Paying employees who lost homes due to natural disaster

Tammy

Fires are ranging out of control in Arizona and many employees have lost their homes. They need time to re-group and decide what needs to be done next. Have you experienced this in your area and how do you pay employees who do not come to work due to natural disaster outcome? Do you pay them for a certain period of time, and if so, how long? Or do you use any other methods?

Don D

Although on a much smaller scale, we had ONE ee last December who lost his home in a tornado. He and his three boys managed to get under a couch and when it was all over, the couch and dryer were all that was left sitting on the slab. Anyway, I took him to the clinic we use and got him with a doctor I know personally. We "arranged" for the record to reflect (accurately) that the ee was severely emotionally affected and needed substantial time to regroup. That got him approved for FMLA where otherwise he would have lost his job due to absences under our attendance policy (Union contract - no way to deviate). Then we got the entire family connected with the Red Cross Counseling programs for such victims. This also got him covered for short term disability which kept a check coming. Our entire company had several cash and clothes drives and all in all we completely restocked a rental house for him plus collecting over $3000 cash for the family, plus we 'adopted' the kids as a Christmas project just as they got into a rental house. This doesn't really address the question of providing extended leave or paid time off as you wanted; however, this is just another example that when we set our minds to it, there are all sorts of creative ways to kick in and make things just a bit better for folks blindsided by misfortune.

System

x0:) May you have many more stars in your crown, Don D.

You're what I call an HR Hero!

Christy Reeder
Website Managing Editor
[url]www.HRhero.com[/url]

Tammy

Thank you very much for your reply, it has been very helpful

Gillian

Be careful how you treat non-exempt employees in comparison to exempt employees. The local chapter of SHRM in southern California surveyed the pay practices of organizations during the Northridge earthquake of a few years ago. It was appalling to find that the majority of organizations did not pay anything to non-exempt employees (legally OK, of course) when they didn't work yet paid exempt employees. While this is all legally correct, I think that it is terrible to let the group that needs help the most fend for themselves. This can have a significant morale impact and in a smaller community a company image that is not desirable.

Don D

You're right about equal treatment, of course, and perceptions. This particular situation involved an hourly-non-exempt worker; but could just as easily have been salaried-exempt. We never gave thought to perceptions (maybe should have), just did what we thought was the right thing to do. The TV station called and wanted to do a follow up story after he told them what we'd done and we refused that opportunity. Just didn't seem at the time like the time to toot our horn. We just recently also had a Vietnamese lady in one of our plants who asked excused permission to go back home for three weeks to see her mother who is ill. Totally out of the question with our union contract attendance policy and, although technically no doubt not a clearcut FMLA since the ee wasn't matter of fact required to care for the mother, I managed to relate to her that she needed to get a medical person in that country to complete our FMLA forms to bring back to me upon return. She brought me back some green cardboard like forms that appeared to be from somebody related to a medical profession in Viet Nam. We filed it all away as approved FMLA.

Rockie

Years ago when I worked for a bank, we had a monstrous hurricane that did terrible damage to not only the homes of employees, but to our faciity. The bank worked with employees because some had minor damage and still had water. Some had totally destroyed homes and had to be relocated somewhere. We paid all employees for a week and tried to help them get their lives back together. We were fortunate enough to have a couple of showers in the banking facility and employees were welcome to use these if they wished. The dress code, of course, was relaxed so that we could get people in to help serve our customers who were also in the same boat. Everyone was very understanding and did not take issue with who got what and if someone got more than another person.


Those employees who did not have much damage at home came to the bank and swept glass out of the parking lot and helped board up windows that were shattered.

This was a good example of people really caring about each other and we all got through it together and were better people for it.