¶ … Workplace There are several major trends in the modern working environment that continue to have considerable impacts on organizations. Human Resource professionals play an important role in assisting organizations respond to emerging trends, manage flexibility in the workplace, and comply with federal and state regulations. Therefore, HR professionals need to demonstrate understanding of the ever changing global environment in order to effectively help organizations address these aspects. Generally, Human Resource Management has various functional areas with different roles in promoting the overall performance of an organization. Workplace flexibility has emerged as an important aspect of addressing the emerging trends in the workplace and promotion overall organizational success.

Functional Areas of Human Resource Management

Human Resource Management basically involves planning, developing, and administering policies that have considerable impacts on workers' behaviors, attitudes, and performance. This process requires the involvement of people and managerial structures towards the overall well-being of the organization (Emanoil & Nicoleta, 2013, p.1526). The involvement of people and managerial structures in the organization is fueled by the fact that decisions made in the human resources segment affect an organization's key stakeholders. In order to achieve this objective, Human Resources Management has some major functional areas that also contribute to enhancing an organization's overall performance.

The functional area of HRM is staffing, which entails ensuring that an organization has an appropriate number of highly talented employees with suitable skills for the respective job. Staffing contributes to the overall performance of an organization through promoting the implementation of organizational strategies and effective operations in the whole organization. In this functional area, HRM conducts several activities including job evaluation, human resource planning, recruitment, and selection. The second functional area of Human Resource Management is Human Resource Development (HRD), which contributes to overall organizational performance through enhancing employees' knowledge and skills as well as their contribution to organizational processes and activities. Some of HRM's activities in HRD include career training and development, career planning, and performance appraisal.

The third major functional area of HRM is compensation and benefits, which basically entails all incentives and rewards employees obtain following their contributions to the organization or their employment....

This is an important function that impacts the overall performance of the organization by influencing employee morale and satisfaction, which in turn affects their contributions to the organization and organizational productivity. HRM activities in this area entail providing financial and non-financial rewards based on employees' input. The fourth key functional HRM area is safety and health of workers given that a healthy and safe work environment enables enhances the likelihood of better organizational productivity. HRM develops safety standards and policies that govern employees' activities during work.
Federal Equal Employment Laws

The regulation of Human Resource Management has entailed the enactment of several laws towards ensuring workplace safety and health as well as promoting equal employment opportunity. Equal employment opportunity has emerged as an important element of the modern working environment because of the need to safeguard employees from any discriminatory practices in employment. Actually, this concept seeks to ensure that all employees regardless of gender, age, religion, and nationality have equal opportunities for employment and will not be discriminated against during the recruitment process.

There are several equal employment opportunity laws that have been enacted by the federal government to promote fair employment practices through preventing discrimination, especially during recruitment and hiring. The first federal equal employment law is the Equal Pay Act of 1963, which was enacted to help ensure that men and women performing similar and equal jobs obtain equal pay. The main objective of the law is to ensure that workers are not paid different wages for equal work because of their gender (Berger, 1971, p.326). The law influenced employment practices in the organization I worked for through resulting in the development of compensation and benefits policies based on employees' input instead of their gender. The second federal equal employment opportunity law is Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of religion, nationality, color, gender or race. Therefore, the law influences employment practices through ensuring that adopted policies and activities do not discriminate against an individual because of these factors. In the organization I worked for, the law contributed to the development of policies that prevent discrimination across all job responsibilities and levels.

Third, Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 is a federal equal employment opportunity law that was enacted to prohibit discrimination against people…