Update on Discontinuing Leave

J9JC

In case some of you did not know, my company had let a person begin working from home in order to care for a child, while working , who has a medical condition. Last week I posted on here that we had decided that since she had been doing this for 13 1/2 weeks now and the company had decided this was no longer going to work due to the fact that we would have to similarly accommodate other employees for the same time period, and this was long enough. We denied her continued request to work from home and gave her 2 weeks to find alternate care for her son. She has decided to take California PFL, which is 6 weeks long. We are small Co. and do not qualify for other leave laws.

She has sent me a message stating she is taking PFL and I have replied we have acknowledged her leave. Now she is throwing a fit and wanting to know, in writing, the exact reason we cannot continue her leave.

I have two questions, should I give her anything in writing beyond what I have given her that says the company can no longer leave itself open for the liability, and the other question is, now that she has said she is taking leave, can she rescind it? I had given her till noon today as a deadline to let me know what she was doing and I have the one email saying she is going on leave.

System

I know nothing about PFL. That must be something peculiar to California. But I would not give her a reason for denying her previous extended leave request. Other than to say "The company has reviewed it's policy and has considered your request. We have opted not to allow an extended leave." (word it differently, of course). Can you run it by your legal department and get a quick response?

Don D

With FMLA you are required to state in writing why leave is denied. But, that isn't your situation so I agree with Miz Moll. Also be careful about setting deadlines which, under PFL, you probably don't have a right to set or enforce. I imagine the law in your state allows her quite a bit of flexibility. The employer is rarely the beneficiary of such a law.





**When we do for others what they should do for themselves, we disempower them.**

J9JC

California PFL is Paid Family Leave for a period of 6 weeks, for any employer in CA and job is not protected.

We don't have a legal dept. we are too small.

Ok, so I will not enforce any deadline on when she has to tell me, and just "assume" she is going to be on leave as of the 20th? I did ask her to send me the date she will be filling out on the papers as her first day of leave, so I guess we will just go off that when she sends it.

I had sent her the reason was that company "managment had decided the company cannot continue to make the accommodation you request due to increased risk and liability to the company." I also verbally explained that we had now set a precedence of letting anyone have a similar accomodation for a family member with a medical problem. She went on that her position was the only one that could work from home, not true , and in fact she was not in for a critical task last week and asked others to cover for her. This in itself is somewhat shaky as she is in QA and she had a non-QA employee sign off on a product that was sent to a customer. This is against our SOP's, for sure and against our quality process. I only found out about that today.

So have I given her enough or not?

Crout

Let me guess: does PFL means Persoanl Family Leave, or something like that? I swear, SHRM should just go ahead and offer a specialized curriculum and certificate for California. But hey, more jobs for Jersey is fine by me.

J9JC

You know in CA we have all kinds of laws to protect people! This one basically gives you 6 weeks of paid leave at 55% of your pay to care for a sick immediate family memeber, or bond with a new child. Many use it to add on to their 6-8 week pregnancey disability leave.

It has gotten ridiculous to try to be an employer here, we have laws to protect all kinds of "special" people! LOL!