The Perkins Coie Retail & Consumer Products industry group
announced a new initiative earlier this year to survey our retail
and consumer products industry clients periodically on legal issues
and to report to our clients the results with related
commentary. The Retail Survey was launched at the urging of
our national retail clients.
Our first survey focused on one of the biggest HR challenges for
any retail or consumer products company – Leave
Administration. Many retail companies use in-house legal resources
to advise them on this issue, while others employ outside HR
specialists to help guide them through often difficult
decisions. Some companies use an expanding network of outsourcing
services to administer their leave and disability programs. In our
survey we asked: How does your company handle leave of absence?
Here is what we found out.
Highlights
- The vast majority of our survey respondents indicated that they handle employee leave internally.
- FMLA requires a significant amount of paperwork and compliance with certain deadlines.
- Employers that have opted to ease the administrative burden of leave by outsourcing should be sure to have measures in place to alert HR of potential disability issues.
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