Employee Benefits

In a recent article on the subject of employee benefits, Alicia Ault Barnett analyzes the effects of passage of the Family and Medical Leave Act, cited by President Clinton as a victory in his domestic policy. The law was signed in 1993, and human resource professionals see it as an administrative nightmare. They refer to a provision that allows intermittent leave in increments as small as an our and even less as something that destroys productivity and employee morale.

The act requires employers with 50 or more workers to provide for up to 12 weeks of unpaid, job-protected leave so the employee can care for a newborn or adopted child, care for themselves if they have serious health needs or for those of a seriously ill parent, child, or spouse, and during leave health benefits must continue at the same contribution level. Definitions of terms in this act is vague, and while the seriousness of a health problem is supposed to be certified by a health care professional and while employees are supposed to request leave 30 days in advance (except in emergencies), in reality employees are asking to qualify after the fact and are taking leave without prior agreement.

The law does not require a written policy from employers, though it is valuable for an employer to create such a policy. There are areas of confusion which might be addressed in this manner, though other areas will remain confused because of the way the law is written. The government, however, sees the act as

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of intermittent leave is another that seems not to have been worked out with reference to the real world but only with reference to what sounded good and could get passed. Human resources professionals need to have a clear policy to follow, one that sets limits and parameters not only for their own behavior but for that of employees as well. The current law seems designed to benefit the employee and impose burdens on the employer without regard to the reality of the work situation. This is both burdensome and ineffective for both management and workers. The advice given is a good beginning, but it might be better if Congress addressed the issues it had ignored in the first place and defined its terms more clearly. Work Cited Barnett, Alicia Ault. "Fixing Dysfunctional Family Leave." Business and health (March 1997), 22-25. The issue of sexual harassment in the workplace continues to be a vital concern to employers. Sexual harassment and not racial discrimination is currently the fastest-growing employee complaint according to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). The number of complaints increased 150 percent between 1990 and 1996. Among the corporations that have recently become the targets of maj

Category: Government - E