EMPLOYEE ADDRESS MYSTERY

Ethel

We have several employees who will not give us their home address. They only want us (HR) to have their post office boxes. Can we semand that they give us their home address (for emergencies) but continue to officially show PO boxes? We are a mfg. workplace and I hate not to have anyway to contact their family in case of an accident.

Whatever

[font size="1" color="#FF0000"]LAST EDITED ON 10-21-03 AT 10:54AM (CST)[/font][p]You should be asking all employees who they want contacted in case of an emergency and their phone number.

Ethel

You are right and we do, but we get PO box and "no phone #" can't call, etc. I gues what I really want to know is can we insist on physical address instead of just a mailing address.

Betty I_O

We have numerous employees whose address is a P.O. Box. All that we require is a way to contact them, and we have had no problem getting phone numbers for the employee or where family or a responsible person can be reached in an emergency. You also might want to do a search of previous Forum postings; this question was addressed a while back . . .

San Francisco

I agree. I don't see the relevance of knowing the home address. Prehaps, your employees should have an alternate emergency contact person and phone number in the event the first person is not available.

Elizabeth

mwild31

Hi Ethel - this was one of the first things I changed when I took this job over three years ago - on the new hire personnel sheet - it asked for emergency phone numbers & addresses - I immediately eliminated the address requirement (for emergency contacts). The reason? In an emergency, am I really going to drive over to the person's house and notify the contact? My answer is no.

Here's what I would do - it's not optional in my opinion to not list an emergency contact number & I require at least 2 & the best times to reach them. I do this for the simple reason is that I've been through an emergency situation and if I didn't have the numbers, the family would never have known their mom/wife was in the hosipital with a suspected heart attack. It's not a laughing matter or a point to even contend with - so don't let your employees dictate this very important information. (Also, I reassure everyone that the information is confidential & gets locked up with their personnel file - so the privacy issue is a non-issue.)

mushroomHR

In the event of an emergency you wouldn't be sending anyone a letter you would be calling so the need for an address in this case is moot. I would be more concerned with a telephone number for an emergency contact. If any of our employees don't give information for an emergency contact, I just don't have the information--I can't force them to give me a phone number. We're happy just to have an address; PO box or street address is all we need.

rad

Certain states require payroll deductions for local city or locality taxes. In those situations, you would need to have a real home address, otherwise the local taxes will be paid to the city where they hold the PO Box which may or may not be the same as the city in which they live.

Ethel

Well, I gather from the collective wisdom that without taxes being involved, we should just accept a PO box or whatever they want to provide -- it still make me a little nervous. I have a vision of an employee giving a PO box only because they are in a "work program" on parole for violence and they harm someone at our plant. Guess this is an overactive imagination. Thanks to all for all the good info, suggestions and questions that made me think this out.
Thanks. Have decided to do background checks on all new hires.

San Francisco

Ethel, just to try to relieve your mind about people with PO Boxes. I have one because the mailman maced my dog without provocation. In fact, he walked out of our yard to get his mace and returned. My poor dog just sat there wagging her tail as he approached and maced her. Anyway, I know, I know, poor mailpeople get mauled all the time by mean dogs, but it really irked me and I didn't want them in my yard anymore. It has worked out very well for us, they're happy, we're happy and my dog is happy.

Elizabeth

Sunny

I wouldn't worry too much about people with PO Boxes. Many of our employees have these because they live in areas with no "mail receptacles" at their homes or their mail delivery is unreliable, or they have had a problem with getting their mail taken from their boxes .... There are many legitimate reasons for having a PO Box.

System

I have a vision of an
>employee giving a PO box only because they are in a "work program" on
>parole for violence and they harm someone at our plant.

Ethel,

That's a different issue covered under background checks. Even without criminal background checks, you can reasonably eliminate that fear by doing good reference checks, which I'm sure you do.

We have several rural areas where people have to go to the post office and pick up mail from a PO Box.

HR in Okla

Interesting discussion. One reason I've seen for having a PO Box is to keep the process servers/collectors from finding you. Most of them just serve the papers at the work site. I have lived in very small towns where everyone had a PO Box. We have a number of employees who live in outlying areas and have them. A rural route number wouldn't be much help if you need to locate someone either.

I have been in an emergency situation where I had to contact a family member fast! This was an underage girl (17) with an electric shock. I had to find a parent fast. Fortunately, we have an emergency contact form and I reached her dad very quickly. She was on her way to the hospital by ambulance when I reached him. I met him at the hospital and stayed half the night, till we knew she was okay.

My nightmare is needing that home address to be able to deliver the worst kind of news...a death at work, for whatever reason.

Ethel

Since we are a mfg facility, we have had serious injuries and you are right, no way to contact family is horrible when you are under a time crunch. We do have an emergency contact form, but people fill it out and when the information changes (i.e. move, divorce, etc.), do not change the info on the form. We've also had illness emergencies at work over the years -- heart attacks, strokes, and several diabetic emergencies. So far we have been lucky in that when we could not locate a family member, the treatment administered at local hospital emergency room has not been contested. Ah well, in HR work, it is never dull and always, always new challenges.

cthr

I don't see how having a home address as opposed to a PO Box address would help you find a family member fast. You should have a phone number. We have a number of employees who have PO Boxes, who cares. As other posters have stated people have a variety of reasons for having one. When I was in college, I was stalked by someone I had gone to HS with, I am very careful of who I give my home address to. If my alma mater needs to contact me, they can do it by email.

