10:05:12 So you're not able, nobody's able to see my screen right now then I suppose. Nope. Okay.
10:05:24 says Paul been asking if started screen sharing.
10:05:27 And then you're not able to see the actual presentation. Okay, great.
10:05:47 So I'm trying to share multiple
10:05:51 ways to see if I can get it done.
10:06:19 Does the meeting being recorded.
10:06:31 Tony you think I should fix this
10:06:41 No. Can I know one thing we can try Tony I've emailed you the presentation. Do you think you might be able to pull it up if I make you the host of the meeting.
10:06:51 Let me try.
10:07:21 formality couple minutes.
10:07:53 Okay. Give me to enable my. See, it says host disabled participants screen share. Yep, I mean.
10:08:16 Okay, maybe the house so you should be able to screen share now this will, this will stop Okay.
10:08:30 There we go.
10:08:32 Okay, okay.
10:08:35 So welcome well thank you. Sorry about the hiccup Hello everyone.
10:08:41 Welcome to part two of our webinar series making leave management and manageable so further ado, Paul bonus.
10:08:53 Terrific.
10:08:55 Well again thanks everybody.
10:08:57 Tony we can just move the slides and very quick housekeeping, to reduce background noise on these types of calls I find it helpful to keep everybody muted.
10:09:10 If possible, just again cut down a traffic people walking through the background we do want your questions, please feel free to use the chat feature to submit those happy to answer those questions as they come in or at the end of the presentation.
10:09:25 Our agenda today. We're obviously running slightly behind but what we want to do today is talk a little bit about employee leaves of absence. What are they, what are the obligations that they impose on employers.
10:09:40 What are some of the various laws that come into play with a leave of absence, we'll talk about a leaf policy that you should have in your employee handbook, we'll talk about job descriptions and the roles of those play in helping you to manage your leave
10:09:55 of absence. And then we'll talk about communicating with an employee, and what to do when a leave of absence expires. So there's a lot of content that we're going to cover today so let's dive right in and start off with what is leave right so if we talk
10:10:10 about a leave of absence.
10:10:21 Leave is any extended or intermittent excuse the absence of an employee so the word excuse they're very important. It is unexcused apps, they have a reason for being out, that is typically protected by law.
10:10:29 So maybe government, something that's mandated by the government. It may be something that is at the discretion of the employer, but it is an absence for an extended period where you say yes we are giving you this time off when an employee is on a leave
10:10:44 of absence, there's a general expectation that they're going to return in a similar or same role.
10:10:50 I tell everybody, you know, when an employee goes out on a leave of absence, the goal that you should have, is that we're going to bring this person back, and we're going to bring them back in their same goal.
10:11:01 Now obviously they're going to be challenges to that and I'll talk a little bit about those. But again, the idea is you want to bring somebody back because it's actually, you know, sometimes less than administrative headaches, bring an employee back then
10:11:15 to go out and find a new one, find somebody to fill that spot.
10:11:20 A lot of times, there are you know some liability factors in not bringing an employee back from an employment law perspective so you want to make sure you're bringing employees back the right way.
10:11:33 And obviously there are exceptions to when you may not want to bring an employee back and we'll talk about those yet.
10:11:40 So let's talk about what the employers duties are with a leave of absence.
10:11:45 First of all, I understand as an HR professional, a leave of absence, is one of the biggest headaches that my clients deal with.
10:11:53 Right, it's the notification it's what leave is applicable in each situation it's a question of whether or not we're going to have them returned to work.
10:12:04 Right. And that's not even including the fact that's all those administrative things you get tracked.
10:12:14 And you've still got to consider the fact that you have an employee who is not there to work. So you still have duties that need to be filled. You saw orders that need to be filled.
10:12:19 You have things that have to be done. And you don't have an employee so that's maybe the biggest headache, that employers face. So, what are those challenges.
10:12:29 If we take a look at. Again, the absence, we take a look at the fact that every instance of an employer leaving is going to be unique. Right. No to leave situations are going to be the same and that creates some pressure on an employer.
10:12:46 You may have somebody who takes a leave of absence because they're having a baby.
10:12:50 Right. And so they say, we're going to get. This is great. We're going to come back at a certain point, and we've got our plan in place.
10:12:59 Well maybe that changes, maybe you have somebody who goes out on a leave of absence, because they're battling something like cancer.
10:13:05 Right. And there are a lot of unknowns.
10:13:09 And so that's one of the things that make it challenging. Just scheduling productivity right, you've got a person out, you've got to get the work covered.
10:13:26 So do you bring in temporary help. Do you have other existing employees covered. These are the challenges that you need to be able to manage. As an employer, as a human resource professional as a supervisor or an executive within an organization.
10:13:38 Right. And then the challenge that we all want to make sure we avoid is that increased potential for perceived discrimination. Right. The last thing you want is for an employer who's been out on a leave of absence to say, I feel as though I have been
10:13:55 discriminated because of my need for a leave of absence.
