| Course | GB541 Strategic HR Law and Risk Management |
|---|---|
| Unit | Unit 9 |
| Paper type | Risk treatment plan |
| Length | About 1,100 words, 7 pages double-spaced |
| Format | APA 7 student paper |
| School | Purdue University Global |
| Program | MBA |
| Updated | October 2026 |
Free sample paper for GB541 Unit 9
Reduce, Avoid, Accept or Transfer: A Unit 9 Risk Treatment Plan for Five Employment Exposures
[Student Name]
Purdue University Global
GB541: Strategic HR Law and Risk Management
Unit 9 Risk Treatment Plan
[Instructor Name]
[Date]
The veterinary group, its register and every cost and score are composite and illustrative; the laws named are real and described as of the course term, and the plan is educational, not legal advice.
Summary
Illinois fingerprint timeclocks, score 16. Reduce. Owner: vice president of operations. Year-one cost $39,200. Residual 8.
Negative production balances, score 12. Avoid. Owner: vice president of people operations. Year-one cost $22,000, plus about $140,000 a year in recoveries given up. Residual 3.
Non-competes for every employee, score 12. Avoid. Owner: general counsel. Year-one cost $26,600. Residual 2.
Inherited I-9 forms, score 12. Reduce. Owner: vice president of people operations. Year-one cost $25,073. Residual 4.
Screening software, score 12. Reduce and monitor, then accept the residual. Owner: vice president of people operations with the general counsel. Year-one cost $43,800. Residual 8.
Total year-one treatment: $156,673, or about $157,000.
How Responses Were Chosen
The plan follows the treatment step of the risk management standard, which asks the organization to select among options, weigh their costs against the benefits, and decide what residual risk it will accept (International Organization for Standardization, 2018). Transfer through insurance was considered first for every exposure and rejected for most, because employment practices policies commonly exclude wage and hour claims and biometric privacy claims, and fines for paperwork violations are generally not insurable. Accepting an exposure without treatment was rejected for all five because each scores above the committee's threshold.
1. Illinois Fingerprint Timeclocks
Response: reduce. The nine Illinois hospitals replace fingerprint units with badge clocks. Until the switch, each employee is asked for informed written consent, and a written retention and destruction policy is published, as the Illinois statute requires (Biometric Information Privacy Act, 2024). Fingerprint templates are destroyed once the badge clocks are live, and the vendor certifies destruction in writing.
Alternatives rejected. Keeping fingerprint clocks with consent alone would leave the company dependent on every new hire signing on the first day, and one missed signature restarts the exposure. Avoidance by removing clocks entirely is not practical for hourly staff.
Cost. Badge clocks at $2,800 per hospital for nine hospitals come to $25,200, and counsel's work on the consent form, the policy and the vendor's destruction certificate is estimated at $14,000, for $39,200.
Owner and frequency. The operations vice president owns the change, and HR confirms quarterly that no Illinois hospital collects biometric data.
Residual. Claims for past collection remain possible, so impact stays at 4 while likelihood falls to 2, for a residual of 8.
2. Negative Production Balances
Response: avoid. The company stops recovering production shortfalls from veterinarians' guaranteed salary. Exempt status depends on paying a predetermined salary that is not reduced because of the quantity or quality of work (29 C.F.R. § 541.602, 2024), and an actual practice of improper deductions can cost the exemption for everyone in the same job under the same managers (29 C.F.R. § 541.603, 2024). Shortfalls may still be carried forward and offset against future production pay above the salary, which does not touch the guarantee.
Alternatives rejected. Capping deductions would reduce the amount at stake but would still be a deduction from salary. Insurance is unavailable for wage claims.
Cost. A payroll lookback to identify every deduction taken in the past three years costs about $22,000. Refunds, if counsel advises them, are budgeted apart from treatment because they settle a past liability. Recoveries given up are about $140,000 a year.
Ending the deductions costs real money every year, but the alternative is staking the exempt status of every veterinarian on a practice the regulation forbids.
Owner and frequency. The vice president of people operations owns the change; payroll confirms monthly that no salary deduction tied to production has run.
