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

Tell me you’ve seen this one before. Your employee, Johnny, is one of your poor performers. Upon receiving his latest written warning, he requests a leave of absence due to anxiety from working in a hostile work environment. Apparently, Johnny’s boss was guilty of being too direct.  The next day, Johnny texts in a note from his physician indicating that he is being treated for “anxiety for work-induced stress” and “would be unable to return to work.” For good measure, Johnny later files a worker’s compensation claim because the anxiety is “work” induced. Ay de mi. With a raised eyebrow ov ..read more

Once your employee steps off U.S. soil, does the employee lose FMLA protection? It depends. Consider these two scenarios: In the first scenario, your employee requests FMLA to sit bedside with his mother, who suffering from terminal cancer. Mom is located in Mexico City, Mexico. In the second scenario, you assign the employee to work in your Edinburgh, Scotland office (~150 employees), where she reports to your international operations and receives work. Does FMLA apply to either of these scenarios? I take each one, in turn, below. First, the Law Let’s address the legalities up front. In one s ..read more

Today has arrived. Though several states beat Congress to the punch, as of today, employers are required under the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (PWFA) to provide reasonable accommodations to employees who are limited from working due to pregnancy and childbirth. I provide an overview of the PWFA below, but first, please join me for a free webinar to learn more about how to comply with the PWFA. On July 12, 2023 (1:00pm central), my friend, Seth Turner (Chief Strategy Officer at our client, AbsenceSoft), and I will host a downright riveting 60-minute webinar in which we will help you prepare f ..read more

Happy belated Father’s Day to all the dads and father-figures out there! On Father’s Day every year, dads in my church are invited to give the Father’s Day homily at Sunday Mass. This past weekend, I volunteered to offer the Father’s Day reflection. In a little league baseball-themed Father’s Day homily, I focused my reflection on the “rules.” As fathers, setting out the rules for our children seems our natural instinct: to bring order to the house, to lay the foundation for a good life, and perhaps like our fathers before us, to set discipline in order to succeed. All too often, we let the so ..read more

In the dark of night, those crazy kids over at the U.S. Department of Labor were busy at work publishing new FMLA regulations, FMLA opinion letters, a new FMLA poster. BREAKING NEWS: The USDOL publishes a new FMLA poster! Let me beat you to it: Be still my beating heart! What’s the posting requirement? As we know, covered employers under the FMLA have a general posting requirement, which requires them to post an FMLA poster in conspicuous locations where employees are employed and where it can be readily seen by employees and applicants for employment. FMLA-covered employers must post the post ..read more