This week, on April 25th the DOL published The Employer's Guide to the Family and Medical Leave Act
(pdf). This guide was “designed to
provide essential information about the FMLA, including information about
employers’ obligations under the law and the options available to employers in
administering leave under the FMLA.” This
is welcome guidance, as administration of the FMLA has given employers headaches
since its enactment in 1993. The
publication of this guide follows the 2012 publication of a guide by the DOL
for employees to assist individuals in pursuing their rights under the FMLA.
This new guide for employers follows along the chronological
path of a typical FMLA request and leave process, and answers some common
questions along the way. It also
contains graphics and charts, and links to the DOL’s more comprehensive FMLA
regulations and forms. This guide is an
improvement over the even more voluminous regulations implementing the FMLA;
however, it still is over 70 pages and does not answer all the questions that
employers are bound to encounter administering this complicated law.
For those employers who do not have the time (or patience)
to read either the DOL regulations or this new guide, there is Wessels
Sherman’s one-of-a-kind phone consultation program! Our phone clients regard this service as the perfect
resource for help with compliance with the nuances of complicated laws such as
FMLA, ADA, or any number of the troubling employment law issues that can arise
almost on a daily basis in the workplace.
For more information on our unique and valuable phone program, contact our office at (952) 746-1700.
