Question: I have a production employee who says that standing for eight hours a day is causing him pain. He doesn’t want to go on any type of leave and says he’d rather just suffer through it. We are covered by the federal Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA). What do I do?
Question: I just found out that an employee posted a hateful comment toward immigrants on her personal Facebook page. We’re afraid of the bad PR impact on our business. Can we fire her for violation of our policy against discrimination?
Read More…
Question: To avoid workplace injuries, we require all employees to be 100-percent healed without any medical restrictions before they return to work after an illness or injury. We think this is an important policy to protect employee safety, but recently heard it might be unlawful discrimination. Is it?
Read More…
Question: We have approximately 10 employees in one department performing the same job, with 6 working rotating shifts and the other 4 working only on the day shift. One of the employees assigned to the rotating shift brought in a doctor’s note saying he can only work on the day shift due to a medical condition. Do we have to grant his request?
Read More…
Question: Our harassment policy specifies how employees should report issues to the company. If no one formally reports inappropriate behavior, do we need to do anything about it? Also, can we discipline an employee for not following our reporting procedures?
Read More…
Question: We have a non-exempt employee who has a medically certified serious health condition that requires a 10-minute rest break every hour. Our current schedule allows one 10-minute rest break for every four hours worked, so most non-exempt employees only receive two rest breaks each shift and not the eight this employee requires. Do we have to pay the employee for all eight rest breaks?
Read More…
Question: We have a pregnant employee who just notified us she has lifting restrictions for the remainder of her pregnancy. Her current position requires consistently lifting 40 pounds, but she says she can’t lift more than 10 pounds. Can we put her on leave for the rest of her pregnancy?
Read More…Because deficient safety processes are the underlying causes of accidents, it is important to administer the most critical ones effectively. Here’s how employers can prioritize safety objectives when under a time crunch: Create a weighted scale for “prevention” and one for “compliance” (1-5 for effectiveness at “prevention” and 1-3 for effectiveness at “compliance,” where 1 is at the low end…
Read More…
Question: Our employee handbook states that all new employees will receive a $3,000 bonus on their three-year anniversary. Five employees will be eligible this year. Business is down and we really can’t afford this anymore. Do we have to pay them?
Read More…
Question: We have an anti-harassment policy and complaint process in our employee handbook. We also conduct annual training for employees. What else should we be doing to prevent workplace harassment?
Read More…