Residual. Likelihood 1, impact 3, for a residual of 3.
3. Non-Competes
Response: avoid. Quillmere retires the non-compete for every role. Associate veterinarians keep a client non-solicitation term where state law allows it. Minnesota has barred new covenants of this kind since mid-2023 (Minn. Stat. § 181.988, 2024), and Illinois bars them for employees earning $75,000 or less (Illinois Freedom to Work Act, 2024), so a single company-wide rule is simpler than tracking which covenants still hold.
Alternatives rejected. Reducing the covenant's reach state by state would keep a patchwork of agreements, each of which needs monitoring. The protection the company actually needs, keeping clients when a veterinarian leaves, is served by non-solicitation.
Cost. Counsel's review of covenant law in the seven states, $9,800; drafting the new veterinarian terms and the release letters for other staff, $11,400; and HR time to issue and track notices, $5,400; for $26,600.
Owner and frequency. The general counsel owns the change and reviews state covenant law each year.
Residual. Likelihood 1, impact 2, for a residual of 2.
4. Inherited I-9 Forms
Response: reduce. The Unit 8 audit plan reviews all 1,140 forms from the acquired hospitals and a ten percent sample of the rest, corrects errors under written rules, and starts quarterly monitoring.
Alternatives rejected. Waiting for an inspection would leave uncorrected errors on file. Penalties cannot be transferred.
Cost. $25,073, as priced in the audit plan.
Owner and frequency. The vice president of people operations owns the audit, and quarterly monitoring follows.
Residual. Likelihood 2, impact 2, for a residual of 4.
5. Screening Software
Response: reduce and monitor, then accept the residual. The commute-distance feature is removed, an independent bias audit is commissioned, HR compares group pass rates every quarter, and each week a recruiter reads through a batch of applicants the tool turned down. The agencies treat a ratio below four-fifths as evidence of adverse impact (29 C.F.R. § 1607.4, 2024); if the ratio stays below 0.80 for two consecutive quarters, the tool is suspended.
Alternatives rejected. Avoidance by dropping the tool would return screening to 58 managers with no records, replacing a measured gap with an unmeasured one.
Cost. Independent audit $18,500, vendor reconfiguration $9,000, quarterly analysis $8,400 and weekly recruiter review $7,900, for $43,800.
Owner and frequency. The vice president of people operations owns the controls, with the general counsel reviewing each quarterly result.
Residual. Likelihood 2, impact 4, for a residual of 8, which the committee is asked to accept in writing.
Residual Scores Beside Original Scores
Timeclocks: 16 to 8. Negative balances: 12 to 3. Non-competes: 12 to 2. I-9 forms: 12 to 4. Screening software: 12 to 8.
References
Biometric Information Privacy Act, 740 ILCS 14 (2024).
29 C.F.R. § 541.602 (2024). https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/29/541.602
29 C.F.R. § 541.603 (2024). https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/29/541.603
29 C.F.R. § 1607.4 (2024). https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/29/1607.4
Illinois Freedom to Work Act, 820 ILCS 90 (2024).
International Organization for Standardization. (2018). Risk management: Guidelines (ISO Standard No. 31000:2018).
Minn. Stat. § 181.988 (2024). https://www.revisor.mn.gov/statutes/cite/181.988
GB541 Unit 9 instructions, in plain terms
GB541 Unit 9 asks you to write a treatment plan for the exposures your register placed above its threshold. Open with a summary of each exposure's response, owner, cost and residual score. Explain how responses were chosen, including why insurance or acceptance was or was not suitable. For each exposure, give the response, the alternatives you rejected and why, the owner by title, how often the control runs, a year-one cost with its basis, and the residual score you expect. Show residual scores beside original scores at the end. Keep it to about six pages, citing the laws and the risk framework in APA 7, and keep figures consistent with your earlier units.
