FMLA leave for the grandparent of adopted child
pattimac
4 Posts
Hi to all - This is my first time with a question but I have been reading the "Forum" for several months and love it. I am a Vice President of a Flex & COBRA Administration Company in charge of our HR Dept. I started with our company 16 years ago as a Service Rep. in our group insurance brokerage business. We have since sold that department. Therefore, my background is in employee benefits.
I have a valued (not key) employee whose daughter and her husband will be adopting their first child in a month. Our employee (the grandma) wants to take a week off to help take care of her grandchild as well as to offer support and emotional comfort to the new parents. Our Company has an unwritten policy, for the department in which this employee is a supervisor, that no employee can take any PTO during the time she will need to be with her daughter as it is a very busy time of the year for our business.
In reading the FMLA regs it appears that her leave would not be a FML leave since the leave is for the birth or adoption of a son or daughter. It does not mention "for a grandchild".
Has anyone experienced this situation and, if so, did you grant the leave under FMLA?
I have a valued (not key) employee whose daughter and her husband will be adopting their first child in a month. Our employee (the grandma) wants to take a week off to help take care of her grandchild as well as to offer support and emotional comfort to the new parents. Our Company has an unwritten policy, for the department in which this employee is a supervisor, that no employee can take any PTO during the time she will need to be with her daughter as it is a very busy time of the year for our business.
In reading the FMLA regs it appears that her leave would not be a FML leave since the leave is for the birth or adoption of a son or daughter. It does not mention "for a grandchild".
Has anyone experienced this situation and, if so, did you grant the leave under FMLA?
Comments
Second, as the parent of two adopted children, I can assure you that at the time of the adoptions, we did not need emotional comfort (heck, it was the happiest time of our marriage) and we didn't need help to care for them (afterall, I was not recovering from childbirth).
That did not stop my family and my in-laws from stopping by practically every day after work and on weekends to dote over the grandchildren.
In the majority of the cases that we have worked with people when they've had special circumstances - birth, death, marriage, divorce, we have received payback tenfold in terms of willingness to help out when the company needs them along with goodwill and loyalty. Word of mouth about a good employer goes a long way to attracting other valued team members.
If her family lives close to home then would see if she could work a reduced schedule or take fewer days.
Is there work that this associate could do to make up for some of the time that they would be missing by working longer days the week before or the week after?