Family and Medical leave Act Management Research Paper

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Family and Medical Leave Act
The Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) is a federal law that was enacted in 1993 and signed by President Bill Clinton. The Act was formulated to provide employees with an opportunity to take unpaid leave following family and serious medical reasons (Schwartz and Engler 31). The employees must, however, meet certain criteria for them to enjoy the benefits of the FMLA act. For instance, they must work in public agencies or in covered companies that have employed more than fifty employees for more than twenty weeks either in the previous or current year and must be within seventy-five miles of the workplace (Ruhm). Employees must have worked for more than twelve months and for approximately 1250 hours within the twelve months before applying for the leave (Knight 16). The conditions of the Act are that employees must go back to their previous position and work under the same terms as before they went for leave.
Further, they must also receive health coverage, if available, from their employers even during the time of their leave (Schwartz and Engler 31). The FMLA Act is meant to protect employees from job loss following a leave from work due to medical or family reasons. Recently, there have been talks of providing paid leave for eligible employees on a national level since some States have already enacted laws that facilitate paid leave. This paper seeks to examine key issues surrounding the FMLA and how they relate to the workplace. This is especially important in the contemporary American workplace where work-family balance is an important area that has attracted the attention of human resource managers.
Impact of the FMLA
Since its enactment, the FMLA has had several impacts on several groups of people. For instance, one of the most significant effects of FMLA is an increase in leave uptake among new mothers and mothers who have children aged below one year (Rossin-Slater 9). This is a positive impact because more new mothers can take care of their newborns without fear of losing their jobs or compromising their careers as a result of childbirth. Without FMLA, it is likely that more women would have either quit their jobs once they started a family to get time to take of children, or would have opted to remain at their workplace and withhold from raising kids.
Moreover, FMLA has improved job continuity for women, especially for mothers, who would be more disadvantaged than men and non-mothers if the law did not exist (Rossin-Slater). This is because mothers are often faced with the choice of quitting their careers once they give birth, a choice that is not available for men, thus discontinuing their jobs. In particular, the universality of the law enhances job continuity because its impact on the issue can be experienced at a national level. The job continuity has therefore been attributed to the fact that women are now able to go back to work once their 12 weeks leave is over (Cannonier 108) since the risk of job loss has been eliminated.
One of the negative effects of FMLA and other leave policy is a decreased hiring rate of women in the private sector. According to Rossin-Slater (12), employers may discriminate on women when it comes to remuneration or even hiring if they find leaves as an additional cost. Further, employers who do not fully support the FMLA view leave-taking as a drawback in their company and feel that women are less effective and productive if they are mothers (Jonason). As such, having a law that is forcing them to respect and encourage leave uptake cannot sit well with them, and they end up avoiding women employee to circumvent the law. However, some studies contradict with the effect of FMLA on the hiring of women, indicating that FMLA has increased the employment rate for women with children below one year (Cannonier108 ). This could be attributed to the fact that women are no longer worried about going back to work and can seek employment more aggressively since they are protected from job loss that can stem from taking leave for childbirth and care.
The FMLA has also impacted the health of mothers and their newborns positively. According to Cannonier, the children of women who do not take the full 12 weeks allowed by FMLA end up having poor health conditions than those who take up the full 12 weeks. This has been attributed to reduced time in breastfeeding. Other studies have pointed out the benefits of prolonged maternity leave, indicating that it reduces child mortality rate. Further, improved child well-being has been associated with the FMLA. According to Rossin-Slater (16), FMLA was associated with an increase in the average weight of newborns, albeit small.
Finally, the FMLA has influenced child-bearing behavior among U.S. working women. According to Cannonier (126), FMLA eligible women have higher chances of giving birth, especially to their first child. This indicates that career women are now more ready and comfortable with giving birth because the fear of compromising their careers or losing their jobs has been reduced since the implementation of FMLA. Further, Cannonier indicates that women who are eligible for FMLA are giving birth to their first child earlier than their counterpart of who are not eligible for FMLA. Thus, this is an indication that FMLA has influenced child-bearing behaviors by allowing women to make fertility decisions without worrying much about risking their careers.
Importance of Providing FMLA to all Americans
Based on the positive impacts of FMLA listed above, it is clear that Providing FMLA to all Americans is of great importance. According to Rossin-Slater (8), approximately 40% of Americans employed in the private sector are not eligible for FMLA. This is attributed to the stringent eligibility requirements, given that some firms in the private sector employ less than the required 50 and above employees. This indicates that about 40% of employees in the private sector are missing out on the benefits of FMLA.
