By Susan Schoenfeld, JD
The Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) can be tricky when an employee wants his or her health condition to remain private.
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For example, what do you do if you learn from a coworker that an employee has cancer? The employee has taken 3 to 4 day periods of accrued paid time off (PTO) on several occasions without explanation. Since no explanation is required under your PTO policy, you have granted the leave without question.
The absences have not affected his performance and his work is as good as ever. According to the coworker, the employee is receiving chemotherapy and needs to take off time for treatment and from time to time he needs additional time off to recover. The employee is a private person and has shared none of this with you.