10:13:58 So let's dive in and talk a little bit about some of the different types of leave that we have one that I think everybody has heard of but it's often misunderstood.
10:14:07 His Family and Medical Leave Act, FM LA.
10:14:11 Right. So FM LA is a lead from the federal government that covers a variety of different reasons that an employee would need to take off work.
10:14:23 So we'll talk in detail about what FM la workers compensation. This is another scenario where an employee may need to be out of work for an extended period of time, and that absence would be excused.
10:14:35 Same thing with disability.
10:14:37 Right. If an employee is sick or gets hurt off the job.
10:14:43 Right. They may be entitled to certain job protections through New York State disability.
10:14:49 We have paid family leave in New York State and there's some talk about extending some sort of paid family leave on the federal level right but paid family leave, is another time where an employee may need to take an extended time off.
10:15:04 And then there's discretionary that isn't always covered by the law. Right. And so, if you decide as an employer we're going to extend somebody an extended bereavement because they had a unique tragedy in their family, and we want to cover that
10:15:21 we sometimes have employees who say the employer, you know what, I've been planning the trip of a lifetime to South America. And I need to be gone for two to three weeks and would that be something I'm allowed to do and an employer may say, you know what,
10:15:38 yes we'll do that we'll let you take that vacation, it's not a busy time of year will let you take an extended period of time off.
10:15:47 Right. In order to do that, so there are times when the employer may grant somebody leave of absence, where there's not necessarily a covered reason for it.
10:15:56 When we look at the law but the employer may say from an employee relations perspective, I may want to grant this person that extended time off. So let's look at specifically what some of these different types of the are the first one we're going to tackle
10:16:10 is the Family and Medical Leave Act.
10:16:13 The first thing that I want to stress with everybody on this call is that it applies to employers with 50 or more employees in a 75 mile radius.
10:16:23 So, I often will be working with a client that has under 50 employees right a small business, and I'll be looking through their employee handbook and they'll have a family medical leave policy.
10:16:35 And I'll say, you know, this doesn't apply to you You do not have to follow this.
10:16:43 And the flip side is if you have a policy in place if you put something in your employee handbooks and communicate to your employees, whether or not you technically meet the qualifications, you have voluntarily offered to provide it to your employees.
10:16:55 So it's important as an employer that you know where you fall on that side of MLA, and whether or not you're obligated to offer it to employees.
10:17:06 So FM LA is not paid lead is an unpaid leave of absence of up to 12 weeks for an employee to care for an immediate family member, during a period of incapacity due to pregnancy prenatal care of childbirth bonding time following adoption to provide care
10:17:25 for somebody spouse, children, parents, again we're really kind of talking about immediate family.
10:17:31 They have a serious health condition.
10:17:33 The employees own serious health condition. And then there are certain qualifying military situations where if you have somebody who is either the spouse of somebody in the military or they maybe you're in, say, the National Guard and their unit gets
10:17:48 called up right there are certain qualifying circumstances under FM LA for that.
10:17:54 So let's talk about what is a serious health condition. Under the fly right so it's an illness and injury some kind of impairment, could be treatment for something that generally involves an overnight stay in a care facility.
10:18:10 It could involve continuing treatment from a health care provider. And so, chemotherapy is a good example of that, the sort of thing where you need to go into regular treatments, some people need dialysis right.
10:18:22 These are the types of things that may qualify somebody for FM LA.
10:18:29 It can also be too. If you have something where a child is prevented from engaging in their normal school activities, right, if you have a sick child who is unable to go to school.
10:18:43 FM la may provide certain coverage for you to get them through that situation.
10:18:49 Now, not every employee will qualify for FM LA.
10:18:54 Most will, but in order to qualify for FM LA.
10:18:58 You have to work for the company.
10:19:01 So, for at least 12 months, right, you have to be employed will come in for 12 months so you cannot have a new employee. Take FM LA.
10:19:12 Those 12 months, do not need to be consecutive so if you're a seasonal business, and you have somebody who has been with your organization, near for five years but it's only June July and August.
10:19:26 Right.
10:19:26 They may then of course qualify for FM LA. If you are in that space and 50 or more employees within that 75 mile radius.
10:19:36 They also have to work for at least at just over 1200 hours in the 12 months prior to the onset of leap.
10:19:45 Right.
10:19:45 The idea here is that you sort of cannot have a perpetually absent employee they need to be actually working for you before they're eligible to take the leave.
10:19:56 So what are your obligations and if you have an employee that meets those qualifications, you have an obligation number one to continue to pay that employee share have any benefits, so their medical insurance or create a way for the employee to pay their
10:20:11 share.
10:20:12 Right.
10:20:15 You cannot take away any seniority from somebody.
