Family and Medical Leave

HR CHEATSHEET: When an employee texts you from an Ebola quarantine tent

October 29, 2014 | by Eric B. Meyer

Five minutes ago, after taking the obligatory selfies and between games of Candy Crush, one of your employees texted (because, calling in, as if!) from an Ebola quarantine tent to alert you that she will be out of work for 21 days, while under observation for Ebola.

As an employer, what are your obligations? What workplace laws are implicated?

And, of course, because half of you are thinking it, can you just fire her?

Because this post has nothing to do with clicks or SEO — nothing whatsoever — click through for the answers…

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You’d think emailing FMLA paperwork would be ok. Yeah, you’d think that.

October 20, 2014 | by Eric B. Meyer

Remember, over the Summer, when I blogged about how sending FMLA paperwork to an employee via first class mail is a big mistake.

Why? Because if the employee claims not to have received the paperwork, then you have no proof of delivery, and possible FMLA interference issues if the employee is somehow precluded from taking FMLA leave.

So, I offered three alternatives:

An orgasm on a treadmill explodes an employee’s FMLA claim

September 24, 2014 | by Eric B. Meyer

Yep, that’s what I said.

More on this after the jump…

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Here’s why you provide a list of essential job functions when approving FMLA

August 28, 2014 | by Eric B. Meyer

Trial is over!

I’m coming atcha live and direct from the bloggerdome with a sweet defense verdict in my pocket. Yup, yup!

[cue music]

And what do I come back to? A precedential Third Circuit opinion discussing an employee’s right to return to work from FMLA.

I’ll cover that for you after the jump…

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FMLA 101: Don’t make an employee work during leave. Just don’t.

August 11, 2014 | by Eric B. Meyer

Really. It’s a bad idea.

Like my youngest son using chopsticks and a fork at the same time to eat pho.

Ok, not that bad. But, definitely blogworthy.

More on this HR lesson after the jump…

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Here’s the wrong way to deliver FMLA notices to employees

August 6, 2014 | by Eric B. Meyer

Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.

But, if you send FMLA paperwork to an employee by first class mail, then you’re asking for trouble.

I’ll show you why after the jump…

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The importance of communication during FMLA leave

July 3, 2014 | by Eric B. Meyer

How many times has an employee provided you with an incomplete Family and Medical Leave Act certification? Oh, I don’t know, maybe a missing return date…

If the FMLA leave is foreseeable, then the employee must provide the employer with the anticipated timing and duration of the leave. However, where the FMLA leave is unforeseeable — think, car crash — then that information can wait if the employee herself doesn’t know her return date.

But that doesn’t mean you — yeah, you employer — should let it go.

What HR should know about same-sex marriage and the FMLA #SHRM14

June 23, 2014 | by Eric B. Meyer

Folks, I get the feeling you may be inundated with extra blog posts over the next few days.

That is, I’m punching this post out from the airport, as I await my flight to Orlando, where I’ll be attending the Gathering of the Juggalos 2014 SHRM Annual Conference and Expo.

Two speaking gigs for me and lot of other conference time to listen, learn, and blog.

#SHRM14: Let’s grab coffee (you’re buying)

June 19, 2014 | by Eric B. Meyer

And by coffee, I mean turkey legs and frozen blueberry-mango rum lemonade.

Whoa, whoa, whoa, slow down…

You see that badge over there? You know what I had to do to get that badge?
~~Buy the full version of Photoshop~~
~~Spike the Kool-Aid of everyone on the SHRM Annual Conference Speaker Selection Committee~~
I beat out thousands (trillions?) of other speaker submissions to be selected as a SHRM 2014 Annual Conference & Exposition speaker.

3d Cir: No FMLA interference where employee receives all leave requested

June 18, 2014 | by Eric B. Meyer

Now, before I get to the FMLA, let me talk about another recent decision from the New Jersey Supreme Court. On Monday, the high court ruled (here) that:

Claims asserted under the “improper quality of patient care” provision of New Jersey’s Conscientious Employee Protection Act “must be premised upon a reasonable belief that the employer has violated a law, rule, regulation, declaratory ruling adopted pursuant to law, or a professional code of ethics that governs the employer and differentiates between acceptable and unacceptable conduct in the employer’s delivery of patient care.”

A plaintiff asserting that his or her employer’s conduct is incompatible with a “clear mandate of public policy concerning the public health” must, at a minimum, identify authority that applies to the “activity, policy or practice” of the employer.