As an HR staff member or employee, when it comes to the Family Medical Leave Act, how much do you know? I mean seriously, what you don’t know in this case might hurt you…remember these new FMLA rules go into effect on January 16, 2009 and so right now everyone has less than 45 days to see if their company is in-line with these changes.

Well, if you are a bit unsure if these rules will make your jobs in HR easier, you aren’t the only one. A recent poll done by HR.BLR.com and Compensation.BLR.com asked HR professionals the following: “Will the new FMLA regulations make it easier for your organization to handle FMLA leave?”

Well here are the results of that question: “The combined results of the poll show that only 9 percent said the new regulations would make it easier for their organization to manage FMLA leave. Twenty-seven percent of respondents said the new rules won't make it easier to manage FMLA and the remaining respondents (64 percent) said it is too soon to tell whether the new rules will make it easier to manage FMLA.”

That means everyone out there should review the new rules, and pretty darn quick. So here is a link to a pretty cool site that goes over some of those changes, and shows summaries of 11 important revisions included in the final FMLA rules:

http://hr.blr.com/news.aspx?id=79213

Pass this information around, as it could benefit you or someone you know.

--C. Cook