The Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) is a great recognition of the importance of family life and work balance, particularly the changing role of men regarding child care (Martocchio, 2007). As for the extension of FMLA to organizations having less than 50 employees are concerned, I am in favor of this amendment. Why? For this, I will analyze the situation from two angles, one from Employee and the other from the Employer. From the employee side, there are many reasons for this favor. Firstly, all human beings are equal and they have the same kind of basic problems. It is unfair to differentiate among human beings just based on the size of their organization. Secondly, if you are giving this benefit to all public agencies (state and local governments) and local education agencies (schools, whether public or private), that their employers don’t need to meet the “50 employee” test; this right should also be provided to others. Thirdly, if, for example, a pregnant woman working in a small company having less than 50 employees, it is ridiculous to suggest her to wait for long leave till the employees limit cross 50! Fourthly, as per law (Fryer, Bickerstaff, Heath, Pollan, & Caroom, 2007) employees have to inform their employers almost 30 days before leaving along with medical or other necessary evidence. During this period, the employer can easily hire a new employee and the leaving employee can provide necessary training to the new one. Lastly, the motivation and commitment level of the employees will be lowered, if they are facing a severe family life crisis. How can they give excellent performance if their old father or mother is dying at home or his or her spouse is seriously ill?
For a wise decision to make, we have to look at this issue from the employer’s perspective also. Obviously, the intensity of the problem depends upon the nature of the business or the job nature of the leaving employee, but I will discuss it at a more general level. Primarily, employers are concerned only with the productivity and turnover of their employees. How can an employee give his best output if they are not mentally satisfied, either he or she works for a big and a small organization? It is also one of the objectives of FMLA (Fryer, Bickerstaff, Heath, Pollan, & Caroom, 2007). Now, the question is how a small employer will handle the long leave of an employee without having any substitute for it? There are many remedies to this problem. Firstly, as for the small business is concerned, it is the better strategy to equip employees with more than one skill so that in case of absence of one, other can handle his/her responsibility at least for some time unless the new one doesn’t take his/her position. Secondly, normally it is easier for the small organization to hire a new employee than the larger ones. The employer can post the vacancy on the Internet immediately after receiving the long leave application and can hire employees online. By doing this, he or she can lower his/her hiring cost, and training cost can be saved by asking the leaving employee to provide the necessary training to the newly hired so that work doesn’t stop. Obviously, there productivity will suffer initially, but in the long run it is in the favor of the company, because it will improve the level of loyalty of the employees to their organization.
Conclusion: keeping in view all the above rationales, it is easy to conclude that government should provide the benefits of FMLA to the employees of organization having less than 50 employees.
Reference
Martocchio, J. J. (2007). Employee Benefits. new york,NY: McGraw-Hill Publishing.
Fryer, C. B., Bickerstaff, Heath, Pollan, & Caroom. (2007). FMLA Basics. Employment Law Seminar (p. 3). Bastrop, Texas: Texas Leadership Institute.