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FMLA

Must we grant FMLA leave for employee to provide care to her niece?

07/13/2012

Q. An employee has requested FMLA leave to care for her 5-year-old niece who is recovering from heart surgery. The employee’s sister and her daughter live with the employee. Is leave under these circumstances protected under the FMLA?

Afraid you miscalculated FMLA eligibility? Act immediately to correct your mistake

07/12/2012

The FMLA is difficult to administer, especially now that it has been amended to include additional time off in connection with military service. Plus, new FMLA regulations make more workers eligible for leave if they care for a child. Rest assured that if you promptly fix an innocent mistake when it’s brought to your attention, you won’t be automatically liable for FMLA interference.

Layoffs looming? Help workers find internal opportunities

07/05/2012

You never know which terminated employee will sue or for what. That’s why you should treat every layoff as a potential lawsuit. Defend yourself by doing all you can to help employees who may lose their jobs find other opportunities within the company.

Need to contact employee out on FMLA leave? Be sure to document reason for the call

07/05/2012

Employees on FMLA leave are entitled to be left alone. Super­visors shouldn’t send work home with the employee or call constantly to check up. That could be considered FMLA leave interference. That doesn’t mean, however, that you can’t get in touch with the em­­ployee about important and urgent matters or enforce your broader call-in policies.

How to handle vague FMLA certification

07/05/2012
Here’s good news for employers trying to manage FMLA leave and prevent abuse: If an employee’s FMLA certification form is incomplete or vague, you can deny leave as long as you gave him a chance to correct the deficiencies.

4 FMLA strategy tips: How to certify intermittent leave

07/03/2012
Managing FMLA intermittent leave can be vexing, but employers do have some tools to combat leave abuse. One of the most important is FMLA certification. Here are four tips on certifying FMLA intermittent leave requests:

Employee works despite FMLA leave? That’s not your fault–nor FMLA interference

07/03/2012

When employees need intermittent FMLA leave, they are entitled to take time off free from work responsibilities. Of course, that may leave some tasks undone. Some employees, especially those in management positions, may feel obliged to work additional hours, or may sometimes forgo taking leave. As long as there’s no employer pressure to get the work done, that extra work won’t support an FMLA-interference lawsuit.

Feel free to make routine shift changes–courts won’t consider that evidence of retaliation

07/03/2012

Generally, employees claiming they suffered retaliation after engaging in protected activity—such as complaining about discrimination or taking protected FMLA leave—must show that the retaliation would have dissuaded a reasonable employee from complaining or taking leave. The hypothetical reasonable employee standard isn’t very specific.

Policy calls for firing after leave is exhausted? Make sure you apply it consistently

06/25/2012
If you automatically discharge everyone who can’t return to work after exhausting all available leave, chances are a court won’t second-guess those terminations.

How to handle partial-day absences under FMLA

06/25/2012

Sometimes, an employee needs just a few hours of FMLA leave to make a doctor’s appointment or to drive a relative to treatment. What if the employee wants to take the whole day off? Does the FMLA re­­quire you to extend the extra time?