10:20:19 If somebody is on an FM la absence is job protected leave. So when they come back, you must reinstate them to the same or an equivalent position. So there's a little bit of flexibility here, but generally speaking, the equivalent position is one that
10:20:35 is nearly identical in terms of pay benefits and other conditions, and an employee cannot lose out on any sort of seniority or privileges that they've accrued or have been credited with prior to their leave of absence.
10:20:52 So that's FM La La is a kind of catch all for a lot of different conditions.
10:20:59 There's some paperwork that you can fill out and I'll get a little bit into some of the paperwork requirements as we get into the presentation, but let's turn now to paid family leave in New York State, because this is another area of the law that requires
10:21:16 the employer to provide job protected leaves of absence for similar conditions to FM LA.
10:21:24 There's not an exact alignment, but there are some very similar conditions that would qualify an employee for paid family leave.
10:21:33 So, again, things like a serious health condition for a child serious health condition for a member of the immediate family bonding with a new child. So if you have a baby If you adopt a baby.
10:21:46 Right. You have a period of time to bond with that trial, and again certain military situations, will also qualify.
10:21:57 So here's the big difference between New York paid family leave, and FM LA.
10:22:03 New York paid family leave, is paid employee gets compensated when they're on paid family leave, this is done through an insurance policy, it's usually the same insurance carrier as your New York State disability policy or an employer can choose to self
10:22:20 insure and I'm sure
10:22:24 some of our experts here at ch can talk to you about the wisdom of self insuring versus going with an organization like insurance, lot of organizations.
10:22:35 You want to go with the professionals on that.
10:22:38 But essentially, the income that the employee gets the idea of this is that they are funding it, they are funding it through a payroll deduction.
10:22:48 Right. So, for all of us in the book that are pay stubs since the New York State paid family leave lawns past.
10:22:54 You may see there is some amount of money deducted each pay period to cover your New York State paid family leave, this is something that we all pay into the system for because almost all of us are eligible benefit.
10:23:09 And so, who qualifies for paid family leave, again, almost every employee at any employee who works, 20 or more hours a week for 26 weeks, or if they're part time for 175 days, they are eligible to use paid family leave.
10:23:29 Here's the good news. If an employee changes employers, they must reestablish your electric bill.
10:23:35 Right, so a new employee, whether or not they've been somewhere else and they qualify for their family, they start over with every new employer, the clock starts over.
10:23:47 Who determines the eligibility, ultimately that's up to the insurance company, and it's the disability carrier, they will evaluate the claims of this take some pressure off the employer, as to whether or not the important qualifies for paid family
10:24:04 and the benefits of paint family began paid out, they change year to year they're sort of this sort of ramped up. So we're finally getting into the period where we're at 12 weeks of paid leave so that aligns with FM LA, the percentage of the salary that
10:24:24 the employee gets, they get 67% of their salary.
10:24:32 And that is 67% of what they call bit statewide average weekly wage.
10:24:38 So that's something that changes every year New York State takes a work they release these rates usually in September, August, September, to say what the weekly wage will be next year.
10:24:51 So, coming up for 2020, an employee is eligible for 67% up to that, 1500 $94, and 57 cents.
10:25:03 So those are the paint family benefits.
10:25:10 Just a couple quick question, or are those benefits taxable.
10:25:13 Yes main family benefits are.
10:25:19 So let's turn to another paid leave benefit that employees have here in New York, New York State disability. So New York State disability.
10:25:30 The big distinction between disability and paid family paid family leave, is for your immediate household members if you have somebody in your life. Again a baby.
10:25:41 If you have somebody that needs chemotherapy someone's going through dialysis someone's having surgery, that's paid family disability is for your own medical condition.
10:25:52 Right. So if you have a non work related injury if you get sick, away from work. This is New York State disability. If it's for somebody in your family, it's paid family leave.
10:26:06 So again, typically an employee becomes eligible for New York State disability after four weeks. Again, eligibility.
10:26:15 Does the person qualify for disability does a person qualify for benefits, that's determined by the insurance carrier right as the employer. That is not a decision, you have to be to make, you're not being asked to make that decision, what your role is
10:26:30 with both paid family in New York State disability.
10:26:33 If you suspect an employee may have a qualifying reason or the employee approaches you because they think they have a qualifying reason. Your job is essentially to provide them with an insurance application to get the benefit to claim the benefit, you
10:26:49 will have some paperwork to do on the employer side, but they're applying to the insurance carrier for New York State disability pays an employee 50% of their weekly wage, but only up to $170.
10:27:06 But it is up to 26 weeks. So again, more than double the time off available for both FM LA and paid family leave.
10:27:18 So, marker. Yeah, go ahead. I just got to make a comment, while that's that's the statutory minimum that could be offered that's just statutory weekly rate of some of the carriers do offer an enhanced disability rate and we know that we have some clients
10:27:34 that, you know, as, as an extra benefit to their employees they will actually increase that 172 like 340 or you know whatever whatever different amounts they can buy, and usually the difference in premium isn't all that much more, but some of the our
10:27:53 clients like it because it's an extra benefit to their employees.
