandatory retirement was generally outlawed, yet a firm can still force out a top executive aged 65 who has a big enough retirement benefit.

Which president signed the Americans with Disabilities Act into law?

George H. W. Bush signed it on July 26, 1990, months after disabled activists crawled up the Capitol steps to protest delays in passing it.

ERISA, passed in 1974, sets rules for what?

Private-industry pension plans came under new rules after failures like Studebaker's in 1963, when thousands of auto workers lost some or all of their promised pensions.

What do British employers call 'onboarding' new staff?

Induction done well may cut staff turnover, as studies link onboarding to higher job satisfaction and commitment to the employer.

In 2019, which organization's disease classification defined burnout as a syndrome resulting from chronic workplace stress?

The World Health Organization lists burnout in its classification of diseases, yet says burnout is not itself a medical condition.