Join me for my annual FMLA/ADA webinar, which comes to you, as always, free of charge. This year, due to overwhelming demand, we’re covering remote work as an ADA accommodation. When: Wednesday, December 11, 2024 (12:00 – 1:15 p.m. central time) Online registration: Click Here to register As employers increasingly require employees to return to ..read more

Meet Ray. Ray is to the FMLA as Patrick Mahomes is to football. Ray is an FMLA pro, having taken FMLA leave a total of 158 times over three years. No joke. F-M-L-A simply rolled off Ray’s tongue, enabling him to take leave on countless occasions. As the story goes, Ray started his latest FMLA ..read more

Beads of sweat formed on my forehead, and my eyes began tearing up. It was one month ago, and all it took was five minutes. I was seated among 35 of my Littler colleagues, all of us participating in a week-long Executive Leadership Program through Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management. Halfway through the week, we ..read more

The wheels are turning, aren’t they? This question is another arising out of a webinar I recently conducted with EEOC Legal Counsel Carol Miaskoff and Tracie DeFreitas (Job Accommodation Network) regarding the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (PWFA). A few weeks back, I addressed whether FMLA medical certification could be requested from an employee who seeks leave due to pregnancy limitations. Now, let’s talk breaks for lactation. And bottles. In our webinar, the following question was asked: We have an employee whose baby will not take a bottle. Does the PWFA require accom ..read more

For decades, employers have applied the usual FMLA rules for an employee who cannot work because of limitations due to pregnancy. When these limitations render a pregnant employee unable to work, the employer has always had the right to obtain medical certification to confirm the limitation and the employee’s need for leave from work. When the FMLA became law in 1993, there was no such thing as the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (PWFA), which as of last year requires employers to provide accommodations to individuals limited by pregnancy-related conditions (unless undue hardship exists). In it ..read more

This morning, the day after the Super Bowl, 16.1 million of your employees will call in “sick.” Over 6 million of these employees will face discipline for their call-in, according to UKG, which provides workforce management and human resource management services. I didn’t need this survey to remind me that employers face an employee shortage the day after the Super Bowl. Many of my clients bemoan the arrival of football’s annual spectacle, knowing that the excitement of the day leads to the dreaded hangover of Super Bowl Monday. Heck, one school district in Kentucky has even closed its doors ..read more

Do you, by chance, offer your employees “Paw-ternity” leave? More seriously, how about NICU leave? With the ever-increasing reality that the federal government will offer no lifeline to streamline the ever-growing list of states mandating employee paid leave, employers have decided to take the lead, leading to a new wave of creative leave benefits to attract and retain talent. Employers are on a quest to perfectly meld employee physical and mental health as well as financial wellness to offer benefits that lead to an emotionally, socially, and financially healthy workforce. This makes sense ..read more

After years of hosting FMLA parties, I invite you now to an ADA party! Seriously. A party where we spend nine hours together over three straight days discussing nothing but the A-D-A. Are you excited yet!?! Let me explain more. For years, many of you have attended my FMLA webinars and master class. In your feedback, your most common refrain (aside from “Ditch the singing!”): “When are you hosting an ADA master class?” You asked for it, and we have delivered! ADA Master Class In this interactive, three-day (nine-hour) training course, I will help you master the critica ..read more

Join me for my annual webinar in which I cover the key issues of the day. Unless you prefer to pay me, this webinar comes to you free of charge. When: Wednesday, December 13, 2023 (12:00 – 1:15 p.m. central time) Online registration: Click here This year, we’re talkin’ pregnancy accommodations. Managing employee accommodation requests is among the most difficult jobs for any HR professional and in-house counsel. The job is even more challenging now, as the recently enacted Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (PWFA) requires employers to provide reasonable accommodations due to an employee’s li ..read more

Halloween 2023 was a tough day in our house. Every year, the holiday approaches with a great deal of parental anxiety not because we fret over what costume our 9-year-old daughter will select for the day. Sheesh, that’s the easy part. The hard part? Waiting [hopelessly] for an invite from even one kid in her class to go trick-or-treating. Every year, we follow the same routine. In early October, we start with hope that this year will be different. Hope begins to fade in the latter part of the month, where it becomes clear that an invite just isn’t coming. Our daughter is extremely shy and, at ..read more