How is managing leave under the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) like baseball? The team can be undone by rookie mistakes and unforced errors.
Many organizations have found out, to their dismay, that all-too-common mistakes by untrained HR and people managers handling medical leave can open the door to employee lawsuits. So, when it comes to the FMLA, don't let the team down by being the person who:
Fails to identify an employee's need for leave
At a minimum, maintain an absence notification policy that requires an employee to call into an actual person or to a call-in line to report their absence and need for leave—all within a certain period of time.
Even better, require two calls—one to report the absence generally to the manager, and another to an employer intake line or a third-party administrator handling calls on your behalf.
Make clear that the employee is expected to explain why they could not follow the call-in procedures on occasions when they do not follow them. This protects against an employee claiming in the termination meeting that the absence from three months ago actually was FMLA leave and not unexcused absence for which you are terminating them. If the employee does not follow these call-in requirements and does not identify an "unusual circumstance" as to why they could not follow your call-in procedure, the leave is not covered by the FMLA and is unexcused.
Also, include clear language in your FMLA and other leave policies about how you expect...
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