HR manager Holly Thomas and her supervisors got tired of continually making decisions - which often got disputed by employees — about who was eligible for FMLA leave. Then she hit on an idea that made the process easier on everyone.

Administering FMLA leave is painful enough, but it’s worse when employees question decisions about who’s eligible and for what reasons.

Sure, the FMLA regs lay it all out, and in a lot of instances it’s pretty clear, but there are gray areas.

For instance: Are we really sure that Bob needs to stay home for two weeks to take care of his sick wife?

We wanted to avoid conflicts and stay within the law. We also wanted to make sure we were being fair to all employees.

New documentation
We found we could do that, at least in the case of employees who wanted time off to care for ill or injured family.

We set up a rule that those employees would have to obtain medical certification, just the same as if they were providing documentation for their own illness or injury - with one exception. The doctor’s documentation had to indicate that the sick family member needed someone to provide care pretty much full time.

Requiring documentation like that took the decision out of our hands and avoided any appearance of being arbitrary or showing favoritism to some employees.

Now our employees know the rule, and they know it’s applied consistently and fairly. And no one complains when we go by the rule.

(By Holly Thomas, Plumstead, PA)

Got your own best HR management idea? Send it to jgiuliano@pbp.com and we’ll consider it for publication in an upcoming edition of HR Morning.

Tags: documentation, FMLA