Medical leave causes problems

8 January 2001 - A new survey funded by the SHRM foundation finds that employers frequently experience problems attempting to follow the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA). The law may have been in effect since 1993 but 'the implementation of the law continues to be rocky'.

The FMLA provides for up to 12 weeks of unpaid, job-protected leave for the birth or adoption of a new child, for an employee's own serious health condition or the serious health condition of a family member. It requires employers to continue health insurance coverage during the leave and makes certain record-keeping requirements mandatory. The leave entitlement is available to any employee who has worked at an organization for at least one year and worked at least 1,250 hours over the previous twelve months.

790 HR professionals responded to the survey. Their responses showed that organizations generally want to follow and support both the spirit and intent of the FMLA. But, in practice, 65 per cent of these professionals indicated that the organizations in which they worked made exceptions to leave policies required by the FMLA in order to give greater flexibility to employees than what the law requires.

As an example, they instance the 66 per cent of respondents who said that their organizations offered job-protected leave to employees who worked fewer than the 1,250 hours minimum stipulated in the Act. Also 63 per cent of these organizations allowed staff to take in order to attend a parent-teacher conference and the first day of school; 68 per cent of organizations permitted leave for routine dental or medical appointments with a child and similarly with an elderly parent (62 per cent) or a spouse (62 per cent).

SHRM President and CEO, Helen G. Drinan, SPHR said that:

"The fact that so many organizations provide more flexibility than is required under the law is evidence that employers want to be fair to employees. But, for many employers, complying with the FMLA has not gotten any easier since it took effect seven years ago. Employers are faced with obstacles to complying with the law, such as lack of ability to plan for work disruptions, difficulty managing intermittent use of leave, and determining what constitutes a serious health condition."

On average, it appears that 60 per cent of employees taking FMLA leave have not scheduled leave in advance. So managers cannot plan for the disruption in working - usually the burden falls on the other employees.

More than half (52 per cent) of the HR professionals said that they had granted FMLA leave requests they felt were not legitimate. And just over a third (34 per cent) had received complaints from other employees over the previous year about questionable FMLA leave-taking. 76 per cent of respondents reported that compliance would be easier if the Department of Labor permitted offers and tracking of FMLA leave in half-day increments instead of minutes.