Federal Due Process: Notice, Reply, and Decision Course (Self-Paced)

Module 1: Federal ER Certification Orientation

• Distinguish employee relations from labor relations, equal employment opportunity (EEO), and suitability
• Route an incoming issue to the correct authority, forum, and clock
• Recognize when a single fact pattern belongs in more than one lane at once
• Trace a discipline case through its full lifecycle, from intake to review
• Identify who acts at each stage of the case and what each stage produces
• Recognize the two stages where agencies most often lose cases
• Rank the sources of federal HR authority in order of precedence
• Read a 5 U.S.C. and 5 C.F.R. citation and find the text it points to
• Resolve an apparent conflict between agency policy and regulation

Module 2: Due Process: Notice, Reply, and Decision

• Explain the constitutional basis for federal employee due process
• Determine whether an employee is covered by subchapter I, subchapter II, or neither
• Identify the coverage variations that most often trip up an entry-level specialist
• State the required contents of a notice of proposed suspension of 14 days or less
• Distinguish a charge from a specification and write each correctly
• Identify the defects that most often make a notice indefensible
• Schedule and conduct an oral reply that satisfies the employee's right to answer
• Document a reply so the record shows it was genuinely considered
• Handle extension requests, representation, and mitigation evidence correctly
• Write a decision that resolves each charge and addresses the reply
• Apply the ex parte rule and recognize when a communication becomes a due-process problem
• Distinguish a constitutional due-process violation from harmful procedural error from a curable mistake
• Draft a legally sufficient Notice of Proposed Suspension against a real case file