Central IL HR Group E-Letter JANUARY 2009 – HAPPY
NEW YEAR!
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A Message from the President
It is hard to believe we are starting a new year. This
past year has been a blur, but has been packed with so much and so many changes.
This New Year has a lot to offer and as HR professionals I believe this year
our positions will be more vital to the health of our respective organizations
than ever. With a new President in office we are likely to see much change in
In light of the economic crisis our Country is facing
right now many of our members may be dealing with layoffs this next year. CiHRG
will be giving members more opportunities to network this next year, be
watching to details on those events. In addition, CiHRG offers a
“Transition Membership” If you find yourself between positions we
will waive membership dues for a year. SHRM also offers the “Transition
Membership”. We want to be there for you when you need to network the
most. I hope that each of you have a happy, and prosperous New Year.
Tammy Hoggatt, SPHR
Human Resource Manager
Champaign Park District
Phone: 217.819.3823
Email: tammy.hoggatt@cparkdistrict.com
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RSVP For the January Meeting **Please note earlier RSVP
date and New Location (The Hilton!)
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
11:30am to 1:00pm
Hilton Garden Inn,
Golden Gopher Room (park in the lot off
PROGRAM and SPEAKER:
The Form I-9 Process
Cindy Guthrie,
Three Degrees of Change
RSVP: by noon on Monday,
January 5, to Deanna Wright at 217-344-2144 or email dwright@clark-lindsey.com
MENU: Cajun
Chicken Pasta, two vegetables, roll and dessert
Note: No-shows will be billed $12
for their meals. As a courtesy, please turn your cell phones off. Thank
you!
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Announcements
2009 Dues Renewal forms were sent out with November
newsletter. Don’t forget to renew your CiHRG membership for
2009.
You can also get your application form online: http://www.cihrg.org/application.htm
Contact Becky Krueger, Membership Chair,
at (217) 255-5014 or e-mail beckyk@flex-n-gate.com with
questions.
Workforce Readiness Committee Chair Needed:
CiHRG is looking for someone to chair the Workforce Readiness
committee:
The Workforce Readiness Chair serves as
an appointed member of the chapter Board of Directors and is responsible for
encouraging and coordinating chapter activities impacting the workforce;
serving as workforce readiness/development liaison to local schools, businesses
and the community; and collaborating with such entities to address local
workforce issues through education and partnerships
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Farewell to Provisional FMLA Leave Designation
By Allen Smith
The
Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) final regulations change the way paper will
flow for FMLA leave.
Employers
“never will have to provisionally designate” leave as FMLA once the
regulations take effect on Jan. 16, 2009, Sue Willman, SPHR, an attorney with
Spencer Fane Britt & Browne LLP in Kansas City, predicted in a SHRM webcast.
The
final U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) rule instead requires employers to provide
employees with more notice about their FMLA rights and responsibilities, not
just in the new poster (WH Publication 1420),
but also through a form
(Form WH-381) that describes employee rights and
responsibilities and informs each employee of his or her eligibility for FMLA
leave in response to a request for leave. So by the time an employer designates
leave as FMLA with the new designation form (Form WH-382), it already will have given the employee the
WH-381 informing the employee that he or she is eligible for FMLA leave,
Willman noted.
Notice
to employees about their FMLA rights is a “big theme” in the final
rule, she remarked. The DOL believes that employees are not adequately aware
about their FMLA rights, according to Willman, and that is why the final rule
places so much emphasis on the notice of employees’ rights and
responsibilities.
New Paper Flow
The
WH-381 must be provided within five business days after an employee’s
request for leave or within five business days of any information in the notice
changing. For example, the method of paying premiums may change if paid leave
becomes unpaid leave.
The
employee will respond to the notice by providing the appropriate medical
certification form—if the employer requires certification—then the
employer can use the designation form in one of several ways. Willman said that
the employer may use the designation form to either:
• Designate leave as FMLA;
• Tell the employee that it needs more
information;
• Say the employer wants a second or third
opinion; or
• Deny FMLA leave.
The
employer also can deny designating the leave as FMLA with a simple written
statement, rather than using the designation form.
For
each FMLA-qualifying reason within the employer’s designated 12-month
FMLA leave year, the employer must give written designation that leave
qualifies (or not) as FMLA leave within five business days after acquiring
enough information to determine if it qualifies, absent extenuating
circumstances, or at any later time as long as the employee is not harmed by
later notice. The employer usually will have “nothing to lose” if
it designates the leave as FMLA late, according to Willman, “because in
most cases the employee will not be harmed.”