10:27:58 Excellent. And yea, again, some of this is, you know, I tend to look at up for opportunities with a lot of these things so we talked about statutory obligations mandatory things right.
10:28:11 But as Tony just pointed out, you can take advantage of some of these mandates and say, Okay, well, we have to do this anyway. Why not turn it into an employee benefit.
10:28:20 Right. Why not tell our employees that, because we partnered with an agency like ch. We actually have, you know, a stronger offering when it comes to disability, then you might get from other employers, so it's an opportunity uses retention tool as well.
10:28:38 And then payment for New York State disability.
10:28:42 Jeremy begins on the eighth day after the disability.
10:28:46 And there is no coverage for partial disability.
10:28:53 Paul one quick point before we leave the screen for a lot of our viewers out there, statutory bbl is 50% of weekly wages to 170 obviously a lot of carriers it's very inexpensive to move that up to 300 or 360.
10:29:12 A, it's like pennies. So, you know, talk to your broker talk to your agent, those are those are simple ways to, to make things more attracted to the staff.
10:29:24 Absolutely.
10:29:29 So that is New York State disability. Let's talk a little bit now about a note that that covers injury or illness that are non work right. Somebody is out skiing.
10:29:43 Over the weekend, breaks their leg they need some time off. That's New York State disability. Let's talk a little bit about workers compensation.
10:29:50 Because workers compensation is there to provide coverage insurance coverage when an employee suffers from a job related illness or injury.
10:30:01 So, it operates a little bit differently then Disability Insurance eligibility and benefits are determined by the Workers Compensation Board, New York State.
10:30:14 Right, so there. When we say well it's yeah disability or paid family well it's, you know, up to this amount 67% of this flat amount it's up to $170 workers compensation is going to vary a lot more.
10:30:35 Just to chime in on the workers comp so it's actually two thirds of employees average weekly wage, going back 52 weeks from the date of accident.
10:30:44 They also use a maximum which is two thirds of the state average weekly wage.
10:30:50 Okay so, so then it would be approximately what the pig family is.
10:31:00 So, one of the things though, so New York State disability we say, okay, 26 weeks paid family leave, we say 12 weeks.
10:31:12 Tony for workers compensation claim How long can those go on.
10:31:16 So that So it used to be. And some of the old claims that used to be forever in perpetuity until they, you know, as long as they're classified as a permanent partial disability.
10:31:27 Right now the maximum is if you have a partial disability or permanent partial, it's up to 500 weeks of compensation. If you're permanently totaled. it would be a lifetime.
10:31:41 Regardless of which one of those pools you fell into as far as medical causally related medical treatment is for a person's lifetime, as long as the carrier's related to that injured.
10:31:53 Thanks. And so one of the reasons that I want to make that distinction bring that up is because now we're going to talk about the job protection.
10:32:02 Right. So when we say job protected leave. Right.
10:32:07 What does that mean what are you. How long are you obligated to hold the job right we just saw within the workers comp claim.
10:32:14 It can be potentially years, depending on what's been going out to how long you actually have to hold a job for somebody with some of the leave, we have statutory language in there.
10:32:28 Right, for family medical leave and paid family leave, they say, 12 weeks, you are obligated to provide 12 weeks of job protected.
10:32:40 But some lead is protected not necessarily in the law that set up the specific leave, but it's protected by other regulations and other laws.
10:32:50 Right. And so we have things like the Americans with Disabilities Act, the New York State human rights law that often will come into play when we're talking about a leave of absence.
10:33:04 So what you want to make sure you're doing is being very careful.
10:33:12 Before ending an employment relationship with somebody, because they're on a leave of absence. Right. This is when we say job protected I'll get calls from employers say hey I've held this job for so many days I don't know if this person's coming back
10:33:26 or not. I need to fill the job.
10:33:30 You've got to be very careful, you've got to follow steps so again. What is the reason we have job protected leave is because the goal is to return somebody to the position.
10:33:44 So let's talk a little bit about, you know, what are some of those outside forces that say, here's how long you need to hold the job. Let's start with the Americans with Disabilities Act.
10:33:54 So the ADA applies to employers with 15 or more employees, and it requires them to provide a reasonable accommodation to qualified employees with a disability, oftentimes, as you go through these cases of paid family disability what was causing those
10:34:12 conditions may qualify the person for disability protection.
10:34:18 may qualify the person for disability protection. Right. And so, an employer needs to provide those reasonable accommodations and reasonable accommodation could be holding the job open for a period of time, even if it's not specified in some other law.
10:34:32 Right, providing a reasonable accommodation when we talk about returning an employee to work. Can we change your work schedule. Can we change your work environment, little bit.
