Medical Leave for Small Businesses
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2 Posts
As as employer with under 50 employees, how should we handle a medical leave situation (i.e. caring for spouse with a serious health condition, the birth of a child etc...) since FMLA would not apply to us. Any assistance would be greatly appreciated!
Comments
First you need to look at what has been done in the past to make sure you are being consistent. If this has never come up then you want to make sure that whatever you do now, is what you want to do in the future, as you will be setting a precident. One big question is how long will he/she anticipate being out?
Does this person have leave (PTO, sick or vacation time)?
Is this a situation where the person still needs to work to maintain income for the family? If so, could you allow the person to work flexible hours or work from home (and see the results to make sure the work is getting done). If you answer yes, then you could help the person continue to receive some income while helping out the family member.
Even though you don't qualify for FMLA, does the company offer short and/or long term disability? If the reason is a birth of a child, most STD plans will give 6 (or possibly 8 weeks) paid leave at a % of normal salary (usually around 60% or so for most plans).
I have found that most smaller companies that don't have FMLA, ususally try to work with the employee in situations like this, especially if it is a really good employee that the company does not want to lose.
The person does have some accrued vacation time, and has been taking it intermittently to assist an ill family member. As a result, we are now in the process of formulating a teleworking policy to allow employees in such situations to be able to work from home in order to accommodate needs.
We do offer STD/LTD; however, in this particular case the employee is not the one that is sick; it is his spouse. We're hoping that by allowing him to flex his hours/work from home, this will help, and he will not have to drain his vacation time & will still remain productive.
Thanks for your input!