Human Resource Blog

Unemploymemt Entitlement

One of my supervisors has had numerous issues with attendance recently due to medical issues that have arisen.

Prior to this happening he had an incident with one of his employee’s, an employee that had numerous conduct issues in the past with other supervisors as well the one in question today. THe supervisor brought it to his current managers attention and no action was taken for several days and upon the supervisors return to work, he brought it up to the manager and even mentioned that he almost walked off the job because the misconduct so so severe and he was disappointed that no one in management had taken any action or tried to assist him with this individual. Immediately thereafter, the supervisor goes on a medical leave with return to work dates that kept getting extended. He was having a medical concern that he did not address for some time and it became rather severe and the doctor advised him that he needed some time to rest. The supervisor took 2 weeks off of rest and came back to work for 1 week and was working great for a week. Suddenly another medical issue arose and he had to take another medical leave as per his doctors recommendation. During his first leave we contacted him several times regarding work that needed to get done and we were asking him if there is work that he would be able to do, he said that the doctor advised him to rest but he would try his best. He got very little work done during this leave. During his second leave to which he has not yet returned to work, he has not replied to any work emails or anything of the sort nor has he returned any phone calls we have made to him.

Granted I understand that he may have some medical issues happening but it seems to me that he may be preparing to leave the company because in the past nothing of this sort has happened. He was always a high performing employee who was promoted several times quite rapidly, but just prior to these incidents he was having issues with completing his daily tasks and deliverables which were documented, however he did not have a lead for several months to give him the support that he needed to do his job. This person is salary.

In the state of Florida, what is the likelihood that he could receive unemployment benefits if he voluntarily resigns due to this issue that happened with another employee?

We will address all of your questions but first we have to say: It is appropriate for you to expect the employee to stay in touch while he is on leave to let you know when he can be expected back at work. But it is completely, totally inappropriate for you to expect him to do any work at all while on medical leave. It sort of defeats the purpose of taking medical leave if you are nagging him about working from home, does it not? In fact, if the employee does not have a doctors release to return to work, asking him to work may create liability for the company if he does not recover fully.

So we suspect this employee is not planning to quit. He is just avoiding you because your company seems to not understand the concept of *not working.* It is entirely appropriate that an employee should get very little done during his leave. In fact, he should get nothing at all done during his leave…that is the definition of leave. (If your company is large enough for FMLA, please check our archives for info on that federal law.)

We understand this employees frustration that no one in management backed him up about this employee — and it sounds like you do, too. But it is not appropriate for any employee to threaten to walk off the job. Frankly, if he is the type of employee who issues barely veiled threats to get his way, you are better off without him

Generally employees who quit are not able to collect unemployment. While unemployment is not 100% predictable, usually if a supervisor quits because his boss did not due exactly what he wanted, the supervisor is not able to collect unemployment — even if the supervisor was in the right.