• The HR Specialist - Print Newsletter
  • HR Specialist: Employment Law
  • The HR Weekly

Leave

Sabbaticals, paid health care still on at Maryland firm

03/29/2010

Despite the sluggish economy, the Annapolis, Md.-based IT firm CollabraSpace has continued to offer a paid, four-week sabbatical to any employee who reaches his or her five-year anniversary with the firm. And it still pays 100% of its 33 employees’ health and dental insurance premiums.

Returning from disability leave, can employee dictate the terms of his new job?

03/26/2010
Q. One of our employees has been out on disability leave for almost 16 months. He says he wants to return to work, but only if we give him a supervisory position without a lot of strenuous activity. We have no such position available. We’ve offered him other positions, but he’s refused them all. Can we legally terminate him?

You have personal liability under FMLA and ERISA

03/26/2010
Here’s food for thought: HR professionals and managers who terminate an employee for trying to get the benefits he is due under the FMLA or a company benefit plan are personally liable for the resulting harm.

Employee out on military leave: Must we pay him?

03/24/2010

Q. We have an employee who will soon go on temporary military duty and be gone for several weeks. Do we have to pay him at all during his absence, or does he receive military pay?

Catch fishy FMLA requests with the 3 R’s

03/22/2010

Employees have learned to play the FMLA game quite well in the 17 years since the law was passed. In this new case, an “attendance-challenged” employee was denied extra vacation leave for her wedding. So she submitted an FMLA leave request for those same dates. Hmmmm … smell fishy?

How should we calculate FMLA leave entitlement for employee whose schedule varies?

03/19/2010
Q. One of our employees works different hours each week—sometimes 30 hours a week, sometimes 40. She will be going on FMLA leave soon. We’re not sure how to determine how many hours of leave she would be entitled to take under the FMLA. Are all employees permitted to take 480 hours of leave?

Excuse disabled worker from strict attendance rules–but demand doctor’s note

03/19/2010
Employees with multiple medical problems may need to be off work at unpredictable times. That can be a problem if a no-fault attendance policy requires terminating an employee with too many absences. If you don’t want to fire an otherwise good worker, it’s perfectly reasonable to accommodate him by excusing him from the attendance policy—as long as he can provide a doctor’s note.

Insist on medical leave as accommodation if disabled worker can’t return to full duty

03/19/2010
Some disabled employees seem to believe they can get whatever accommodation they want. That’s not true. In reality, California’s Fair Employment and Housing Act gives employers great leeway to choose accommodations that suit their businesses. That can include telling the employee to take medical leave until she is well enough to return.

You don’t have to pay for family leave unless your employees accrue sick leave

03/19/2010
The California Supreme Court has ruled that employers that don’t have a formal sick-leave accrual policy don’t have to pay employees for leave they take to care for a family member. So-called “kin-care” benefits apply only if employees earn sick leave over the course of their employment.

Suspect sick leave abuse? Set strong policy to stamp it out–and allow legit FMLA leave

03/12/2010

Unplanned absences can disrupt even the best-run workplaces. Of course, you don’t want truly sick employees to come to work if they have some contagious illness. Nor do you want to discourage employees from taking legitimate FMLA leave. Your challenge as an employer: Craft and enforce an attendance policy that allows or even encourages legitimate sick leave use while discouraging abuse.