2009 September | Talent Junction

Employee termination or firing - HR’s role is critical!

September 22nd, 2009 Gireesh Sharma

Termination or firing employees at work is a not-so-liked but mandatory process at business. All businesses big or small at time terminate or fire employee because of business compulsions. However, the recent downturn has accelerated the employee termination largely due to financial and performance problems.

Decision to fire an employee is never welcomed, however, there are some acceptable reasons for terminating an employee:

For poor performance at work or low productivity.

Being indisciplined or showing unethical behavior at work.

Not conforming to the company policy.

Above reasons are well accepted by other employees, business community and also by the legal framework of the country and states for growth of business.

Unfortunately, we also witness incidents of “unethical and unacceptable” terminations. These are neither acceptable by the communities nor by the legal framework. It is needless to mention that law has reprimanded such actions of the employers severely, whether they were intentional or unintentional.

It is unethical and legally unacceptable to terminate an employee -

On basis of sex, race, color, ethnicity;

On basis of medical disability;

On basis of religious faith;

On basis of pregnancy;

On base of age, etc.

The law says says that it is “illegal to discriminate in any aspect of employment, including hiring and firing”. Read more information on Unethical Discriminatory Practices.

Firing employees also exposes the organization to potential risks ranging from motivational to legal. Here are some of the common risks:
Read the rest of this entry »

Web-based HRIS helps in FMLA Compliance

September 1st, 2009 Gireesh Sharma

Introduction: This blog post mentions the benefits of using an HR Software (also called recordkeeping software) in maintaining compliance with FMLA, a law in United States about family and medical leaves. It is important for HR, CEO and CFO to know about FMLA law as employers in US have lost millions of dollars in FMLA violations.

The Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) is an act in United States that provides certain employees of an organization with up to 12 weeks of unpaid, job-protected leave per year. It also requires that employers maintain the group health benefits to the employees during the leave period. FMLA is designed to help employees balance their work and family responsibilities by allowing them to take reasonable unpaid leave for certain family and medical reasons.

More information on the act can be found at Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA) but broadly the act requires that covered employers must grant an eligible employee up to a total of 12 work-weeks of unpaid leave during any 12-month period for one or more of the following reasons:

for the birth and care of the newborn child of the employee;
for placement with the employee of a son or daughter for adoption or foster care;
to care for an immediate family member (spouse, child, or parent) with a serious health condition;
or to take medical leave when the employee is unable to work because of a serious health condition.

Additionally the final rule extends the coverage for eligible specified family members,

Up to 12 weeks of leave for certain qualifying exigencies arising out of a covered military member’s active duty status, or notification of an impending call or order to active duty status, in support of a contingency operation, and
Up to 26 weeks of leave in a single 12-month period to care for a covered service member recovering from a serious injury or illness incurred in the line of duty on active duty. Eligible employees are entitled to a combined total of up to 26 weeks of all types of FMLA leave during the single 12-month period.

The other general conditions that makes an employee eligible for FMLA are:

If they have worked for their employer for at least 12 months, and have worked for at least 1,250 hours over the previous 12 months,
and work at a location where at least 50 employees are employed by the employer within 75 miles.

There are several requirements to be fulfilled by the employee / employer for FMLA. For more information visit US Department of Labor website http://www.dol.gov/esa/whd/fmla/.
The biggest cause of worry for employers is that FMLA has long been a source of litigations.

Employers have lost millions of dollars in FMLA violations. Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in FMLA, HR Technology, HRMS (HRIS), Human Resources | 7 Comments »