10:34:43 Can we change your duties. And what are the things that you can do so I'll give you an example.
10:34:49 We had a case where we had a client that had a grocery store retail type operation. And one of the reasonable accommodation requests that they received was that the person working the cash register be provided with a store so I didn't have to set up a
10:35:05 a that they could not be on their feet. So it's a very reasonable combination for an employer to say, Yep, we'll provide you a stool, and there's no reason why you can't necessarily be working sitting down, right, that is a reasonable accommodation for
10:35:20 an employer to make.
10:35:23 So an employer has an obligation to provide those unless to do so proves an undue hardship on the employer.
10:35:30 Right. And so what is an undue hardship on an employer.
10:35:34 It can fall into any number of different categories, again, to hold a job in perpetuity. That is a hardship on an employer, right, you have work that needs to be done.
10:35:45 You have to get somebody in there to do that work.
10:35:48 Right. that is an undue hardship.
10:35:53 If a person.
10:35:55 I had a case recently somebody in a warehouse environment.
10:35:59 They got hurt. They have some back issues. Well, the reason that the employer eventually after 20 weeks decided that we can no longer hold the job for you, is they kept communicating with this person their physician physician said the person couldn't
10:36:16 lift more than 25 pounds. What was a warehouse job that in the job description said employee must be able to lift 75 pounds, we've got to be able to move things around in the warehouse, they just did not qualify, any longer.
10:36:31 For the requirements of the jobs and that would be an example of an undue hardship, you can't put the person back in the warehouse job.
10:36:40 New York State human rights law.
10:36:43 So, similar conditions to the Americans with Disabilities Act.
10:36:48 So the American Disabilities Act applied to everybody with 15 or more employees, you may say well we're a small organization. We're not necessarily obliged to follow that.
10:37:01 Well, in New York State. The human rights law applies now effective February 2022 all employers and they used to be that employers under forwards and.
10:37:12 So, whether or not you're under 15 employer employees and you said yourself well the ADA doesn't apply to me, the New York State human rights law does apply and under the New York State human rights law, a disability, disability reasonable accommodation
10:37:27 is required.
10:37:29 Tony be can advance the slide that be great.
10:37:32 So yeah, essentially what they need is job restructuring and modified work schedules counters a reasonable accommodation, provided that those options do not impose again this word undue hardship on the business program or enterprise of the organization.
10:37:49 So under New York State human rights law. If you have an employee who may be disabled under the definition of the Division of Human Rights Law, you need to provide them with reasonable accommodations and that includes job protected leave of absence for
10:38:05 a certain amount of time to be reasonable.
10:38:08 So what should employ be doing.
10:38:11 The first thing every employer needs to be doing when it comes to leaves of absence. Put a policy in place, right.
10:38:19 If you have an employee handbook, you should have a policy for FM LA, again, if you're over that 50 employee number, you should have a policy for disability.
10:38:31 For paid family leave if you're in New York State. And for workers compensation. The Polish policies in your handbook should explain the eligibility criteria.
10:38:41 What are the benefits that are available. So, again, when we talk about paid family leave, there are benefits that are available. if we're talking about FM LA.
10:38:51 The benefit is not necessarily compensation The benefit is that you have some job protection while you're on your leave of absence.
10:39:00 You should have in there, what are the notification procedures. Right. So when we talk about a leave of absence, some features of a leave of absence, are going to be totally unpredictable.
10:39:11 Right. If you have an employee who is struck by a car.
10:39:18 And it breaks the pelvis obviously there's no predicting that, and they're now going to be out of work you need to figure out what to do now, and what to do next.
10:39:27 Sometimes they'll leave some absences or foreseeable, right, if somebody is going to have a scheduled surgery. If somebody is planning on having a baby or adopting a baby.
10:39:38 Right. These are things that, when the need for leave is foreseeable, you should have a notification procedure and policy that says an employee needs to come to us and request this leave of absence so that we can do some planning for it.
10:39:52 Right. You need to determine under what circumstances, will you allow an employer to use a crew time off.
10:40:00 So, if an employee is need for a leave of absence. Right.
10:40:07 qualifies them for paid family leave, there are some options that you have to allow them to supplement the paid family leave with a crew time off.
10:40:18 Maybe you have that weird situation where an employee says, Yeah, I need an extended bereavement.
10:40:25 Right. Okay. Well in that case as an employer, you may want to say, we're going to require you to use your accrued time off, and then after that, we'll be in unpaid leave of absence.
10:40:36 Right. So think about those considerations. And then what happens those other employee benefits. Who's going to pay for that person's health insurance, while they're out.
10:40:47 Who is going to get will get employed continue to accrue paid time off.
10:41:04 While they're out or not. These are things that as an employer, you need to think about and put into place, put in these policies into your employee hand.
10:41:04 Next thing you can do as an employer is to write a comprehensive job description for all of your employees. So job description is a tool that outlines the employees duties.