It
is essential though for an employer to tell employees in the rights and
obligations notice if the employer will request medical certification or second
or third opinions if it wants more information or if it will require a
fitness-for-duty examination before an employee returns from FMLA leave.
Willman cautioned that if an employer doesn’t provide notice about a
fitness-for-duty examination in this notice, it can’t require a
fitness-for-duty examination before the employee returns.
Similarly,
if an employer is going to require that an employee use paid time off when on
FMLA, it has to notify the employee of this in the rights and responsibilities
notice. Willman explained that an employer may enforce its normal rules for the
use of vacation, sick days, paid time off and other paid-time-off benefits even
if they are less or more stringent than FMLA requirements. If an employee does
not comply with the employer’s normal rules, the employee still can take
FMLA leave, but without using paid-time-off benefits while on leave, unless the
employer waives its normal rules, which it would have to do in order to force
an employee to use the paid-time-off benefits.
Duty to Cooperate
Willman
cautioned that the final rule prohibits an employer from requiring an employee
to sign a Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act consent form to
get information.
So,
the employee has to make a choice. He or she has the duty to cooperate to get
to the employer information to show that a condition qualifies for FMLA leave,
including information from his or her health care provider. Or the employee can
refuse to provide the information and not get FMLA leave.
In
other words, the employee has a duty to cooperate. Said Willman,
“It’s basically the same” rule as is applied under the
Americans with Disabilities Act, where an employee has the duty to engage in
the interactive process in good faith in order to identify a reasonable
accommodation.
Employee Notice
An
employee seeking FMLA leave also has notice obligations under the final rule,
even if leave is unforeseeable, although if it is physically impossible for an
employee to access the worksite after start time, the entire period he or she
is absent from the worksite is FMLA leave.
Otherwise,
if FMLA leave is unforeseeable and the employer has a leave notification
policy, the employee must inform the employer within a reasonable time frame as
established in the employer’s policy. If timely notice is not given, the
period of delay counts as non-FMLA absence.
But
what is a reasonable time frame?
Willman
said most employers could have a policy that reasonable notice would be notice
at least an hour before a shift. Some industries that provide such critically
important services as health care, utilities and transportation, and emergency
services such as police and fire, might require notice of at least two hours
before a shift. Other industries, such as the airline industry, might even
require notice of at least three hours, she added.
An
employer’s FMLA policy could require an employee to request FMLA leave
from HR or a designated person or to call a specific number, but written notice
cannot be required, she said. Whatever the policy, it must be applied
uniformly, she noted, predicting that there will be more FMLA claims
challenging inconsistent policies.
So
before adopting a new FMLA policy, Willman said, HR should be sure the policy
can be enforced consistently.
Allen Smith, J.D., is manager of workplace law content for
SHR
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Membership News
Guests who attend a meeting for
the first time receive a complimentary lunch. Thereafter, lunches are $12
per person.
GREETERS WANTED: Do you want to get involved with
CiRHG, but don’t have much time? Then, we have the perfect
opportunity for you! We are looking for current CiHRG members to serve as
greeters at each of our monthly luncheon meetings. If you are interested,
please email Becky Krueger, Membership chair at: Becky.Krueger@flex-n-gate.com
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2009 CiHRG Board of Directors
Tammy Hoggatt, SPHR, President
Stacey Cultra, President-Elect
Deanna Wright, SPHR, Treasurer
Jenn Lance, Secretary
Amy Dillman, Chair, Legislative Committee
Minor
Becky Krueger, PHR, Chair, Membership Committee
Joe Streit, Chair, Student Affairs Committee
VACANT, Chair, Workforce Readiness Committee
Sue Key, PHR, Chair,
Public Relations Committee
Beth Wileaver, PHR, Chair, Professional Development
Committee
Barbara Wieklinski, Chair, Conference Committee and Health
and Productivity Committee
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Newsletter Submissions
If you have a timely human resources article or other
newsletter item to share with fellow HR professionals, please email your
submission to Sue Key, Public Relations Chair, at suekey@inhs.uiuc.edu. The CiHRG
newsletter is distributed electronically to paid members each month.
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January Quote
We will open the book. Its pages are blank. We
are going to put words on them ourselves. The book is called
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Quick Links
CiHRG Membership Directory: http://www.cihrg.org/members.php
CiHRG Website: http://www.cihrg.org/
SHRM Website: http://www.shrm.org/
Don’t forget to visit the CiHRG website to view
current human resources job postings: www.cihrg.org/jobs.htm
Sue Key
Chair, CiHRG Public Relations Committee
Assistant Director for Administrative Services
I-Building, RM 1010
TEL: 217-244-4592
FAX: 217-333-4949
e-mail: