Human Resource Blog

FMLA does not really work on an accrual system — it is all or nothing.

An employee must have worked for the employer for 12 months in the past 7 years, in order to qualify for FMLA. In addition, the employee must have worked 1,250 hours (or more) in the past 12 months. There are no exceptions.

An employee who has worked for the employer for 11.9 months does not qualify, even if they have worked much more than 1,250 hours. An employee who has worked for the employer more than 12 months, but has worked only 1,249 hours in the past 12 months, does not qualify for FMLA.

This is a simple question with a deceptively complex answer.

Under the federal FLSA or Fair Labor Standards Act, a salaried employee can be either exempt, or non-exempt. Exempt employees are paid the same salary every week, regardless of the quantity or quality of work performed. Exempt employees are never entitled to overtime, even if they work 100 or more hours per week.

A non-exempt employee is entitled to overtime when he or she works more than 40 hours in the week. In addition, the employee can be paid less during weeks in which he or she workers less than 40 hours.

Exempt or non-exempt status is determined by a) salary and b) the employees primary responsibilities. In order to be exempt, the employees salary must be at least $455 per week. The FLSA recognizes 5 classes of exempt employees: Outside Sales, Executives, Administrators, Computer Pros and Professionals.

Finally, there is no law that any employee must be treated as exempt. Even the CEO can be paid an hourly wage, if the employer prefers. When an employee is treated as non-exempt, they are non-exempt and are eligible for overtime.

Yes, the employee will qualify for FMLA to take her daughter to prenatal doctors appointments and no the employee will not qualify for time off to care for the baby, unless she is the babys legal guardian.

The FMLA permits an employee to take time off to provide physical and psychological care for a close family member with a serious health condition. Pregnancy and childbirth are always serious health conditions. However, the close family members are limited to a) spouse b) son or daughter under the age of 18 and c) parent. In this case, the employee can take time off to care for her daughter under 18, who has a serious health condition.

FMLA permits a parent to take time off to care for a baby, within the childs first year of life. However, that coverage does not apply to caring for a grandchild, regardless of the age of the mother. So once the baby is born, the employees entitlement to FMLA ends. The exception would be if the grandparent were the babys guardian.

There is extreme liability here for the employer. If the employee loses her baby, or her health suffers due to working, then you as the employer could be liable for that. This could be a multi-million-dollar lawsuit.

You should immediately stop this employee from working (even in the middle of a shift if necessary) and not permit her to return to work until she can provide a note from her doctor, releasing her to perform her usual duties.

An employer cannot routinely require a doctors release for every pregnant employee, especially early in the pregnancy. Most women are completely healthy and able to perform their normal duties early in the pregnancy. However, the employer can and should require a fitness for duty release from any employee when the employer has reason to suspect the employee is not fit for duty.

You should never allow an employee to work against doctors orders. For one thing, if the employee is injured or suffers complications, those become work-related injuries and you must pay the medical expenses under workers comp. This employee does not have to take care of herself and her baby — there is no law that requires that. However, you should not take on the liability of allowing her to work without her doctors permission.

Except for certain medical information, there is no requirement that HR keep anything confidential. An HR person is not the employees priest, or their lawyer.

We are not clear from your question exactly what type of information is being relayed here. It could be problems with a workprocessing program, or it could be problems with profanity in the workplace, or other problems. However, there is no law that requires that any of those be kept secret.

Some companies have the policy that they try to keep HR matters confidential whenever possible. However, often it is not possible. And other companies do not even have that policy. HR pros work for the employer — they are not hired by the employee. Therefore, many employers see it as appropriate for the HR department to share any and all information with supervisors.