10:41:15 Right. It talks about the work environment that they're in talks about the physical and the mental requirements of the job.
10:41:25 Right. If you have a document that lists these things. This is going to help you. Number one prioritize coverage that employs apps, you can say, Okay, I know Bill is going to be out for a month and a half in that month and a half year or what his duties
10:41:41 are.
10:41:42 Do we need to bring somebody in temporarily can those duties be covered by other employees right so it's a great document, just to help you sort of organize your thoughts of what needs to be done during that employs absence.
10:41:54 It is also going to be the tool that you will use as the benchmark for bringing an employee back either to limited duty or return to full time work again, that's our goal want to bring somebody back to full time work.
10:42:09 And so it will tell you.
10:42:12 You know, when we talk about the physical and mental requirements of the job is the employer required to be on their feet all day is the employee required to lift a certain amount is the employee required to use their mental faculties for decision making.
10:42:26 Right. what does that work environment.
10:42:29 Are they in a warehouse are they in an office, what adjustments can you make, and it gives you as the employer more control over the situation right because now you know, This is what needs to happen.
10:42:43 For this person to come back successfully.
10:42:47 So what triggers an employee's need for a leave of absence, right.
10:42:52 So, we can all kind of think of those things right certainly a medical emergency certainly pregnancy adoption of a child, things like that. Right.
10:43:01 We know it, so sometimes it's obvious but sometimes it isn't. Sometimes there are clues. And so, what is the point where you become aware that the employee has a need.
10:43:13 Right. And it may not be you as the business owner may not be used the Human Resource Officer, it may be the employer supervisor or their co workers or something that comes up in conversation right so don't ignore the potential signs of something.
10:43:30 Don't assume a situation is going to resolve itself. So what are some of these trigger conversations that employees have that a manager or human resources may think, Hey this is a potential leave of absence situation.
10:43:46 So, you have the having a conversation over coffee somebody says, My partner and I are trying for a baby. Someone says, My mom's not doing well she may need to go in for surgery, someone's limping and they say, oh I twisted my knee getting out of the
10:44:01 truck. Yeah, it's really bugging me right. These are all triggers conversations, great discussion about a leave of absence.
10:44:10 So again, think about under each one of these scenarios. What might the employee be eligible for.
10:44:17 Right.
10:44:18 Well first of all, are they full time or part.
10:44:22 Do they qualify for paid family leave to the qualified for disability.
10:44:26 Right. How long did they work for you.
10:44:30 Do you suspect that they may be eligible for one of these programs or none of these programs.
10:44:36 Right, it's okay to refer somebody, your HR department to say, you know what, I don't know if you necessarily qualify for this but why don't you talk to HR because it sounds like if your mom is going to be out or, You know, for a few days.
10:44:53 I'm sorry to hear that. You might be eligible for paid family leave, right if john says hey got a driver back and forth to all of our appointments.
10:45:02 Okay, well, you may be eligible for a family so let's figure that out. Now, before something happens and john calls you last minute and says, I'm going to be out for two weeks.
10:45:13 I'm going to be out for three weeks, I need to take a month off to help my mom right have these conversations.
10:45:20 Think about.
10:45:22 Do any of these leaves of absence is overlap.
10:45:25 Right. Because, as you saw a lot of the fly stuff is applicable to paid family leave, right, or maybe it's workers compensation the employees own serious health concern or issue.
10:45:39 If an employee is having a baby.
10:45:42 Right.
10:45:44 They are eligible for disability. They're potentially eligible for paid family leave, and they're potentially eligible for Family Medical Leave Act job protection and says, three different things.
10:45:58 It says, three different things. If their doctor says, In the weeks leading up to the date of birth, their doctor says you know what I want you to be on bed rest. I'm taking you out and putting in disability, well for that period they would qualify for
10:46:11 disability and possible economic once they have the baby. Well, now they qualify for FM LA for bonding with the tribe.
10:46:23 Right, so do these things overlap. how much total time does the employee. Get off. Right.
10:46:30 Do they have 26 weeks. They have 12 weeks. Right, so certain times so New York state can say, yeah, an employee cannot have more than a combined total paid family leave and disability in the same here, right, there's a cap on that.
10:46:47 So what you want to do. Anytime you have these conversations with an employee and they say, yeah, I think this is happening. This is something that I want to make sure I take care of, have them complete a request.
10:47:00 Right, so their application forms for things like paid family leave New York State disability because it's an insurance policy pays for it so they apply at you fill out your employer.
10:47:16 Right.
10:47:16 Some information is going to be required from the employer.
10:47:18 But here's some steps that you can take as an employer. Right.
10:47:24 Have a document that is a leave of absence request.
10:47:30 Right have the employee start documenting some of this information, it'll help you determine what do they qualify for Okay, this is what they're asking for this is what I think they have available.
