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Keep staff vacation schedules away from public view

07/01/2005
With summer-vacation season here, you may be tracking employees’ comings and goings using schedules posted on a bulletin board or online. But not everyone thinks so highly of publicly posted …

Jury duty: How to manage leave requests and pay issues

07/01/2005
THE LAW. No one is immune from jury duty. Even Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer was called for duty
in his Massachusetts hometown. Al-though Breyer was dismissed from the pool, …

Cut costs by challenging requests for intermittent FMLA leave

06/01/2005

Employees are becoming well versed in the FMLA game, and you’re paying the price.
Proof: Unscheduled intermittent FMLA leave now accounts for a sizable portion of all FMLA leave, says …

Expect employees to use up their vacation time this year

06/01/2005
Unused vacation time is common. In 2004, the average U.S. employee forfeited three vacation days, up from two days in 2003, says an Expedia.com survey.
But the tide may be …

Deduct Vacation Leave if Sick-Leave Bank Is Empty

06/01/2005

Q. If an employee is out sick but has already used up all her sick-leave hours, can we legally subtract from her vacation time instead? —K.P., Michigan

Post vacation schedules only for employee viewing

06/01/2005
Issue: To assist in planning, organizations often post employee vacation schedules, especially during summer.
Risk: Some employees may protest, saying it’s an invasion of privacy that makes their house more …

Collect proof of FMLA medical leave the right way

06/01/2005

If you think employees are fudging their FMLA medical leave, how often can you request medical certification? The U.S. Labor Department recently gave employers added latitude to dig into suspicious FMLA claims …

Summer’s here: Time is right for safety lapses and fraud

06/01/2005
As temperatures rise, so do two additional risks: 1. Safety. Summer months are traditionally the worst months for on-the-job accidents. That’s because the heat can impair employees’ judgment and more employees …

‘Reasonable’ Maternity Leave Doesn’t Matter Under FMLA

05/01/2005

Q. Is there a law or reasonable standard regarding how many weeks maternity leave should be? And should we make that a written policy in our employee handbook? Even with FMLA, to which our employees are entitled, we thought maternity leave was either six or eight weeks, depending on type of delivery. —J.F., Pennsylvania

Make sure the employee is qualified before approving an FMLA request

04/01/2005
Take extra time to review an employee’s eligibility and certification for FMLA leave at the time of the request, not later.
As a new court ruling shows, employers who approve …