The FMLA provides protected leave for employees who meet the law’s eligibility requirements. That protection includes the right to reinstatement to the same or an equivalent position when the employee is ready to return to work. But that right has limits. Employers are entirely within their rights to continue any disciplinary action they began before the employee went out on leave.
HR Management
Strategic human resource management is the end product of success in conduction workplace investigations, vendor management, human capital management, and more.
Our human resource management articles can help you vastly improve your human resources planning, HR policies, and human resource training.
A bill before the Legislature proposes to abolish the state’s paid family leave and deposit funds now kept in the state’s Family Temporary Disability Leave Account into the unemployment compensation insurance fund.
As an HR professional, you know you can’t ignore legal documents. But what if a new secretary doesn’t know she should forward legal papers to HR, or the papers end up in the in-box of an absent manager? Missing deadlines in those legal documents can mean losing the lawsuit before it really begins.
When an employee assists in a co-worker’s EEOC case or lawsuit, employers can’t punish the employee who helped. That would be retaliation. If there’s a short gap between the assistance and the punishment, watch out for a retaliation lawsuit. That’s why HR should always review disciplinary actions with an eye toward making sure there’s no retaliation.
At some point in your HR career, you’ll run into a trainwreck of an employee with problems that just seem to escalate. It may start with a small injury and a workers’ comp claim. That can turn into a dispute over alleged harassment and retaliation. Eventually, she may even claim she has developed deep psychological scars ... If she says she can’t work and has a doctor who supports her, you may be able to use the medical assessment to your benefit.
The HR pros at Columbia, Md.-based database marketing company Merkle have a recruiting slogan: “It’s not rocket science: Treat your employees well and they’ll return the favor.” To that end, the 1,100-employee firm offers “dream grants” to employees, which pay for individuals or groups of colleagues to take an adventure.
If you want your organization’s employees to work more productively, pay more attention to them. During the economic crisis of 2009, the most effective business strategy turned out to be increased supervision and management of employees.
While 13% of employers cut employees’ pay between late 2008 and October 2009, about 29% of those planned to rescind those cuts in the following 12 months, says a recent survey by HR association WorldatWork. About 15% said the pay cuts were permanent.
Question: “I am the Director of Human Resources in a small (fewer than 20 employees) software company in California. Whenever the company fires an employee for either not performing to company standards or violating any of the company’s code of ethics, my boss informs everyone why the employee was terminated. Is this a lawsuit waiting to happen?” — JJ
Sometimes, the best lessons are learned from the worst examples. That’s often the case with HR management. When employers make big mistakes and have to pay for them in court, other employers with good practices—that maybe need just a little tweaking—can discover what not to do.
