In This Presentation:

- Effective and Compliant Policies

An attendance policy should establish the employer’s expectation that regular attendance is required for the success of the business and to ensure appropriate customer service, employee productivity and morale, and proper workload allocation.

- Americans with Disabilities Act, as amended in 2008:

What is it? An interactive process by which an employer determines its specific obligations under the ADA with respective to an individual.

- ADA Obligations and Employee Absences

Employers should publish a policy informing employees how to request a reasonable accommodation under the ADA (including to whom to submit the request) and outlining in general terms the process that will be used to gather information and determine how to respond to the request (i.e., the “interactive process”). The policy should also describe the requirements of confidentiality and “no-retaliation.”

- FMLA: Unpaid leave

Job Duties During Intermittent or Reduced Schedule Leave may transfer employees taking intermittent or reduced schedule leave, but may not require employees to perform work during the portion of their workday when they are on FMLA leave.

- FMLA: 3 Kinds of Notices Required by Employer

- Notice of Eligibility and Rights and Responsibilities:

Notice of Eligibility and Rights and Responsibilities must issue within five business days (absent extenuating circumstances) of an employee's request for FMLA leave or the employer learning through other means of the employee's need for leave that may be FMLA -qualifying.

- Designation Notice

Within 5 business days of receipt of sufficient information for employer to determine whether leave is FMLA qualifying, the employer has five business days(absent extenuating circumstances) to provide the employee with a notice stating that the leave (specifying the amount) has been or has not been designated as FMLA qualifying.

- Medical Certifications: Tools to Manage Absences

The employer can require that the certification be provided no sooner than within 15 days of the request.

- Fitness for Duty Certification

Employers may require employees who are on leave because of their own serious health condition to provide fitness-for-duty certification as a condition of reinstatement. That requirement must be uniformly applied and impose the same requirements on employees sharing the same occupation and same kind of serious health condition.

- Irregularities with FMLA paperwork

- Common Problems

- Absenteeism: The Challenges

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