50 free Human Resources trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Human resources touches every job in the country, but few people outside the department know where its rules and rituals came from. This human resources trivia quiz covers the landmark US employment laws HR teams live by: the Fair Labor Standards Act and the first minimum wage, Title VII and the EEOC, the ADEA, the ADA, FMLA, OSHA, ERISA, COBRA, the WARN Act, USERRA, GINA, the Lilly Ledbetter Act, Form I-9 and the at-will doctrine. It also covers the people and ideas behind modern people management: Robert Owen and the eight-hour day, Frederick Taylor and scientific management, Elton Mayo and the Hawthorne studies, Maslow's hierarchy, Herzberg's two factors, McGregor's Theory X and Y, Peter Drucker, Dave Ulrich's business partner model and the Peter principle, plus SHRM, the CIPD, the Myers-Briggs test, 360-degree feedback, applicant tracking systems, LinkedIn and Workday, and the origins of words like onboarding. The 50 questions run from easy to genuinely hard, and every answer was checked against the statute or the documented history, so it works for an HR team meeting icebreaker, an SHRM chapter night or a study session for a certification exam.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which 1938 US law created the federal minimum wage and time-and-a-half overtime after 40 hours?
Fair Labor Standards Act
It is considered the last piece of New Deal legislation and also banned "oppressive child labor".
Q 02What was the first federal minimum wage set under the FLSA in 1938?
25 cents an hour
That is about $5.72 in 2025 money; the federal rate has sat at $7.25 since 2009.
Q 03What hourly federal minimum wage took effect in July 2009?
$7.25
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.
Q 04How many weeks of unpaid, job-protected leave does the FMLA guarantee eligible employees?
12
Employees need 12 months of service, 1,250 hours worked and an employer with 50-plus staff within 75 miles.
Q 05Which president signed the Family and Medical Leave Act into law in February 1993?
Bill Clinton
It was one of the first bills of his presidency, after his predecessor had vetoed similar measures.
Q 06Which president signed the Occupational Safety and Health Act on December 29, 1970?
Richard Nixon
The act created both OSHA and NIOSH, the research institute.
Q 07Which section of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 bans employment discrimination?
Title VII
The same act created the EEOC to enforce it.
Q 08Which federal agency, established in July 1965, enforces workplace anti-discrimination laws?
EEOC
Its commissioners can bring a "commissioner's charge" even without a complainant.
Q 09The Age Discrimination in Employment Act protects workers starting at what age?
40
Since 1986 it has also barred mandatory retirement in most sectors.
Q 10Which president signed the Equal Pay Act on June 10, 1963?
John F. Kennedy
It was part of his New Frontier program and requires equal pay for equal work regardless of sex.
Q 11Which president signed the Americans with Disabilities Act on July 26, 1990?
George H. W. Bush
Unlike the Civil Rights Act, it also requires employers to make reasonable accommodations.
Q 12Under the ADA, employers with at least how many employees are covered?
15
The same 15-employee threshold applies to Title VII and the Pregnancy Discrimination Act.
Q 13The National Labor Relations Act of 1935 is better known by what name?
The Wagner Act
It aimed to fix the "inequality of bargaining power" between employers and workers.
Q 21Which document must every US employer complete to verify a new hire's identity and work authorization?
Form I-9
It was mandated by the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986.
Q 22Which is the only US state to have modified at-will employment by statute?
Montana
Its 1987 Wrongful Discharge from Employment Act requires good cause once a probationary period ends.
Q 23The at-will employment doctrine is usually traced to an 1877 treatise by which author?
Horace Gray Wood
His book was titled Master and Servant.
Q 14The 1947 Taft-Hartley Act, which curbed union power, became law over which president's veto?
Harry Truman
Many congressional Democrats joined Republicans to override him.
Q 15Which automaker's 1963 South Bend plant closure gave momentum to the 1974 pension law ERISA?
Studebaker
Thousands of workers lost most of their promised pensions, which made reform politically urgent.
Q 16COBRA lets departing employees keep their group health coverage. What do the letters actually stand for?
Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act
The 1985 budget law also covered tobacco price supports, railroads and the postal service.
Q 17How much notice of a mass layoff does the WARN Act require from employers with 100+ workers?
60 days
Notice must also go to the union, the local mayor and the state's dislocated-worker unit.
Q 18USERRA, signed in 1994, protects the civilian jobs of which group?
Military service members
It applies to all uniformed services and their reserve components.
Q 19GINA, enacted in 2008, prohibits employers from discriminating on the basis of what?
Genetic information
It passed the Senate 95-0.
Q 20The Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act was the first bill signed by which president?
Barack Obama
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.
Q 24In April 2024, which US agency issued a rule banning non-compete agreements nationwide?
Federal Trade Commission
English courts had refused to enforce non-competes as far back as Dyer's Case in 1414.
Q 25Which Welsh mill owner demanded an eight-hour working day as early as 1810?
Robert Owen
His slogan was "eight hours labour, eight hours recreation, eight hours rest", and he tried it at New Lanark.
Q 26Who wrote The Principles of Scientific Management, voted the 20th century's most influential management book?
Frederick W. Taylor
He honed his stopwatch methods solving a machine-shop problem at Bethlehem Steel in 1898.
Q 27The Hawthorne studies of the 1920s were conducted at a plant belonging to which company?
Western Electric
The Hawthorne Works in Cicero, Illinois, made electrical relays; workers seemed to get more productive with every lighting change.
Q 28Which Harvard professor's Hawthorne studies work founded the human relations movement?
Elton Mayo
He was appointed professor of industrial research at Harvard Business School in 1926.
Q 29In what year did Abraham Maslow publish "A Theory of Human Motivation"?
1943
He never drew the famous pyramid himself; someone else added that later.
Q 30In Herzberg's two-factor theory, what are the conditions that merely prevent dissatisfaction called?
Hygiene factors
Salary and safe conditions are hygiene factors: their absence upsets people, but their presence does not motivate.