How the GB 541 Unit 9 example is put together
The summary gives each exposure one line: timeclocks reduced to a residual of 8, negative balances avoided to 3, non-competes avoided to 2, I-9 forms reduced to 4 and screening reduced and monitored to 8, for $156,673. Transfer is set aside because employment policies commonly exclude wage and biometric claims. The timeclock section prices nine badge clocks and counsel's work. The production pay section relies on the salary basis rules, and the highlighted sentence weighs the forgone recoveries against the veterinarians' exemption. Non-competes give way to non-solicitation for $26,600. The I-9 cost comes from the Unit 8 plan, and screening adds an independent audit. A closing list compares scores.
Reading the GB541 Unit 9 grading rubric
Instructors grading a GB541 treatment plan look for responses that fit each exposure, not one approach applied to all five. A one-page summary earns points because leadership can compare responses at a glance. Explaining why insurance was rejected shows knowledge of employment coverage. Rejected alternatives for every exposure show the choice was weighed. Costs built from units, hours and rates show business discipline. Named owners and frequencies make the plan operational. Honest residuals, such as timeclock claims for past collection, show judgment. Consistency with the register and audit plan shows the course's work fits together. The salary basis and selection rules, two state statutes and ISO 31000 are cited.
Common GB541 Unit 9 mistakes, and how to avoid them
Many GB541 Unit 9 treatment plans choose "reduce" for every exposure and describe training as the control, without asking whether avoidance or acceptance would fit better. Others price treatments with round guesses that cannot be checked. A frequent gap is the residual: some risk usually remains after treatment, such as claims for conduct that has already happened, and the plan should say how much. Some writers forget the cost of giving something up, such as recoveries the company will no longer collect. Choose one response per exposure, explain rejected options, name an owner and frequency, build the cost, state the residual and compare it with the original. Keep every figure consistent with earlier units.
Get a GB541 Unit 9 example written to your instructions
Unit 9 builds on the register your section produced earlier, so attach that register or the exposures it ranked, along with the instructions and rubric. A treatment plan giving each exposure one response, an owner, a run cycle and a price arrives within 24-48h, the first custom sample at no charge. The paper above is an original model document written by our desk, not a submitted student paper and not an official Purdue University Global document.
More GB541 papers and MBA samples
- GB541 Unit 1: Discussion Board Post
- GB541 Unit 2: Legal Issue Analysis
- GB541 Unit 3: Risk Register
- GB541 Unit 4: Policy Review Memo
- GB541 Unit 5: Case Analysis
- GB541 Unit 6: Seminar Reflection
- GB541 Unit 7: Investigation Protocol
- GB541 Unit 8: Compliance Audit Plan
- GB541 Unit 10: Executive Risk Briefing
- GB534 Unit 9: Post-Purchase Analysis
- GB533 Unit 9: Pipeline Forecast
- GB532 Unit 9: Findings Interpretation
GB541 Unit 9 questions, answered
Should every exposure get a treatment?
Not necessarily. The register usually sets a threshold, and exposures below it are monitored rather than treated. This plan treats the five that scored twelve or higher and accepts the screening tool's residual after reducing it. A treatment plan that spends money on every row regardless of score undercuts the ranking the earlier unit worked to build.
How precise do the cost figures need to be?
Precise enough to compare responses, with the basis shown. The timeclock figure multiplies units by price and adds configuration and counsel review; the I-9 figure uses the audit hours from the earlier plan. Round numbers with stated assumptions are fine. What costs credit is a cost column left blank or filled with ranges too wide to decide anything.
What does residual risk mean in the plan?
The score an exposure is expected to carry after its treatment runs, measured on the register's scales. It is an estimate, and the plan says so. Some residuals stay high for reasons the treatment cannot touch, such as scans already collected, and naming those honestly is part of what separates a treatment plan from a purchase order.
Where can I find a free GB541 Unit 9 sample paper?
This page carries a full GB541 Unit 9 risk treatment plan for five employment exposures at a composite veterinary group, with responses, owners, costs, residual scores and APA 7 references.
Why avoid the production deductions instead of reducing them?
Any deduction from guaranteed salary for the quantity of work threatens the veterinarians' exempt status. Capping the deductions would still be a deduction, so the plan ends them and carries shortfalls only against future production pay.