I think to assume that people that have PO boxes are hiding from something is very un-HR like.

HR in Okla

I think everyone has acknowledged that there are very legitimate reasons for having a PO box vs. using your physical address. Your reason is certainly valid.

A phone number and emergency contact information of some kind is vital. The physical address is not important...unless you have a very serious injury or death and someone needs to be notified in person. If you don't have a physical address, you'd deal with it somehow.

I think it's definitely HR-appropriate to plan the way you would handle a serious situation in the most sensitive way. If you've never had to go tell someone's family on an icy night that their son was killed in a car accident, you might not understand. Been there, done that.

Ethel

Had decided to "live" with getting P.O. box numbers and had drifted into complaining that HR must have SOME way to contact family members. Many, many, times the info changes (i.e. telephone, marital status, etc.) and if you have a p.o. box # and an incorrect phone number -- you cannot contact the family in a prompt manner. Whereas, if you had a correct address and the wrong phone number, you could physically send someone out to contact the family.

Bottom line, after the great discussion we have had on the forum, we will accept P.O. Should an emergency arise, we will do the best we can.

Thanks to all who gave me their comments, wisdom and advice.

cthr

>
>I think it's definitely HR-appropriate to plan the way you would
>handle a serious situation in the most sensitive way. If you've never
>had to go tell someone's family on an icy night that their son was
>killed in a car accident, you might not understand. Been there, done
>that.


I agree that you should have a plan for dealing with emergencies, but assuming that employees who don't want to give a home address are hiding from process servers, etc, is not HR appropriate.

Even if you had a home address, unless the person lived within a few miles, you probably would not send another employee to their house to notify someone. Many of our employees commute 30 minutes to an hour to get to work, and we have 17 locations spread out around the state.

We ask for a primary emergency contact and a secondary contact with home and work numbers. That is the best you can do.

Why as an HR person were you responsible for telling someone that their son had been killed in a car accident? I would think that the police would be better eqipped to handle that type of notification.

cthr

>Since we are a mfg facility, we have had serious injuries and you are
>right, no way to contact family is horrible when you are under a time
>crunch. We do have an emergency contact form, but people fill it out
>and when the information changes (i.e. move, divorce, etc.), do not
>change the info on the form. We've also had illness emergencies at
>work over the years -- heart attacks, strokes, and several diabetic
>emergencies. So far we have been lucky in that when we could not
>locate a family member, the treatment administered at local hospital
>emergency room has not been contested. Ah well, in HR work, it is
>never dull and always, always new challenges.


Why would a family member contest treatment for an injury or illness, if you are a manufacturing facility, you most likely don't have underage people working for you. IF the patient is conscious, they would give consent, if they are unconscious, consent is implied. If we have someone who is ill or injured, we contact the EMTs and they make the call as to whether the person needs to be transported. We never contact the family before the EMTs unless the employee refuses treatment.

HR in Okla

My experience with notification of parents that their son had been killed was not work-related. He was my best friend's husband and a dear friend to me. My husband is a minister and we were asked by the family to tell his parents. I just cited that as an example of when you might need a physical address.

No, I don't think the HR person has to be the one to personally deliver news to a family, but even if the police or clergy is involved, a physical address would certainly be valuable.

HR in Okla

Why would a family member contest treatment for an injury? There are religious groups with beliefs that prohibit certain medical procedures. It could happen.

Whatever

We have an employee, who asked that it be put in his file and also notified his supervisor (both in writing)of his religious beliefs so that if there was an emergency, all medical personnel could be made aware of which procedures could not be administered.

Don D

That instruction belongs in his billfold, not his personnel file.

cthr

Even if the employees religious belief was not to be treated medically, it still would not come back to employer. As an employer, if an employee is injured or becomes ill at work and they are unconscious or other wise unable to speak for themselves, you should be requesting medical assistance.

Jehovah's Witnesses are no blood, not no medical treatment.

I believe that Christian Scientists are the only religion that does not seek medical treatment and again, as Don said that should be in their wallet, not their personnel file.

mwild31

"Whereas, if you had a correct address and the wrong phone number, you could physically send someone out to contact the family."

You're absolutely right in that case and it makes a strong argument for having both the phone number & the physical address. You know a 'but' is coming don't you x;-). BUT, I never let emergency contact numbers lapse - meaning, we either send out in the payrolls every two weeks a notice asking for any changes to the emergency contacts or we conduct an in person survey. Also, we don't have just one, as I outlined in my post, we require a minimum of two emergency contacts. It may sound like overkill - but it's happened to us - so we go a little over the top. If you feel strongly that you need to have physical addresses for emergencies contacts - you should - and you should not allow employees to tell you how to run your HR department.

Finally, don't decide to "live" with advice given on the forum my friend - do what you think is best given your own experience and the advice of others - find the balance between the two that you can wholeheartedly endorse!

Whatever

I agree that info belongs in wallet. However, this ee (and others) keeps his billfold in his locker while working. He, also, has a special bracelet (sort of like a medic alert bracelet). However, for safety reasons, he cannot wear it at work. Therefore, he asked to leave the instructions and we agreed.