Further, the unpaid nature of the leave may limit some employees in enjoying the benefits of FMLA. According to Schulz and Eden (266), some employees, especially those who earn low wages, are unable to take the unpaid leave because they cannot afford to be out of work as they will lose their livelihood, despite the granted protection. As such, it is clear that there is a likelihood that the percentage of employees who do not benefit from FMLA protection is more than 40%.
As more employers are trying to encourage work-family balance, implementing the FMLA can be one of the best approaches to enhance this balance effectively. This implies that all employers, whether covered or not, should ensure that their employees are protected by the FMLA, especially if they do not have any other in-house arrangement to facilitate work-family balance. According to Laharnar, Glass, and Perrin, the FMLA is one of the policies that employers can adopt to facilitate work-life balance and enhance increased productivity. In most cases, a conflict in the work-life balance of an employee affects not only their productivity but also their well-being due to the increased stress of trying to balance family life and work. This points to an additional reason why all Americans should have FMLA coverage, regardless of whether their employer is covered or not. Further, human resource personnel can use FMLA as a baseline in the formulation of in-house work-family policy (Laharnar, Glass, and Perrin). This will enable them to come up with a policy that is more employee-friendly.
Apart from the benefits derived from the FMLA by employees and employers, the nation stands to benefit too, because a productive workforce translates to higher GDP. Further, ensuring that all Americans have access to FMLA will help the nation take care of the elderly population. The current provisions of the FMLA have locked out people who could otherwise provide care for the elderly, such as nieces, nephews, and grandchildren (Schulz and Eden 266). This would be different if everyone was FMLA-eligible and would help distribute the burden of caregiving to more people. If all Americans are eligible to FMLA, there will be no cases of re-admission to hospital for employees and their family, which will improve employee well-being and state of mind from the knowledge that their families are well taken care of.
However, it is imperative that the FMLA be amended to facilitate paid leave to increase the leave uptake and job continuity. According to Kornfield (172), providing a paid leave has public benefits because it improves the economy. This is because more employees will take up leave for family and medical reasons and more of them will still return to work after the leave with increased morale and productivity. Further, Kornfield indicates that the rate of employee retention will increase nationally if all Americans are provided with FMLA, and the country will enjoy all the benefits of a healthy and well-balanced workforce.
Compliance with FMLA in the Workplace
While the enactment of the FMLA was at a national level, its implementation is highly dependent on employers. Implementation can become problematic if the persons responsible at this stage are not supportive of the law because they see it as a restriction of their practices. This is why it is important for human resource professionals to understand what the law requires of them regarding FMLA to avoid facing non-compliance charges.
The repercussions of poor implementation/ compliance with the FMLA cannot be ignored because they can eventually affect the bottom line of an organization. For instance, it can result in reduced employee morale because employees will feel that they are not supported when in need. Further, FMLA is one of the workplace policies that can promote work-family balance (Laharnar, Glass, and Perrin). As such, failure to comply with FMLA can increase conflicts arising from the lack of a work-life balance, which affects employee motivation and productivity.
While the importance of implementing the FMLA in the workplace is evident, the compliance with the law does not reflect an understanding of these benefits. As noted by Armenia, Gerstel, and Wing (280), the percentage of covered employers who are compliant with the FMLA has been on the decline since the law was enacted. This is according to surveys conducted by the department of labor after the enactment of the law, in 2000, and in 2012. The percentages were 88%, 83.7%, and 80% respectively. The findings of the study by Armenia, Gerstel, and Wing reveal that the percentage of compliance with FMLA by covered employees is between 54.3% and 76.8% as of 2013, an indication that it is still on the decline.
Further, Kelly (34) reveals that approximately 25% of the covered employers violated the FMLA four years after it was enacted. Kelly attributes the level of noncompliance to the institutional pressure that organizations experience as a result of regulatory laws, which is the category in which FMLA falls under. This could be the case because regulatory laws change the norm of things and force the involved parties to comply regardless of their views on the law. The normalized model of the American workforce also affects compliance, as noted by Kelly (60), because the model still projects the man as the provider and the woman as the caregiver. This points to a need to update the model to accommodate the woman as a provider too, and encourage sharing of responsibilities so that both men and women are viewed as equal, both at home and in the workplace.
This information points out to a serious problem in human resource management indicating that human resource (HR) professionals in the U.S. are not fully supporting FMLA, which is not a good sign. It could also indicate that they are failing to respond to the law due to lack of knowledge, which affects their interpretation and implementation of the law. According to Laharnar, Glass, and Perrin, HR professionals have indicated that they usually face challenges in the administration of the law and communication of the relevant details to their employees. As such, it is important for all HR professionals to deeply understand this law and transform it into practice to help improve the workplace environment.
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