PUBLIC POLICY IMPACT ON AN AMERICAN CORPORATION
Introduction
The Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) entitles all qualified workers who are covered by the employers the provision of unpaid leave that is job-protected, for medical and family reasons. The act also provides for the continuation of group coverage for health insurance under similar terms and conditions as if the worker had not gone for the leave. The employees who are eligible are thus entitled to leave equivalent to workweeks in a period of twelve months in the cases of birth and care of a child, employee adoption of a child, a need to take care of one’s parent, spouse or child with severe ailments and serious health ailment that makes the worker incapable of performing their important tasks. The act requires the employees to comply with employers’ requirement for leave request and provide information that is enough to reasonably determine whether the Act apply to their request for a leave. Upon return, the employees should be restored to their original or equivalent job with equal benefits, pay or similar employment terms and conditions (United States Department of Labour, n.d). This Act has significant impact on the organisations that offer employment in the California society and such impact may be measured in terms of the cost the firms have to bear and the effect on its performance. This paper looks at how the Act affect the Nugget Markets which is an upscale chain of supermarket with its operations in Sacramento metropolitan area and has it’s headquarter in Woodland, California. The company is family owned and offers grocery products. It offers the employees’ health care benefits, wages that are leading in the industry and company premiums that re 100% paid (Fortune, 2016).
History of the Act
The primary reason for advocating the enactment of this Act arose from the situation in the U.S society where many parents continue working while leaving less energy and time during those periods that surrounds the birth of new infants and their early growth. A lot of attention was given to this problem of trying to attain a family-work balance and the related responsibilities. This problem could not be considered to be insignificant given that almost a half of all the married new mothers are part of the workforce. There was found needs that were conflicting among all the parties involved, which made difficult to find solutions to the problems that the face the working families. The working schedules of the employees normally eat into the time they are supposed to spend with their new-borns. These infants require care primarily from their parents which goes a long way in supporting healthy development in early life stages, and the corporations depend on available and responsible workforce (Crampton, Mishra, 2001).
In addition, given the increasing rate of divorce, a rising number of children who are born outside wedlock, there has been a big change in the traditional family set up. The double pay-check and single-parenthood phenomenon happened so quickly that the whole nation had little realization of the impacts to the society, and had not taken time to understand arising issues and come up with solutions. The companies also had failed to see the need to address the problem of attaining life-work balance. There other problem was the need for the employees’ to recover from their serious poor health conditions especially among the employees who are well advanced in their age who have a high possibility of becoming ill (Crampton, Mishra, 2001). The other problem was the lack of care givers to elderly people who became seriously sick and need their children, who are working, to care for them. For the children to have the opportunity to care for their parents, they needed to take leave. The issues were advocated by various non-governmental organisations like the Catholic Church, whose main agenda was to achieve a situation where women would not be forced to abortion in order to retain their jobs. The coalition advocating for FMLA also included main constituency groups that represented women groups, national parents and children organisations, labour unions, senior citizens, disabled people, religious organisations, progressive businesses and the health professionals. Many of the groups in the society had a lot of grassroots support and activists who fervently urged for the FMLA to be supported by the congress (Bartel et al. 2014).
Impact of Family and Medical Leave Act on Nugget Market
The evaluation of the cost and benefits of the leaves provided by the aforementioned act from the perspective of Nugget market shows that whether paid or unpaid, they have a positive impact on the productivity since it improves on recruitment and retention of the employee. It also plays a big role in motivating employees. These benefits are achievable whenever the firm implements the program to cover the whole organisation. Given that about a half of the employees in the firm are women, most of the married ones are increasingly sharing responsibilities with their partners, while still harbouring the desire to work for longer. The workers endeavour to balance work, responsibilities for child care and other such responsibilities and at the same time try to attain the right balance. To be specific, families require more time off during the time of child birth or adoption, to care for their medical needs or in case a family member falls ill (Milkman and Appelbaum,2013). These employees continue to be employed by the firm even if they do not report to work every morning. They receive payments as the act require the firm to offer them paid leaves in spite of them not contributing to the company productivity at that period. The financing of the paid family leave in California is exclusively got from the payroll taxes of the employees, hence Nugget Markets does not experience any direct cost in terms of paying for the leave. However, when the company is having its workers on leave, it may have to bear other cost. Such costs may include the hiring of another worker for replacement so as to temporarily provide cover for the worker. This may present a challenge for the firm since the new worker may need a lot of time to learn and gain experience for the same job (Boushey and Glynn 2012). There is also the possibility of other hidden costs more so for the family leave which involves having other employees work for extra time, and may not complete the work while the employee is away on leave (Milkman and Appelbaum, 2013). The company also faces challenges for the firm in case an employee take for reasons that are not afforded in law.
