Q. If an employee exhausts his 12 weeks of FMLA and still isn’t able to return to work, should we terminate his employment immediately?
FMLA Guidelines
We’ll assist you in tracking and managing intermittent FMLA leave … fighting FMLA fraud and FMLA abuse … and managing FMLA in general.
Beyond mastering FMLA regulations on intermittent leave, we’ll share FMLA guidelines on how to curb FMLA abuse, and dramatically improve your overall FMLA compliance.
The Pregnancy Discrimination Act (PDA) protects employees from discrimination based on pregnancy and related medical conditions. It doesn’t, however, let new mothers take off work when child care arrangements fall through, as the following case shows.
Join The HR Specialist in celebrating the first-ever “HR Professionals Week,” a five-day tribute to all that human resources pros do to make American workplaces more effective and American businesses more successful. From Monday, March 1 through Friday, March 5, we're offering a full week’s worth of free resources and activities available to all, including open-access podcasts and white papers on the critical issues shaping the HR profession.
As we enter a new decade, HR must pay more attention than ever to employment law issues. Reason: new laws taking effect, increased agency enforcement, more lawsuits spurred by a poor economy and an activist Congress. Here are 10 key trends and how to respond:
HR professionals must make sure that supervisors hear this message loud and clear: Don’t make any assumptions about what a pregnant woman can or cannot do. Voicing such presumptions and taking action based on them virtually guarantees a pregnancy discrimination lawsuit.
Here’s a problem to warn supervisors and managers about: When an employee with a disability returns from FMLA leave, don’t assume she can’t do her job or will need more time off. If or when the time comes, then you can decide how to handle time off. Until then, assume all is well.
California law makes it illegal for employers to discriminate against employees who are hurt at work. For example, if an employer requires those hurt at work to use vacation time for medical appointments while other employees can take sick leave, that would be illegal discrimination.
Q. Our company employs a husband and his wife in different departments. Their daughter has been diagnosed with a serious medical condition that requires hospitalization for extended periods of time. The couple wants to know how much time they are entitled to under the FMLA to care for their child. Our company policy provides that spouses employed by the company can get only a combined total of 12 weeks to care for a sick child. Is that a correct application of the law, or does the FMLA prevent us from implementing such a policy?
On Nov. 23, the California Division of Labor Standards Enforcement issued an opinion letter stating that employers may deduct vacation and sick leave banks for exempt employees’ partial-day absences of fewer than four hours without risking their exempt status.
Employees sometimes assume that if their employer approves a request for disability leave, they must be disabled and are therefore entitled to reasonable accommodations when they return to work. That’s simply not the case. Many times, what’s called “disability leave” is really FMLA leave, based on the employee’s serious health condition. But those conditions are frequently temporary and wouldn’t qualify as a disability under the ADA.
