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  Mayfield Village, OH 44143
  Phone: 440/684-9700 | Fax: 440/684-9760
  www.ercnet.org | www.northcoast99.org | www.erchealth.com

Contact: Marty Mordarski, Director of Research, mmordarski@ercnet.org

Press Release
Wednesday, December 12, 2007

FMLA: Leaving a Negative Impact on Productivity and Profitability

Cleveland – In a recent survey of 52 Northeast Ohio organizations, ERC found that a greater number of employees are requesting FMLA leave, and have encountered some negative effects resulting from carrying out the law’s numerous regulations.

In the survey, 75% of organizations noticed a greater number of employees taking leave over the past five years and still encounter problems administering the regulations associated with granting leave. Organizations report that their most common challenges with administering the law’s regulations are tracking intermittent time, verifying eligibility based on conditions, challenging medical opinions and diagnoses, ensuring truthfulness of tracking, and covering for absences. Ninety-four percent of organizations assign work temporarily to other employees and 31% of organizations allow work to go undone while employees are away from their jobs.

FMLA’s regulations have reaped few positive effects on the region’s organizations. According to the study, 67% of organizations report that FMLA regulations yield negative effects on the number of absences at their organization and 78% of organizations report negative effects on productivity. Fifty-one percent of organizations say the regulations have had a negative impact on their overall organizational profitability.

Despite these effects, 77% of organizations report that they have never requested a second or third medical opinion before granting leave to their employees. Tara Haskett, HR Consultant with ERC remarks, “Organizations should consider investigating requests more thoroughly using multiple medical opinions before granting leave to employees. This helps ensures that leave is granted fairly and accurately.”

ERC is Northeast Ohio’s largest organization dedicated to HR and workplace programs, practices, training and consulting. The organization also hosts NorthCoast 99 and sponsors the ERC Health insurance program. For more information about ERC, check out www.ercnet.org.

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