10:47:41 Have them complete that request.
10:47:43 Right. So now, let's start talking about how you respond to these requests, what do we do when we get a request from an employee. Right.
10:47:51 So if the need for leave is foreseeable again. Ask them to apply for it ahead of time, figure out who's going to be covering their work while they're out.
10:48:02 If the need for leave is not foreseeable right if somebody calls you up at 830 in the morning, and says, I can't come in because I had to take my child to the hospital and it's this type of emergency.
10:48:16 Right. Prioritize go to that job description, where are the things we have to cover today what are the things that we have to cover tomorrow. What do we have to have done by the end of the week.
10:48:26 Right. Who is responsible for covering the work, come up with your plan for how you're going to handle that employees, abs.
10:48:46 who may be out on a leave of absence begin documenting so establish a line of communication with that employee right away.
10:48:50 Right. Where are you going to send the documents were going to send the application.
10:48:56 Right. Do you have their cell phone, do you have their current mailing address. Do you have a personal email address that they can access.
10:49:06 Right.
10:49:07 I had an employer one time I said well how are you going to communicate with the employee so I will, will email them. So you emailing their office, they're working on it so yeah.
10:49:16 Do you have a laptop or are they, they're out on this new maps are they going to get it right, make sure you have updated contact information for employees, your employee may not be available to correspond with you.
10:49:30 Right, if they have any serious medical condition. They may not be in any kind of shape to write back. Do you have an emergency contact for that employee.
10:49:40 Is it a spouse sibling a parent, is it is there somebody that you can communicate with during the week of apps, right, because you're going to have information that you want to have the employee fill out, you're going to want to have information about,
10:49:57 when can the employee come back to work.
10:49:59 Right, so the whole game here is keep the ball in their court. When it comes to communication.
10:50:06 Right. Think of this as a tennis match, you hit the ball over the net, you're saying, here's the application. They send it back say here's the credit application, you hit it back say.
10:50:21 Great. When do you think you're going to be able to come back to work right. Keep in constant communication, keep track of the days that you send the communication out, especially if you include a request for a response, right, and then send yourself,
10:50:33 okay. When do I need to follow up.
10:50:35 Keep a calendar.
10:50:36 Right. It's so easy to do you have an employee goes out on a leave of absence.
10:50:43 You can print blank calendar templates, right, print one out, say, this is the day they went out and now I can see, okay, here's, you know, Joe's, yeah.
10:50:54 Next follow up, maybe it's 15 days away. maybe I say, I need you to have your doctor complete this returned to work for him. Okay well when are you going to follow up if you don't care for that document that lay all of that out so that you have it to
10:51:08 refer to throughout the process. One important thing here. Maintain a separate file for any medical information that you receive from the employees personnel file.
10:51:20 Right, medical information should not be kept in an employee's personnel file.
10:51:25 So now we get to the point where we say okay, we're ready to bring this person back. They've been out for six weeks.
10:51:33 They've been recovering we think we're ready for them to come back.
10:51:37 You can request medical verification, right, that an employee is able to do their job, this is we're having a job description is going to pay off for you.
10:51:46 Because too often I find an employee will say guy can't come back yet. Here's my doctor's note, the doctor's note just says the employee needs to be out for another six weeks.
10:51:57 You don't necessarily need to rely on that.
10:52:01 You can ask the employee to have their provider indicate whether or not you're able to return to their full time job. Can you return with some restrictions, can you return without restrictions, and you can attach the job description.
10:52:17 Right.
10:52:20 Could they return to another position. Right. What will the compensation benefits be.
10:52:25 Maybe you say to yourself, I can't bring you back. Yeah, to work in the warehouse, but I can have you sit there and sort of supervise the comings and goings at the desk.
10:52:36 Maybe I can use you in some other capacity.
10:52:39 Right. They say, Okay, well we can bring you back on restricted duty.
10:52:44 Okay, well that's a step that person says you know what they can do their job they can look the 50 pounds but they're going to get tired, they're going to get worn out so limiting them to 20 hours.
10:52:55 The person says you know what they can do their job they can look the 50 pounds but they're going to get tired, they're going to get worn out so limiting them to 20 hours. 20 hours a week that you no longer have to have somebody else cover. Right. The goal is to bring them back.
10:53:00 But what happens if you say to yourself, you know what, this has been going on the employees not been communicating back with me. I don't know where the status of this thing is, I need to move on in some organization, I need to move on to what happens
10:53:14 when it's time to end the employment relationship right because this is going to be very tricky in the sense that this is where those ADA and New York Division of Human rights protections wanted, you need to make sure as an employer, you have gone through
10:53:30 the process of accommodating this person, until it has gotten to the point where it is no longer, so we can engage with the employee.
10:53:40 Right. Try to keep that line of communication open. When do they exhaust their benefits. Again, this is another reason why having that calendar is handy, because you know great and four weeks.