Another impact the company may face is the loss of productive hours where the employee uses the medical leave provision as an excuse for taking a leave. The company will have to struggle while carrying out investigation, both internal and external, to clarify on the reason for the requesting for a leave. This is complicated by the fact that the Act does provides that one does not necessarily require to provide medical proof to take the leave (Bartel et al. 2014). In addition , an employee who have a has chronic illness but can manage it so that it does not interrupt his activities and job performance can get their doctor to fill out paperwork for FMLA leave. Furthermore, employers are normally unwilling to conduct investigation at the workplace or take disciplinary action against a worker who is on FMLA. This can be understandable since a company like Nugget Markets may be worried that the employees may result to retaliation by claiming that the firm took action as a result of their request for a leave (Boushey, and Glynn, 2012). The firm, however, can carry on its investigations or discipline measures as long as they can prove that the same action would have been taken in the absence of the request for the leave. The firm may also experience retaliation if it takes disciplinary measures against an employee who is involved in misconduct while still on leave, in such a manner that their conduct can result to tarnishing its reputation or image and that of its overall workforce (Howes, 2014). This is true in the case where the employee pretend to be carrying out business on behalf of Nugget Market as its representative.
Though there exist various negative impacts on Nugget Market as mentioned above, the Act can have positive impacts on the overall performance of the employees. After serving their leave terms, the employees will be rejuvenated or comfortable in the case of the medical leave. When the employees are content, there will be less unexpected absences or less cases of long-weekend syndrome. There will also be less cases of long lunches and breaks for reasons that cannot be verified. Furthermore, the leaves provided by the Act can be of more importance than the practice of taking sporadic leaves through taking a day here and another day there, the consequence of which would be lack of consistency in presence and performance of the employees (Boushey and Glynn, 2012). These benefits can be full realised if the company provides an environment that gives the worker a chance to have their paid leave at a time which is most convenient for them but having requested and getting the approval from management. In order to decrease any disruption due to the leave taken, the firm can allow the employee on extend leave to provide consultant service to colleagues working on their behalf (Boushey and Glynn,2012).Due to these positive impacts, the law is quite fair to both the employer and the employee since it provides room for better performance for both. Taking a leave gives the employees a chance to rejuvenate and to attend to their personal matters so that they are able to achieve a work-life balance. The access to a paid leave is even more important to the low- income employees who cannot manage to have their off time without another kind of wage to replace their usual payment. On the other hand, the employer benefits from the improved performance of a satisfied employees who will have few absences and excuses not to maintain high productivity.
The amendment of the Family and Medical Leave Act is likely to be done in case there is a lot of advocacy to include other reasons that are not covered by the Act and which can reasonably make an employee request for a leave. Such reasons may include the need to have a leave that exceed the stipulated time in the law due to causes such as prolonged chronical illness either affecting the employee or their loved ones. Changing demographics especially in the workforce may also result to agitation for amendments so that to include those employee who work for indefinite time or who are employed for a small periods of time (Milkman and Appelbaum, 2013). It would take a lot of engagement between the employers, the labour unions and the legislative organ of the government to agree on the amendments or changes that would be necessary.
Conclusion and recommendation
Though it may sound counterproductive, offering paid medical and family leave when the employees are not working due to their caregiving responsibilities is beneficial to both the employer and the employees. It may keep people away from workplace in the short-term, but reduces the instances of unplanned absenteeism while allowing the maintenance of work-life balance as much as possible. While there is a lot to learn about the effects of this law, it can be concluded that it has managed to meet its objectives. The employers should ensure that they monitor the law so that any leave policies they in their firms is in line with it.
References
Fortune (2016).Nugget Market. Retrieved from: http://fortune.com/best-companies/nugget-market-13/
Boushey, H. and Glynn S. (2012). The Effects of Paid Family and Medical Leave on Employment Stability and Economic Security
Crampton, S., Mishra,J.(2001).Family and Medical leave legislation: Organisational Policies &strategies.271-273
Howes, C. (2014). Unfinished Business: Paid Family Leave in California and the Future of U. S. Work-Family Policy. Industrial & Labor Relations Review, 791-792.
Milkman, R. Appelbaum E. (2013) .Center for Economic and Policy Research .Unfinished Business: Paid Family Leave in. California and the Future of U.S. Work-Family Policy.
Bartel, A., Baum, C., Rossin-Slater, M., Ruhm, C. Waldfogel,J. (2014).California’s Paid Family Leave Law: Lessons from the First Decade.
United States Department of Labour (n.d).Family and Medical Leave Act. Retrieved from: https://www.dol.gov/whd/fmla/
