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  • HR Specialist: Employment Law
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Susan Lessack

Is FMLA leave optional when employee has adequate sick leave to cover her absence?

07/24/2009

Q. We have an employee who is going on eight weeks’ leave for a qualifying serious health condition. She isn’t requesting to use FMLA leave because she has enough paid sick leave. Can employees choose not to use FMLA leave even though they qualify?

Help! I’m confused about comp time, flextime

07/24/2009

Q. Can you please clarify if and when we can offer comp time to our employees? What’s the difference between comp time and flextime?

Can an employee earn sick time while out on workers’ comp?

07/24/2009

Q. One of our employees is out on workers’ comp. Our contract says “no sick time will be lost or deducted” while employees are out on workers’ comp. But now he wants to know if he continues to accrue sick time and holiday pay while not working. Does he?

Are we liable for wages we didn’t pay while employee was waiting for drug test results?

07/24/2009

Q. We suspected an employee was using drugs, so we sent him to be tested. We told him he couldn’t work until the test came back in two days. The results were negative. Do we owe him wages for those two days?

How can we legally combat tardiness?

07/24/2009

Q. Some of our admin assistants are good employees, but they’re constantly late. What can we do to get them to come to work on time?

Can we cut the pay of maxed-out employees?

07/24/2009

Q. We have some employees who are earning the maximum salary for their job classifications. Can we cut their pay if we feel they’re overpaid?

Can we open employees’ ‘confidential’ mail?

07/17/2009

Q. Can we legally open all mail delivered to employees at the office? What if it is stamped “confidential,” can we still open it? This is getting to be a problem because our mailroom opens all mail automatically.

Can you ask applicants if they have relatives on staff?

07/17/2009

Q. On our applications, can we include a question that asks if applicants are related to any current employees?

Disability payments and the FMLA

07/17/2009

Q. Can we require an employee who is out on FMLA leave to use accrued paid time off if he or she is receiving disability payments?

Reducing salaries and hours: How to document?

07/17/2009

Q. We’ve reduced the salaries of our exempt employees and told them to work only 36 hours each week. Still, however, many of those employees continue to work 40 or more hours per week. Exempt employees feel uncomfortable documenting 36 hours, when, in actuality, they’ve worked many more hours than that. Should we ask exempt employees to document hours that are not necessarily true?