What's Missing from Your FMLA Tracking?

FMLA court decisions are never-ending … and provide lessons for all companies and organizations (whether you’re in court or not). Following the *Young vs. The Wackenhut Corporation* decision earlier this year, we’re reminded of the importance of individual notice. We know from the law that individual notice must be provided when an employee requests FMLA-related leave or when an employer acquires knowledge that an employee’s leave may be for an FMLA-qualifying reason (if you didn’t know that, consider it a free tip). In the above-mentioned decision, Jacqueline Young sought, was granted, and took all 12 weeks of her FMLA leave, but at the conclusion of her leave didn’t return to work and was terminated two weeks later. So, to court they went. And it was found that when granting her leave, The Wackenhut Corporation did not provide individual notice; consequently, Jacqueline Young was not properly notified of her leave time and suffered prejudice. Ouch, that one stings. Reading decisions like this should inspire each and every leave manager, with employees covered by the FMLA, to ask themselves a number of questions: + *Is my company in a similar position of risk?* + *Do we consider this risk to be great?* + *Am I doing everything I can to minimize our position of risk?* Saying no to any one of these questions may jeopardize the credibility of your HR department and may lead to unexpected, unforeseen and costly results. You, being the HR rockstar that you are, are likely already aware of the fact that you need to send individual notice. However, is it possible that you aren’t always sure if the notice has been sent? Are you wishing there was a way to document when it was sent and even what the letter stated? Are you shaking your head in agreement? If yes, it sounds like you’re missing something in your absence management program. Your FMLA administration program is in need of a cloud-based leave tracking system that will provide automatic reminders and auto-generated letters. You won’t be asking yourself the questions above when you’re reminded of when to send an individual notice as well as store it and time-stamp it. We’ll even make sure you get the reminder to send it within the specified number of business days (five business days to be exact … just another free tip from [LeaveXpert](https://www.leavexpert.com) ‘cause we love you guys). Further, if you’re like others, the reason that tasks sometimes aren’t accomplished is because they are unnecessarily complicated. Delivery of notice can be simplified with auto-generated letters containing employee and case information. You still have control over how you send, whether through email or mail, but auto-generation achieves consistency and the burden of creation is minimized. **Want to get in on this [letter-creating, leave-tracking, super system](https://www.leavexpert.com)?** Optis’ [LeaveXpert](https://www.leavexpert.com/) is a cloud-software FMLA tracking solution that will assist you in properly providing FMLA notice to all of your covered employees. Not only can we help you reduce your company’s risk, we’re going to let you try it out for [free](https://www.leavexpert.com) (we love free!). With immediate access and no sales demo to sit through, you can start tracking your FMLA process in the cloud today. Learn more and take advantage of your [FREE 30-day trial of LeaveXpert](https://www.leavexpert.com) right now.