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Apply good judgment to legal considerations

06/01/2006

Q. An employee left work on a Monday due to an illness. She called in sick Tuesday and Wednesday, but we heard nothing on Thursday or Friday. Our policy calls for termination if the employee doesn’t contact us within three days. We posted her job on Friday and decided to terminate her. On Monday, her fiancé called to tell us she was pregnant and had complications that led to a hospital visit. We got a note from her OB-GYN saying she’d been seen, but not indicating when she could return. What should we do to avoid any legal fall out? —K.A., New York

Must We Give Time Off for ‘Witness Duty’?

06/01/2006

Q. We have an employee who has been subpoenaed to appear as a witness in a criminal case. She obviously has no choice but to go. Are we required to pay her while she is off, or can we have her take vacation time or an unpaid leave of absence? —C.S., Pennsylvania

How Long to Tolerate a ‘Disappearing’ Employee?

05/01/2006

Q. We’re a small business with eight employees. One employee frequently takes off for six to eight weeks with medical problems. She’s done this each year for the past three years. It’s a huge burden because very few people have her training, so we can’t hire a temp. How long do we have to allow her to disappear for months at a time? —M.S., Ohio

FMLA users can shop around for favorable medical opinion

05/01/2006

When an employee shows you a medical certification that says she has a serious condition qualifying her for FMLA leave, you don’t have to blindly accept the doctor’s word. You can ask for a second opinion. But here’s what many employers don’t realize: Employees can do the same thing …

Dispelling 4 common myths about disability leave

04/01/2006

There once was a time when considering an employee’s request for disability leave was fairly straightforward. But no more. With passage of the ADA and FMLA, employers must now navigate a virtual maze of federal laws and regulations. And when an employee’s disability stems from a work-related accident, workers’ compensation issues must be taken into account …

Accruing sick leave during workers’ comp leave

04/01/2006

Q. One of our employees is out on workers’ comp. Our contract says “no sick time will be lost or deducted” while employees are out on workers’ comp. But now he wants to know if he continues to accrue sick time and holiday pay while not working. Does he? —J.S., Michigan

Medication may limit employees’ FMLA reinstatement rights

03/01/2006

What happens if an employee tries to return to work after FMLA leave but isn’t quite recovered? In that case, you can turn the employee away if he or she can’t perform the job’s essential functions. That scenario often plays out when the returning employee’s job involves operating machinery or driving and the person must take medication …

Can you deduct overtime from bank of FMLA hours?

03/01/2006

Q. Can an employer deduct or count overtime hours from an employee’s FMLA balance? Our employees work overtime only from October through December. During that time, they’re required to work 12-hour days, seven days a week. We have several employees on both continuous FMLA and intermittent leave, and we’d like to deduct the overtime hours they would have worked from their FMLA allotment. What do you think? —J.A., Nebraska

Fitness-for-Duty Letters Trigger Instant Reinstatement

03/01/2006

Must you allow an employee to return after FMLA leave if you don’t think she’s physically ready? She could injure herself if she returns. But if you block her return, you could face a failure-to-reinstate FMLA lawsuit. Begin the return-to-work process earlier to see if she still has the ability to perform the job’s essential functions …

Use-It-or-Lose-It Sick Leave Pushes Absence Costs Higher

02/01/2006

Employers’ costs for last-minute no-show employees continue to climb. A recent CCH survey found that the average per-employee cost of unscheduled absences rose to $660 per employee in 2005, up from $610 in 2004 …