Announce ee illness?

MrCreosote

We have an ee in the hospital with viral meningitis and possibly West Nile virus. She is in the hospital and will not be able to return to work for approximately 2 weeks. She came down with this on vacation in Jordan.
Traditionally, HR here has sent an e-mail to everyone announcing this. I think that it's a personal matter and HR has no right announcing it. I also feel pretty certain that anyone close to the ee knew about the illness before I did, anyway. What does your company do in such a situation?

lnelson

If the ee reports to a supervisor I would notify the supervisor that the ee will not be at work for approx. 2 weeks with no other details. It has nothing to do with their job other than he/she will not be there so that they can make schedule changes if needed.

My $.02 worth

sonny

Ditto, HR are should be shot if they are putting out personal, confidential medical information on a company wide email . .as I have stated before, I would be LIVID (screamed it this time Don, by the way, where are you??)

Parabeagle

Do not make an announcement. In this day and age, with the HIPAA privacy laws and such, I won't even announce if an employee has broken a fingernail.

CAL

Ditto to the above - not a good idea, IMHO.

Don D

As if you need yet another theory, here's another way to look at it. Assume the ee called and told you he/she was in the hospital or confined due to syphillis. you handle this the same way, for the same reasons. It's irrelevant and it's illegal to release the information plus it is not the responsibility or role of HR to post ee's on the health issues of other ee's.

scottorr

Hey Don, why not send out a get well card which announces the ee has syphillis? Maybe send them flowers? Sorry Don, you know I couldn't let it go. This time I agree with you.

HRH

We have an employee who is having surgery and is having her friend phone and e-mail us with updates. This is her second cancer surgery and we did the same thing the first time around. I have been asked to be the point person within the company to "get the word out." I'm thinking you are going to say that we shouldn't be doing this without her written permission even though she set up the information system herself.

Whatever

Even with the ee written permission, I would not involve HR in giving out any medical information. As an aside, quite often I know more about an ee's medical condition than anyone else in the company. It's would be too easy to make a mistake and accidently release prileged information.

jmpmo

I agree with all the other posts. We would send flowers as a company and just notify the supervisor they will be out.

njjel

It has been a long-time practice (since before my arrival) that the administration group sends out a notice when someone is ill, having surgery, had a baby, got married, graduated from college, etc. How do all of you handle these issues?

hrbanker

We announce new babies and name changes for the e-mail system (and with the EE's permission give the reason for the name change... Congrats to Susie Q. who will now be Susie M. due to her recent marriage...) We don't announce illnesses, accidents or vacations, however some employees will put those things into the company newsletter themselves.

Zanne

We announce babies with a special email and name changes in the company newsletter. We also send condolences if an employee wants to have a family member's death acknowledged on email.

Still - I'm a little uncomfortable with these things due to HIPAA but fear that we are losing our human touch.