Looking forward to this one 👻

Wow!! This is amazing. And such a tonic for getting into the Halloween spirit!! 🎃

Kudos to you Abigail Belanger!! When is race day?

I am coming to this question from a California perspective where everyone has rights of privacy under the state Constitution and medical information is generally considered private.

My take is that employees don't need to come to HR about medical appointments because that information is usually private unless there is an on the job injury or someone has a disability that requires accommodation. It's also fine for HR to have emergency medical information in case someone has a seizure or some other emergency where the information would be important to know. But it should be voluntarily disclosed by the employees.

So I would clarify that with everyone about what does and does not need to be disclosed so that the employer has the information it needs and employees don't have to report everything medical.

Training is hard. It's not fun and it's not "the work," so it's hard to convince anyone they should do it.

So you either have to tie it to something fun, something mandatory where there is accountability or both.

Try pizza. Free lunch works for a lot of things. Announce that it's mandatory, buy lunch, and record who is there and completed it.

As for the executives, include them them. Make a fuss about getting 100% compliance or do another reward for getting there and then guilt them into coming.

Sometimes you have to get creative.

Great to have you in the community, brett klitzke! Loving your vibes 😍

Oh no! Best of luck with the recovery!

Day made!! They look so graceful and yet so over the situation 😄😄

Thank you for your time Heather Bussing 💖

Ask them for their new contact information and then make sure that the company is in compliance with all wage, hour, and employment laws for the new state. Your payroll provider can usually help with this.

But if the employee is remote anyway, this should not be that big a deal. It's a compliance and tax issue that can be handled.

If it is a big deal, then it's probably not about either moving or not telling HR.

I think a question I would have for the CEO would be, why do they want to phrase it as a restructuring? Do they think it will land softer than telling them that it is performance based? Or are they just trying to get out of documenting bad performance? Those are two very different situations.

Most medical leave policies (FMLA and state equivalents) limit leave to 12 weeks in any 12 month period. If the employee needs more than that, you are in ADA and state disability land and the question becomes whether the person is capable of performing the work with or without reasonable accommodation.

Time off can be reasonable accommodation, but if it is becoming a real hardship for the employer, then that accommodation may not be reasonable.

Get some legal help on this because the situations are very fact specific and weighing the options requires understanding all the facts.

But the bottom line is that you generally don't have to let people take unlimited time off when it's causing a significant hardship to the employer.

First of all, get the data. Is there truly a pattern of Mondays or Fridays?

If not, then the manager has their britches in a bunch about not having the staff they need or is feeling taken advantage of. That's a manager problem and/or a staffing issue, not an employee problem.

As a migraine sufferer, I can tell you the disability is real and the last thing you want is someone powering through and doing stuff when their head is not working right, they have lots of pain, and everything is too loud, bright, smelly, and infuriating.

But if there is a pattern, bring the data to the employee and ask whether there is something else going on that makes Mondays and Fridays especially difficult for them? (They probably hate their manager, but I'm guessing here.)

I don't think getting a doctor's note or medical verification is going to help here, although employers would be entitled to ask for it.

And they can only take so much leave and they have to use PTO or it's generally unpaid. How close is the person to using up their paid leave? If it's close, I might just wait it out and keep tracking Mondays and Fridays through the end of their paid days off to see if the pattern changes.

If it does, it probably wasn't migraines. If it doesn't and they are taking unpaid leave, that tells you it's a problem.

Migraines arise from all sorts of underlying medical conditions and are not always the sole problem. So it's worth trying to understand what the real problem is.

This one is tricky and there are real potential disability, FMLA, and retaliation issues to navigate. Get some legal help. And tell the manager not to talk to the employee about the leave or migraines until you understand better what's really going on.

Don't give anyone the notes!!!!! Don't ever have AI take notes.

When the notes stay with HR in preparation for a claim or are created with the guidance of a lawyer, they are privileged and the other side cannot reach them during discovery.

When they are sent to staff, managers, or others (besides HR and legal) or they are created by AI, then they are discoverable and can be used against the company.

Keep all investigation notes confidential and treat them like they are the super secret recipe for Coca-cola.

I really hate it when that happens.

HR should go to legal, whether it's in house counsel or the organization's outside employment lawyers.

When an organization has notice of a problem, it's documented, and it does nothing, this is how you add zeros to a lawsuit verdict. And when it's discrimination or harassment (it's usually sexual harassment), the zeros start piling up.

Your concerns are valid and you are right to try to persuade leadership to do something. Since you have done your best and they are not listening, see if you can get legal's help. Legal's job is to spot and manage risk and they will have concerns.

If that doesn't work, start looking for a new opportunity. You don't want to be in charge when it all goes sideways.

Under federal labor law (National Labor Relations Act), all employees are permitted to discuss their wages, hours, and working conditions with each other. It is a broad right that all U.S. employee have regardless of whether the organization is unionized.

In addition, your state's pay transparency laws may also have additional rights. I would do a little research and bring the information to the decision maker on handbooks etc. and ask that the handbook be updated and that managers be advised about these rights. Then remove the reprimand and don't forget to apologize.

If you fix it, there is very little risk. The remedy is to bring an unfair labor charge with the NLRB and nobody is going to go to the time and expense of doing that unless the problem persists.

Yikes. I really like Samantha's approach. It sounds like you are dealing with someone who is used to having complete control while the organization is growing. He wants to move through decision making fast, especially messy uncomfortable HR stuff, and have someone else execute the decision.

That never works out and can add a lot of risk.

So I would approach it with recognizing that he has had to do everything, but it's just not possible at this size and with continued growth. Ask the best way to take some of the people decision making off his plate or to bring it to him as the final decision maker after you've had a chance to work on it, make sure he has the relevant information and understands the risks involved.

See how you can make it his idea. Then give him credit for his brilliance. (I know, but it works. Sigh.)

Going to go ask my parents why they didn't let me learn to drive a combine tractor before a car