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  • HR Specialist: Employment Law
  • The HR Weekly

Susan Lessack

Can workers collect unemployment during furlough?

06/22/2009

Q. We are planning to furlough employees temporarily. If we do rolling furloughs, can employees get unemployment comp to cover some of their time off?

How can we terminate a morale buster who is in ill health?

05/27/2009

Q. We have an employee who was out six months with a heart condition. He has had performance problems on and off since then. Now we face a morale issue because he constantly talks about his illness, and his co-workers feel he isn’t performing. If we terminate him, what is the best approach?

Are we allowed to cut full-time employees’ hours to meet budget requirements?

05/27/2009

Q. Can we legally reduce the hours of full-time employees in one of our divisions because it needs to cut overhead?

What are the rules on letting a former employee see her personnel file?

05/27/2009

Q. Are we required to let terminated employees come in and view their personnel files, or can we copy the information and send it via mail? One of our fired employees has hired an attorney and wants to see her file.

Can we do anything about an employee who files false harassment claims?

05/27/2009

Q. An employee of ours has filed several sexual harassment complaints. But when we have investigated, they have turned out to be false. Can we do something about her?

What should we do? We’re afraid our diabetic employee is a danger to herself and others

05/27/2009

Q. One of our employees, who has diabetes, is on the road a lot tending to patients in their homes. We’ve heard that she is having trouble seeing patient charts and difficulty pricking patients’ fingers for tests. What should we do?

How often can we request medical information from a chronically absent employee?

04/22/2009

Q. If an employee constantly calls in sick because of migraine headaches, how can we verify the real reason for the absences? Can we ask for information each time the employee is absent?

What are the privacy rules when searching an employee? We suspect theft

04/22/2009

Q. Can we open an employee’s personal space or belongings—such as her locker, purse or desk drawer—if we suspect she is stealing?

When an employee gets married, do we need new forms?

04/22/2009

Q. When employees get married, do we need new W-4s to show the new name? And do we need new I-9s?

Vacation, PTO and unexpected Saturday work: How should we pay?

04/22/2009

Q. We have a nonexempt salaried employee who normally works Monday through Friday. We pay her biweekly. She took a weeklong vacation, which normally would come out of her paid time off (PTO) bank. We had a customer emergency and called her into work on the Saturday of her vacation week. How should we pay her? …