What if....

KP68

...you had an employee on FMLA for his own health condition and was released to his regular schedule, but found out that two weeks after his release, his supervisor was not putting him on the schedule, even though the employee can and is more than willing to work.
The supervisor's reason for not scheduling him is because "he already had the schedule made out" but would do his best to get him some hours in October - particularly when others are on vacation.

On a scale of 1-10, how much of a problem do you see here??

Rockie

Probably 1000. Could be construed as retaliation for being on FMLA.

Whatever

The question is not how much of problem you have. It is obviously huge. The problem is with a supervisor who at the least is being uncooperative and at the most being revengeful. The employee has to be returned to schedule immediately. The excuse given by the supervisor is unacceptable. You should try to explain the law to the supervisor. If he won't cooperate, you have to either give a direct order or (if you are not in that position) take it higher. But this situation cannot be allowed to continue.

KP68

this is just what I figured. Unfortunately, this situation is personal, as it is my mother that is being denied her hours back after being released to her regular schedule.

I have advised that she get a copy of the work schedule, demonstrating that she is only on the schedule once between 9/13 - 9/30, when she has been released to her regular schedule.

Any other advice you want to share? Sorry for bringing a personal situation, but I found it very interesting (and blatantly retaliatory!) and thought I'd get your opinions as well.

Don D

I don't know. Let's think about this. Say, for example, this is a business which requires, or historically has had, scheduling to be done well in advance and the supervisor is simply doing what he's always done, making out a schedule for a month ahead. Then assume he says he intended all along to work her into the rotation as soon as the current scheduled moved a little forward and he would have worked her in had he known of her return in advance.

by the same token (a wooden nickel), also lets assume that this has historically been the practice and everybody had worked with that procedure for years. Along comes an FMLA situation which upsets the scheduling applecart and you suddenly have a person returning from FMLA treated more favorably than others.

Devil's advocate here, entirely. I'm also assuming in my scenarios that the supervisor did not have sufficient advance notice of her impending return to get her worked into the schedule.

Absent all this highly improbable rubbish, the company, through its supervisor, is violating the law and must be educated.

KP68

Having spent much time as the Devil's Advocate myself, my initial reaction was the same; that she just didn't give enough notice and the schedule had already been made out for the month. So my advice was to see what October brings and if the hours still aren't there, then they have a problem.

But.....I was also told that they were understaffed one day last week, when she was able to come in and work, but was not asked or offered the shift....coincidence?