The DOL Issues New Employer Guide to FMLA and FMLA Poster
The Department of Labor has been busy pumping out new information for employers covered by the Family and Medical Leave Act and we’re here to pass it along.
First, the DOL released 75 pages of rollicking fun, The Employer’s Guide to The Family and Medical Leave Act. While the guide does not address many hypotheticals that often lead to employer headaches, it does do a nice job of explaining the administration of the FMLA from beginning to end, and follows a typical (aka, not complicated) leave process from the FMLA leave request through medical certification and return to work. It also contains a “Did You Know” section that summarizes and highlights some of the lesser-known provisions.
If you’re a visual person, it also contains easy-to-follow flow charts and illustrations (although to me those pale in comparison to the comic strip-esque fake phone conversations it threw in there). So, it is definitely worth having on hand as a basic resource and serves as a particularly good primer to employers who are now or who soon will be having to administer the FMLA for the first time.
Second, the DOL released a new FMLA poster for the workplace. If you’re an employer covered by the FMLA, be sure to get this poster up pronto if you don’t have one up already. For those that do already have a poster up, there is no need to replace it with this one unless you want to. The DOL didn’t make any significant informational changes. Rather, it basically reworked what was already there to be more reader friendly.
Be sure to check out these resources, as well as the rest of the information the DOL has on its site regarding the FMLA, which is fairly comprehensive. For more specific questions and issues, you know you’re always welcome to contact us.