FMLA Guidelines

The DOL's FMLA regu­­la­­tions provide employers with several options for calculating how much leave employees are entitled to at any given time. According to the regulations, employers are permitted to choose any one of the following methods for measuring the “12-month period” in which the 12 weeks of leave entitlement occurs.

The U.S. Department of Labor has released new updated FMLA certification and notification forms that won't expire for three more years. These new forms carry an expiration date of Feb. 28, 2015 in the upper right corner.  Employers can use these DOL forms directly in their organizations, or they can use the forms as models and create their own versions ...

In Shaffer v. American Medical Association, the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals reminded employers they cannot base a termination decision on an employee’s decision to take FMLA leave.  Here are some of the lessons the case can teach employers.

Q. We’ve heard that federal employees’ FMLA rights have recently expanded.  Can you tell us about this?

If you must cut staff, you naturally want to terminate the least productive workers and keep the most productive ones. You could make the decision on the basis of past performance evaluations. But what if there aren’t any?

Employees may think that by making a request for FMLA leave, they can stop their employer’s legitimate disciplinary actions. That’s not true. Employers that can clearly establish an independent reason for discipline seldom lose an FMLA retaliation case.

Ohio law allows individuals to sue for intentional infliction of emotional distress, including cases that arise from work-related incidents. Fortunately for ­employers, uncaring or insensitive incidents don’t qualify. The circumstances must be truly outrageous.

Employees who need time off for childbirth but who aren’t eligible for FMLA leave aren’t entitled to additional protection under Ohio law. You can terminate the employee if your leave policies don’t provide another way to take time off. But if the former employee is ready to return after childbirth, beware rejecting her if she tries to reapply for an open position.

Sometimes, you won’t find out about an employee’s mistakes until she’s not there to cover them up. If an employee went on vacation and you then discovered she was stealing, you wouldn’t hesitate to fire her, right? That shouldn’t change just because her absence was due to an illness.

Employers are technically allowed to terminate employees who don’t turn in their paperwork within 15 days of going on FMLA leave. But doing so under all circumstances may be a mistake, especially if the employee had a good reason for the delay.