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When Jack Becomes Diane: How to Treat Transgender Employees in Today’s Workplace
HR Stories From The Front Lines*
As an HR manager, you’re confronted with various scenarios on a daily basis. For Marie, a Monday morning discussion with a warehouse employee presented a challenging situation that, unfortunately, she didn’t initially respond to properly. Thinking someone was playing a joke on her, she inappropriately laughed at the employee’s pronouncement that he was transitioning from a man to a woman. Read on to learn how she recovered her composure and took the appropriate steps regarding his transition and his privacy.*
Do you have an HR question keeping you up at night?
The following questions were submitted to our HR Professionals in the past month …Question #1
If an employee comes to us with an injury that happened outside of work, what are our obligations to him for holding his job (or not) while he is out?
This person has been working with us less than 3 months. He has not sought medical treatment yet for an injured hand when he punched a wall. Here’s what I have done so far:
Determined that he is ineligible for FMLA because he has not worked with us long enough
Encouraged him to seek medical treatment so that he could apply for state temporary disability benefits
In the meantime, his manager is saying that he needs to fill the position because now his “set crew” is one down and there needs to be a replacement.
So, are we obligated to hold his job while he is out and what if there isn’t a position for him when he returns? My first thought is the ADA, but I don’t know enough about it to reference it for this case.
Question #2
We have a manager that we strongly suspect of theft. A lot of number manipulation and missing money has come to light recently.
She is pregnant right now, so I am wondering how much concrete evidence we need to be able to terminate her?
Being aware she is a red flag is a concern to us but missing potentially thousands of dollars is of course a bigger concern to us. Please let me know how we can proceed with best practices in mind.
An employee has just returned from pregnancy leave and is requesting time and space to “pump” at work. You’re not sure what this entails or how this is going to impact your business – not to mention the comfort level of your other employees.
Which of the following accommodations are you required to offer?
You have to give her several paid breaks throughout the day lasting 30 minutes or more.
You must provide a private area for her to “pump” – someplace other than a bathroom.
You must provide her unpaid time off to go home up to three times in an 8-hour shift to feed her baby.
You do not have to accommodate the employee’s request. She can pump on her lunch break.
Managing FMLA leave can be stressful for HR Professionals, so the following guidelines are intended to eliminate potential headaches in five easy steps.
