Q. I was recently approached by one of our company’s board members and asked to act as the plan administrator for our health benefits plan. I am nervous about assuming formal responsibility for plan administration. Am I subject to personal liability for administering our company’s plan?

Q. We have an employee who is clearly disabled. The employee has a very difficult time walking and is unable to stand for extended periods of time.  While the employee has never complained or asked for any form of accommodation, it is clearly affecting both him and his performance. We want to help him, but we are afraid to approach him and suggest he needs help. What can we do? ...

Q. I heard that Google is being forced to hand over YouTube access logs to Viacom as evidence in a copyright suit. This seems like a major privacy issue. Our company provides free health information to our employees over the Internet. Our internal web site users have created employee profiles that include personal information such as their names and e-mail addresses. Could we be forced to hand over our user information if we ever became involved in litigation? ...

Q. We are a small “mom and pop” restaurant that promotes a family atmosphere. Recently, one of our waitresses got a tattoo on her forearm and an eyebrow piercing. We do not have a formal dress code, but generally we do not want our employees to display tattoos, and we prefer limiting visible piercings to two in each ear. Because we think the waitress’s appearance is inappropriate for our restaurant, we are considering implementing this policy through a written dress code that we will distribute to all employees. Is our planned dress code legal? ...

Q. We don’t allow smoking during the workday, even during lunch breaks. An employee complained to HR that this is discriminatory and mentioned that she may seek legal action. Is our company policy illegal? ...

Q. We request references from applicants’ former or current employers. Recently, an applicant (who was not hired) requested a copy of his former employer’s reference letter, which indicated that the applicant was difficult to work with and performed poorly. The letter was one of the factors considered when we decided not to hire him. Must we turn over the letter (or any other part of our file on the applicant)? ...

Q. How long should a company keep its basic employment records once an employee has been terminated? ...

Q. We are a small company that has to aggressively market ourselves to our customers in order to compete with larger suppliers. To protect our client base, our COO wants to require our sales force to sign a noncompete/
nonsolicitation agreement. If we want our salespeople to sign off on a noncompete agreement, do we have to give them anything in exchange, like a bonus? ...

Q. Our company is looking to revise and update its employee handbook. This will be the first update in several years. Is there anything specific that we should focus on to make sure that we are up-to-date? ...

Q. Some employees discovered that a co-worker has been secretly recording conversations with them and some supervisors. One of them brought it to our attention after he grew suspicious that the employee was digging for information about some employment decisions we had made. Several employees have complained about the invasion of their privacy. The company president’s first reaction was to have the employee arrested, but I’m not sure he broke any laws. Our policies prohibit general harassment, but do not specifically address clandestine recordings. Can we discipline this employee? Should we contact police? ...

Q. Our policy requires an employee out on FMLA leave to run any accrued vacation or sick time concurrently with FMLA leave until that time is used up. (At that point, the FMLA leave becomes unpaid.) We also have a short-term disability (STD) policy that kicks in after seven consecutive days and lasts up to eight weeks. A pregnant employee recently requested 10 weeks of FMLA leave, starting upon the birth of her child. She currently has 3½ weeks of accrued vacation time. Can we require her to use up all of her vacation time once she goes out on maternity leave, even though she is also receiving STD payments? ...

Q. We recently terminated an employee for inappropriate workplace behavior. About two weeks after his last day of work, I received a letter from him requesting a copy of his personnel file. He did not state why he wanted it (although I can guess), and I’d rather not give him possible ammunition to use against the company in a lawsuit. Are we required to provide terminated employees access to or copies of their personnel files? ...

Q. We are a small not-for-profit organization with eight full-time and 20 (give or take) part-time employees. One of our full-time employees is asking about maternity leave. We currently do not have a policy in place for maternity leave. What are our options? ...

Q. Can we require employees to use direct deposit? ...

Q. Can we require our employees to specifically request “Family and Medical Leave” or “FMLA leave” in order to trigger our duty to provide them certification forms? ...

Q. My company is involved in the biotech industry and regularly develops proprietary information. We currently are working with an executive search firm to find a replacement for a high-level marketing executive position. Management wants to manage the risk of disclosure of confidential information. How restrictive may the potential candidate’s noncompete agreement be, given the company’s special needs to protect trade secrets? ...

Q. One of our employees has a grandson who has just been called for duty in Afghanistan. She wants to take off the week before he ships out to attend a get-together in Orlando with him and other family members. She has no vacation time left, and this is a very busy season for our company. Do we have to let her go? ...

Indiana has joined a growing number of states that require midsize and larger employers to provide job-protected leave to eligible employees who have family members on active duty in the U.S. armed forces and the Indiana National Guard. The law is expected to have a significant impact on Indiana employers since more than 37,000 Indiana residents serve in the military or in National Guard units. Note, though, that the deployed family member doesn’t have to be an Indiana resident ...

Q. An employee has been out for the past few months on workers’ comp. During his recovery, we placed someone else in his position. His replacement has performed better than the injured employee, and we want to keep the replacement. Do we have to return the original employee to his job following his return from workers’ comp leave? —R.P. ...

Q. Our company recently terminated an employee for violating company policy. At the time of his termination, he had a company laptop, which he refuses to return. Can we withhold his final paycheck pending the return of the company equipment? Or, can we deduct the value of the equipment from his final paycheck? —S.F. ...

Q. I suspect one of the employees in our office is abusing his FMLA leave because he always seems to call off work at the end of the week or around holidays. What options are available to us to deny his suspicious leave requests? —E.L. ...