Paper Example on Family and Medical Leave Act Policies at Walmart Inc.

Introduction

Family and Medical Leave Act, commonly abbreviated as FMLA, is a federal regulation that guarantees certain employees in an organization up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave per year with no threats of losing their jobs. The law also requires the employers to maintain the health benefits of the employees on leave just as if they are still working in the organization (Brake, 2015). The act was passed by bipartisan support from both the Democrats and the Republicans in January 1993 and signed by President Clinton. FMLA was designed to help workers to maintain a balance between their family and work responsibilities by allowing them to take unpaid leave for specific reasons and medical emergencies. Public agencies and private companies with more than 50 employees must comply with the FMLA regulation. Reasons that are allowed include the birth of a newborn child, medical leave in case the employee is unable to work because of illness, placement of an adopted child or foster care with an employee, and to take care of an ailing family member as identified by Eviston, (2011).

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Over the last decade, companies reported that administering certain facets of FMLA was increasingly becoming difficult. In 2016, a survey by Byker, (2016), revealed that only 15 percent of local organizations were satisfied with policies implemented to administer FMLA. Issues with the regulation range from tracking, overall compliance, determination of absence-related costs, and meeting paperwork timeframes as stipulated by the Department of Labor. Walmart Inc. is one of the companies that has been on the spotlight on several occasions with accusations of violation of the FMLA. This paper is field research into Walmart's policies and practices of administering FMLA. The various strategies will be critically evaluated to identify possible causes of the problem for the company. Finally, recommendations for Walmart to improve their policies to comply with the FMLA. This is important for the company which faces the highest employee turnover rate compared to its competitors.

Walmart Policies to Comply with FMLA

Despite the numerous court cases against Walmart for violating the FMLA regulation, the company claims to have various policies and procedures in place to ensure that its employees get their rights. The company maintains that it values its employees and hence tries its best to ensure that they can balance between their works with family responsibilities.

Provision of General Notice of FMLA Rights

The regulation requires every employer under the FMLA to provide a general notice to the employees regarding their rights as stipulated in the FMLA. To satisfactorily do this, the employers should display a general poster in areas accessible to all the employees such as the noticeboards and provide a written general notice to employees who are eligible for the leave. Walmart Inc. displays general notice posters in plain view for all its employees and applicants to see. Interestingly, the company ensures that the posters are in large enough text so that they can easily be read from afar. In the general notice by the company include the provisions of the FMLA as well as the detailed procedure of filing a complaint with the Wage and Hour Division. Because Walmart has a diverse workforce, it ensures that the general notice is provided in languages that even the minority groups can read and understand. For instance, most of the company's outlet in Texas have a general notice in both English and Spanish to ensure that all the employees are aware of their rights as provided by the FMLA.

By providing the employees with the general notice, the company is following the law as provided by the FMLA act. Putting up the notices in their noticeboards and following the guidelines of the General Notice are two different things. Despite printing the General Notice in large readable text and different languages, Walmart is known to violate the same guidelines it provides the employees in the notices. Over the last couple of years, it has faced multiple lawsuits from the employees because of a violation of the FMLA law. Therefore, this strategy could be argued to be pretentious at the least (Brake, 2015).

Provision of Written Notice to Eligible Employees

As mentioned earlier, FMLA stipulates that if a company has employees eligible for the FMLA leave, it must provide every one of them with a written general notice about the regulation. While there are many ways of getting this information to the eligible employees, Walmart includes all the details regarding the FMLA in its employee handbook. The information consists of the eligibility of the employees, procedure of applying for the leave, as well as the benefits for the employee (Byker, 2016). Unlike Walmart, Costco distributes this information to new employees once they are hired.

Currently, Walmart provides its employees with the written notice using a combination of techniques to ensure that they see and read the notice. For instance, in addition to the inclusion of the notice in the employees' handbook, new employees are given the information during their induction stage and mailing of the general notice. In addition to getting out the information to the new employees, the company tries to motivate the employees to work for it for long periods. This is the argument because new employees are not eligible for FMLA leave yet Walmart mentions that it gives its employees annual leave.

Clearly Spelt Out Return to Work Policy

Under the FMLA regulation, an employee is entitled to be returned to the same position after the leave is over. If this is not the case, the employee should be placed in an equivalent position in that it has equal responsibilities, equal benefits, and bonuses as well as other terms or conditions of employment. Walmart's return to work policy is clear to every employee working for the company. The clear policy ensures that the company is protected against any legal action by the employees who may be found to have unsatisfactory work performance (Czypinski, 2014).

