09/22/2014
Q: “We are a small family service business consisting of 16 employees. I recently hired new three ones. One is an honorably discharged veteran. He has missed 13 days and is consistently tardy. Six of the 13 missed work days were for medical appointments at the VA hospital, and the others he claims were related for oversleeping, a car breakdown, etc. His VA appointments are all last-minute. Our policy is two weeks’ notice for any leave of absence. He explained this was not possible and that he also could not schedule them for after working hours (they end at 3 PM). I explained that this puts a hardship on our scheduling. Here are my issues: (1) During the interview process, at no time did he mention theses weekly to bi-weekly appointments. (2) He has discussed with other employees that he suffers from post-traumatic stress, which is why he goes to therapy. He has never discussed this with me, and I have never acknowledged knowing it. With this being said, his reviews from our chiefs are poor. He is described as lazy and unmotivated. He is not right for our line of work and his constant absences and tardiness are affecting the other employees’ attitudes. We need to get rid of him. We just let one of the other new hires go for excessive absences during the probationary period. My brother is hesitant and feels he needs to be handled with kid gloves due to USERRA and his PTSD. I feel we have every right to let him go but told my brother that if he chooses to give him another chance, it is with the understanding that he is again on probation for X amount of days. What is your opinion?” – Kathy, Illinois
09/22/2014
Q: “Our company policy states that employees have to work a minimum of 32 hours a week to qualify for paid leave benefits. This includes accruing vacation. We have an employee who had surgeries done in a year. Since the employee has worked for us for five years, we were allowing him to accrue vacation even though not working full time. We were led to believe that he would start back full time soon. After a few months we informed him we could only allow him to accrue at half the current rate until he returned to full time, a minimum of 32 hours physically worked. He rarely works 32 hours a week, and has been putting down vacation time on his time sheet (anywhere from eight hours to an hour or two) to fill out the 32 hours. Every two-week time sheet has several hours of absences. I feel he should not be given the PTO benefit until he consistently works at least 32 hours per week, and/or the chronic absenteeism is addressed. The head of our company is concerned about a lawsuit if we let him go. Please advise.”