10:53:50 Your PFL is up, so I'm going to be communicating with you and saying, your PFS was coming up in four weeks, what is your status for return to work.
10:53:59 or they failing to communicate with you.
10:54:03 Are they not responding.
10:54:04 Okay. What documentation you have that you've been sending out communications.
10:54:10 There are times when I tell an employer. Yep, send it as an email, send it as a text message. The other thing I want you to do send a letter in the mail.
10:54:18 Right. Get a delivery receipt for this send that documentation.
10:54:25 When are you no longer able to hold the job open due to a hardship. Can you demonstrate that. What is the business related reason that you can no longer hold the job as person think through these things and it should be more than just, you know, they
10:54:40 were not a great worker before. Yeah, I don't necessarily need them back. Right.
10:54:47 If you do that, you could be exposing yourself to some potential liability that they would come back with you at you with a claim.
10:54:56 And then the last thing you want to make sure you're doing there. Follow the best practice termination procedures. Anytime you terminate an employee in New York State.
10:55:05 You have to send them what we call a five day letter. So then five days of the date of termination. You need to send them a letter that communicates to them.
10:55:13 What is the date of their last paycheck. Sometimes I'll leave of absence that's not an issue because they've already there, they may not be getting paid but you need to confirm your last paycheck, was back in May.
10:55:25 Okay, you do that, $5, talk about any company benefits that are being cancelled.
10:55:32 Anything they need to do, what is the Cobra notification right if they want to continue benefits.
10:55:39 You need to put in there. Is there any equipment that they have that needs to be returned to the company, do they have a company laptop today have a company car.
10:55:47 How are you going to get those back, right. These are the types of things that you put into a five day letter. When you terminate somebody again if you're doing it this way.
10:55:56 Send it with a delivery. See, this will protect you, as an employer. Again, the potential liability with discrimination claim but even at a sort of more routine level.
10:56:09 You may not be obligated to pay unemployment on this person if they have not been following your procedures. If you let them go. They may say oh well I'm going to file for unemployment.
10:56:21 Well, they may not be eligible to collect. If they are not ready willing and able to work and you can demonstrate.
10:56:27 We have work available. We told them we want them to come back and we never heard back then that saves you some of the unemployment expense as well.
10:56:36 So I know we got started a little bit late I know we're running up on 11 o'clock. So, and I know covered a ton of materials, let me simply say, I'm going to call timeout right now.
10:56:48 We've got questions the chat feature, certainly open if you want to ask any questions.
10:56:57 If you want to unmute yourself and ask questions certainly happy to go through them. Those Now, the other thing I want to say is the relationship that I haven't ch insurance.
10:57:07 I am your dedicated Human Resources Rep. Right. This email address p business be at ch insurance.cc.
10:57:15 Yeah, I'm in the office here every week I'm helping ch insurance clients with their human resource needs. And so I encourage you, if you have a specific question that maybe is not appropriate, or you wouldn't want to ask on a group setting, send me an
10:57:31 email. Let's chat, let's figure out what the situation is, if you have job descriptions you'd like me to take a look at happen to look at that you have an employee handbook you want me to take a look at, please let me know.
10:57:43 This is what I'm here for.
10:57:45 I mean it was.
10:57:48 I appreciate that and you know that's one of the reasons we went in with this alliance with Paul and HR one because these all these things I was like, man, how do we run a business with everything that's going on.
10:58:01 Wow. Um, so, you know, we wanted to be a resource for clients and people that we know in the community, again at no charge. So, you know, we're going to do more of these seminars and webinars but Paul Thank you, Tony.
10:58:18 Because it does tie to, you know, managing managing risk management, on an insurance standpoint, everything Paul talked about, you know, whether you have an employment practices policy or you do not right there's insurance for some of this stuff.
10:58:33 When these procedures are tighter and policies are in place, you get better renewals. You get better financial programs with that policy.
10:58:46 But what even if you don't have these in place. Paul's helped our clients make you better to get those policies to get a better renewal and things of that nature because the application candidly is really everything you talked about Paul and now you had
10:59:20 Coben into it and the pandemic and, you know, we start getting into a whole different topic of industry questions with the insurance piece but you still can get employment practices liability DNO and things of that ties to so again if you need some help
10:59:22 on that, let any of our team members help you with that so Paul and Tony Thank you Let's have a great weekend weekend, are there any questions anyone would like to bring up to the group.
10:59:39 I don't see anything in the chat, but again, happy to take any questions and maybe a little bit more
10:59:48 personal maybe a little bit more confidential perfect Paul the last session is what next Thursday, we're talking on yeah next Thursday. So we've been trying to pick topics that we know are relevant.
11:00:03 I know we management is relevant here. Last week was rolling. Next week we're talking about I think one of the most confusing things for a lot of people and that's exempt versus non exempt and salary versus our, what do we mean by that, what are the requirements