Human Resource Blog

HR Advice

I previously asked you about short-term disability. Here are the details of the employee. Note, the employee was terminated and no longer works with the company.
Employee diagnosed with work related stress caused by supervisor on all short-term disabilities. The employee was on short term disability August 24, 2000 to February 4, 2001
The employee returned to work on February 4, 2001
The employee was on short-term disability, August 30, 2001 - August 27, 2001
The employee took child-care leave of absence August 28, 2002 - December 1, 2002
Returned to work on December 2, 2002 and diagnosed with chest pain
Vacation December 3, 2002 - January 5, 2003
On December 19, 2002 diagnosed with angina pectoris and took short term disability from December 20, 2002 to January 3, 2003
January 3, 2003 returned to work diagnosed with work related stress
long term disability from January 4, 2003 - subsequently terminated.

Outcome, employee filed EEOC, under stress from her supervisor, lost case because employee did not particularize her facts with her claim which EEOC adopted.

What should HR learn from this outcome and how does the outcome of the case impact HR administration?

First of all, we want to know the name of this company so we can go to work there!! That is one heck of a lot of leave! Unless we have missed something, the employee worked about 6 months in the approx. 2.4 years between August 24, 2000 and January 4, 2003.

We are not sure what claim the employee filed with EEOC. It is 100% lawful for a supervisor to cause stress in the workplace. Some would say, it is the supervisors job.

What should HR learn? Maybe a) it is essential to track leave and short term disability very carefully and b) employees do not appreciate it when the employer grants more leave than required by law. In thise case, the employee could have been terminated in any state due to excess leave. Instead, the employer did not terminate the employee and kept granting more leave. Showing a remarkable lack of gratitude, the employee filed an unfounded EEOC complaint against the employer.

Our recommendation would be that this employer establish a new short term disability policy that limits the amount of unpaid (or paid) leave that an employee can take. Allowing an employee to rack up more than a year on unpaid leave, working just an occasional day here and there, is silly. Employers should comply with FMLA and state law regarding paid or unpaid leave. They may need to grant additional leave when the employee is disabled, under ADA. But as this example shows, even the most generous leave policies do not result in better relations between employer and employee.