Recall after lay off

goleksa

[font size="1" color="#FF0000"]LAST EDITED ON 12-04-03 AT 10:26AM (CST)[/font][br][br]On October 10, we hired a new employee, and due to lack of work, he was laid off on 11/10/03. On 12/01/03 we recalled him back to work due to other employees out on FMLA, or W/C. Since he only worked 3 weeks, are we obligated to use his original hire date for benefits (insurance/holiday pay, etc) or can we issue him a new hire date and base our insurance, etc. on the new date? (Note - we are currently going thru our first new union negotiations (yuck!) if that helps. My gut feeling is to use his original date of hire since he was out of work for 3 weeks, but other employees might question the upcoming holiday pay (10/20/03 would make him eligible for holiday pay - 12/01/03 would not).
Touchy situation with the union negotiations and since this is our first year having layoffs, we are not quite sure what to do - no HR Manger. Any help is appreciated!

Margaret Morford

What has your practice been in the past? If you don't have a past practice, what would you like to do? Most companies use as a rule of thumb that if someone is not gone more than 30 days, they will restore the employee's original hire date as an incentive for former employees (they want to return) to return.

Margaret Morford
theHRedge
615-371-8200
[email]mmorford@mleesmith.com[/email]
[url]http://www.thehredge.net[/url]

Don D

I notice you are in union negotiations without an HR Manager. That's a much larger problem for you than the question you pose. It's entirely up to the company to come up with a policy regarding reinstatement of seniority or restoration of original hire date. Once you get into a contract, you'll have less, if any, freedom to craft your own policy. I've seen quite a few policies that state if the person is reemployed within a year, they retain their original hire date minus the time they were gone, for benefits and seniority purposes. For the time being, I would not restore the date. I would show the hire date as the most recent one. That will give you more flexibility in your bargaining than you would have if you establish a practice now of picking up an earlier date. I recommend you start fresh with the recent hire date practice and work from that to refine and define what you determine to be best practice moving forward. You want to do what's best for the company, not the union and I think my recommendation does that for you. Get an ad in Sunday's paper for an HR Manager. Hurry.