The Essential Guide to Family & Medical Leave

206 | the essential guide to family and medical leave
Common Mistakes Regarding Managing Leave
—And How to Avoid Them
Mistake 1: Requiring employees to give more notice than the FMLA requires.
Avoid This Mistake By:
• Not requiring an employee to give more notice than is practicable under
the circumstances.
• Delaying the start of an employee’s leave only if you have the right—and
a good reason—to do so. If the employee could have given 30 days’
notice, delaying the employee’s leave won’t harm the employee, and your
company really needs the employee at work in the next 30 days, consider
asserting your rights.
• Applying company policies only if they don’t conflict with the FMLA,
especially for using sick and vacation leave. For example, you cannot
require an employee to follow your usual advance notice requirements if
the employee’s need for leave is unforeseeable. (See Chapter 7 for more
information.)
Mistake 2: Overloading coworkers when an employee takes FMLA leave.
Avoid This Mistake By:
• Planning ahead if you know an employee will need leave (to have a baby,
for example). Talk to the employee and coworkers ahead of time about
your plans for getting the work done.
• Cross-training your reports. It will be much easier for employees to cover
each other’s work if they already know how to do it.
• Getting extra help, if necessary. You might need to bring in a temp or
consultant to help you get the work done, especially when an employee
takes an extended leave.
• Taking on important tasks yourself. It doesn’t help your company to have
inexperienced folks handling major clients or projects. Make time in
your schedule to handle these key tasks.