Employee Leave of Absences

Long before a need or crisis arises, let employees know you care about their well-being and desire to support them in all of life’s ups and downs. However, make sure they know what can and cannot be modified in their individual positions. This means your job descriptions should have essential duties clearly identified so everyone understands their job requirements.

Remember there are two types of leave: mandatory and voluntary.
Federal and state laws regulate mandatory leave. Mandatory leave includes medical leave (leave associated with the Americans with Disabilities Act or the Family and Medical Leave Act), military leave, and short-term leave for voting, vaccination, and jury duty.

Voluntary leave is not required by law and is offered as a benefit to employees per company policy. A company may grant voluntary leave to employees who have exhausted their time off and don’t otherwise qualify for mandatory leave.
Unlike mandatory leave, companies do not have to offer job protection during a voluntary leave, although some may choose to do so.

If an employee is suddenly or excessively absent from work, ask if there is something they need to tend to and any way your company can assist. Should they need extended time off, designate it FMLA if your company is a covered employer and your employee is eligible.

An employee is eligible for FMLA if they have worked 1250 hours. It allows up to 12 weeks off in a 12-month period.

Employees may take it for:

Childbirth, adoption, and foster care
Serious health condition
Caring for a family member with a serious health condition
Specific military reasons (including care of a service member)

Companies are obligated to pay employees on FMLA only if the employee has paid time off or sick time. However, some companies write additional paid leave time into their leave of absence policy as an added benefit to employees.

To cover all the details, companies need a detailed leave of absence policy as well as a leave of absence request form for employees. While there are free templates floating around, it’s best to work with an attorney to create a policy that fits your company’s needs and is legally compliant.

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Hiring for an HR Director?

By Paula Fulghum • July 21, 2025

I’ve seen a lot of job postings lately for small to medium sized companies looking for an HR Director or Manager. Then, when you get into the details, it shows they are the sole person doing HR for the company- or maybe have an assistant. Does this mean they have a payroll department and/or a benefits department? That’s typical in large companies. Not typical in smaller ones that only have the budget for party of one. What’s eye catching for me is now this person is IT. One man band. Key holder to it all. What’s interesting for me is that HR people are like ice cream flavors- we all have our favorite. Is that flavor strategy? Is it training? Is it compliance? Is it recruiting? Is it payroll? Is it benefits? Neapolitan only has 3 flavors. Once you get past 3, you can’t really taste what’s in the ice cream anymore it’s really more of a mess. HR is much like this messy ice cream. One person isn’t good at it all and if they are they are one in a million & a small business can’t afford them. Or if they can- they won’t last long because that person will be bored in a heart beat. And if they are a good leader of a department and don’t have these detailed skill sets & delgate well- that’s great- but when your company is smaller- who are they going to delgate to? See the conundrum? I enjoy chocolate & peanut butter ice cream. It’s two flavors, I can taste both & I can rely on that. If you start adding in scoops of other flavors it gets a little muddy. But that’s OK- I have an entire team who’s good at what I’m not and I can have them jump in at any time. When you are party of one- that’s not possible. So if you are smaller but want more flavors, HR outsourcing is really the way to go. You get the best of both worlds at a fraction of the cost of a full time salary of one. And you don’t have to worry that your HR person doesn’t like strawberry ice cream when trouble happens and strawberry is the only flavor that will do.