The strict policy saved the company from losing a lawsuit in 2014. Langenbach was fired by the company after she was unable to improve her performance in the company even after her surgery. Before taking the FMLA leave, various performance reviews indicated that Langenbach was underperforming. She was placed on Performance Improvement Plan to improve her leadership skills, address her lack of professionalism, and improve her time management skills. Even when she returned to work same issues persisted causing Walmart to terminate her just five months after her FMLA. When she sued the company for FMLA retaliation, her case was dismissed on the grounds of her poor performance. Despite the company having such a policy in place, it requires to be reviewed and maintained consistently among the employees. Walmart fails in conducting routine reviews of the return to work policy which is a necessity in such a company because it has a high number of employees (Czypinski, 2014).

This is another weak strategy by the company. Why would a company with such a clear return to work policy face many lawsuits being accused of retaliation after the employees take the FMLA to leave? In 2012, Bohnenstiehi, a 70-year-old employee who had served Walmart for over 30 years was replaced with a younger employee while out on FMLA leave. The employee sued the company for retaliation and sought $350,000 of damages caused by emotional stress, pain, and suffering. Two years later, Langenbach accused the company of retaliation after she took five months to leave for her surgery. However, in this case, there were performance issues, and the court dismissed the case. It is clear that the company has policies in place that are used against the employees especially when they take FMLA leave.

Recommendations for Walmart Inc. Compliance with the FMLA

Creation of FMLA Administration Procedures

Walmart should ensure that the Human Resource managers and other department heads who handle leave requests from the employees clearly understand the company's practices around FMLA management. FMLA administration procedures include documentation of leave requests, employee communications on their leave eligibility status, and return-to-work policies after the FMLA leave. Having such systems in place is crucial for the company owing to the high number of employees it has locally. Furthermore, FMLA administration policies should be formulated and implemented in line with the HR policies to ensure that employees have their rights as FMLA provides while at the same time adhering to company rules and regulations (Brake, 2015).

If Walmart has such procedures, it would have avoided the lawsuit by Joyce Green in 2013. Because of lack of effective FMLA administration policies, Green's FMLA leave at the beginning of 2013 was erroneously marked as an unexcused absence which ultimately caused her to be fired by the company. Walmart disciplinary policy is progressive in nature and starts with the oral coach and ends with termination of the employee. Its punctuality policy requires the employees to be 'coached' after a certain number of unexcused absences. Green had reached the maximum number of unexcused absences in 2013 and had to be fired. There were discrepancies between the company's policies and FMLA provisions, and Green had to re-instate.

Validation of the Leave through Medical Certification from the Health Care Providers

One of the best technique for Walmart to ensure that it does not abuse employees' FMLA rights is by requiring medical certification forms from the employees who apply for the leave. This is actually stipulated as one of the employers' rights under the FMLA. To gain more information about the employees' medical leave, the employer can request for a second or third opinion from medical practitioners but at their expense. According to Byker, (2016), the documentation of the medical certificates will ensure that the company does not deny deserving employees FMLA leave or erroneously terminate them. Such a case was experienced in the company in 2014 when an employee of the Georgia store was fired after applying for FMLA leave to take care of her sick minor child with serious medical condition.

After the employee filed a complaint with the Department of Labor, Walmart was forced to reinstate her, pay her $20,899 back wages, and restore her benefits and bonuses. Additionally, the Department ordered the company to delete negative references from her records as well as all unexcused absences. Walmart was advised to implement better communication methods between its various departments and the HR to ensure that such a case does not happen again.

Tracking and Managing Absences Diligently

One of the complex requirements of the FMLA is tracking of intermittent leave. All the FMLA leave time is supposed to be monitored closely so that everyone in the organization including the human resource, supervisors, managers, and the employees themselves know how much protected leave they can take per year. Tracking and managing leave encompass calculating how much leave time is used and the amount of leave time available for use by each employee in an organization. Walmart fails in this area because of the poor communications between the management, heads of different heads of depart6ments, and the employees. It is for this reason that several employees have filed lawsuits against the company. On several occasions, Walmart has erroneously labeled FMLA leave by its employees as unexcused absences and with it tough disciplinary policies, employees have lost their job for undertaking their legal action. Czypinski, (2014) advises that effective tracking and managing FMLA allowed...