I work with a small, tight group. There are three or four of us working on a given day. If someone misses a day (rare), it impacts us significantly.
We just hired a new guy. He started three weeks ago and has called in sick three days already. This is probably more than the entire team has called in over the past year. He has FMLA protection.
Relevant: He came from a much larger group where absences had a much smaller impact on the day. I have an insider who clued me in that this has been a problem for…let’s call him Henry…for well over a year. Past behavior has included not only call-ins but no-call/no-shows.
I am not a manager, but I am the de facto leader of our group. My actual manager is overwhelmed and also brand new. I am also probably the only one who would confront him about his attendance.
How should I approach him, though? He is a good worker and learning the job quickly, so I wouldn’t want to lose him. I just want him to show up. Given the FMLA component of this, I’m not sure how I can come across without accusing him of lying.
Also, I plan on bringing the situation up with my manager first. I have a feeling that I will have his blessing to address this with Henry.
You’re right to say you should speak to your manager first.
Say, "We’ve got a problem. We can get the job done as long as we’re all here, but if anyone gets ill we start falling behind, or the rest of us have to work extra hours to cover it. We’ve all been pretty healthy so far so it’s not been a problem but with Henry’s FMLA situation it’s been happening more frequently lately.
So for the love of God stop trying to run this department with zero margin for error, mitigate the risk of people falling ill during a pandemic, and either loosen up some deadlines or hire the amount of workers you actually need to provide a viable service. Sometimes people get ill - it’s your job to plan for that."
That’s a spectacularly poor idea. You are relying on facts that you know you’re not aware of to prevent this situation from being accurately described as harassing your colleague based on his disability.
You know how lawyers on the internet always say “I’m not your lawyer, this is not legal advice?” I’m not your lawyer, but this is legal advice. Do not try to prevent your colleague from exercising their right to medical leave.
This. If he has FMLA, there is probably a reason he has FMLA. And you want to peer pressure him into not using it because your employers can’t hire appropriate amounts of folks to cover legal sick leave? What if you got covid and had to quarantine for a week? Would you want your coworkers to peer pressure you into showing up?
If you just hired him three weeks ago, how does he have FMLA protection? To qualify for FMLA, you must have worked for a qualifying employer for a minimum of 1,250 hours over 12 months prior to the start of taking leave.
If he’s got approval for FMLA there isn’t a lot you can do about him using it. Talk to your management about additional personnel. @Stanislaus, is right. You don’t really have enough people to run your area if there are any hiccups.
I’m thinking you need to take great care to avoid taking any retaliatory actions against an employee for exercising for taking leave under FMLA. You’re going to leave your employer vulnerable to a lawsuit.
The problem is not that your colleague has a right to medical leave. This is not what you need management to change, because you are right, they can’t change that, nor should they even try. What they can change is their system for assigning work to your team.
The problem is that management are running your team on such a shoe-string that there is simply no slack for anyone to be absent for any reason whatsoever. This is not how human beings work. Your management need to rebalance the relationship between amount of work, pace of work and available resource so that if someone takes a few days absence, it doesn’t prevent the production of agreed deliverables. Sensible allocation of tasks and resource is the very essence of management and they need to do better. I mean, what’s their plan if one of you quits? Hire someone with the right skills so quickly that there’s zero loss of function? That’s not a plan, it’s a dream. Businesses need to be able to flex when things don’t go perfectly - and that does not mean “Mean Mr Mustard will pull an allnighter and it’ll all be fine.”
Your team is under-resourced. This is a management problem. They need to fix it.
Is Henry politically well-connected with your management or customer? If so, tread carefully here. I have a technician who took 144 hours of sick time last year, with no FLMA. But he is… well-connected.
mmm, you have spectacularly misread the comment. The problem is not that management is powerless to prevent employees from taking legally protected absences. The problem is that management is chronically understaffing your department to the point where you are crippled by legally protected absences.
Believe me, I understand that 3 days off in 3 weeks is a lot, and Henry gives every appearance of being less than stellar in the reliability department. However, running a department on the assumption that nobody will call out sick ever should not be considered normal.
A friend works in HR for a big airplane company. She says there are 2 things HR will not touch, FMLA and new parent leave. She has issued corrective action memos to many, from lowly hourly to upper management because they attempted to prevent or suggest employees not use their legally protected leave. It affected my job at times but there was nothing I could do about it.
Yeah - to echo everyone else - you are fucked. Just do the best you can, and lobby for additional staff.
I haven’t really thought this through, but I wonder about the possibility of presenting this in terms of “work per employee hours.” Can basically figure in all manner of leave for team members - sick and vacation, in addition to FMLA. Say you have 5 team members. In a normal week, you would have 5x5x8=200 worker-hours available. If - for whatever reason - you averaged only 192 worker-hours as a team per week - you might use that to suggest team assignments/expectations ought to be adjusted.
But I would be VERY hesitant to do even THAT. Whatever YOU feel about FMLA and this individual’s use of it, questioning it would be a pretty predictable and quick way to earn yourself some serious grief.