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10-01-2009, 09:54 AM
| | Junior Member | | Join Date: May 2002
Posts: 17
| |  reason for time off
What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? -IA
I work for a company that employs less than 50 people, is it legal for us to ask the staff to put the reason why they are taking time off, on their time off request form? I know there is a limit on what we can ask them to disclose for sick time because of HIPAA, but what about for vacation time?
The company's reasoning is that we need this information to make decisions on allowing time off, if we have more than one person requesting leave time at the same time and need to determine who can take time off, for coverage purposes, or if it's especially busy.
Are we ok asking for this, and is there a limit on what we can ask for? Could you point me to any legal sources for reference?
Thank you |
10-01-2009, 10:04 AM
| | Senior Member | | Join Date: Mar 2005 Location: Feels like Mars sometimes.
Posts: 2,246
| | | Are you saying that if someone requests vacation time you want more information? Like where they're going, who they're going with, why they need to take vacation? While this is perfectly legal, it seems that you'd be making your decision-making process a whole lot more cumbersome by doing this...for example, how are you going to decide between two vacation requestors if one of them is wanting to bring his family to see his 95-year-old mum on her birthday for maybe the last time before she dies, and the other says she's so stressed out by the 80+ hour workweeks she's been doing for you that if she doesn't have a week off she'll have a breakdown?
If this is the case, why don't you just make vacation requests a first-come-first-served-if-served-at-all process?
If you're just wanting people to distinguish between "sick" or "vacation" or "personal business" or "education" or whatever when they're making leave requests, well, that's perfectly legal too. |
10-01-2009, 10:05 AM
| | Senior Member | | Join Date: Nov 2001 Location: Massachusetts
Posts: 23,734
| | | Of course it's legal. Why wouldn't it be?
What's more, HIPAA does not prohibit you from asking about illnesses. This is probably one of the least understood aspects of a very misunderstood law. HIPAA limits who can release medical information. It does not limit who can request it.
There are no links to refer you to. It is legal because no law says it's not. |
10-01-2009, 11:20 AM
| | Member | | Join Date: May 2007
Posts: 571
| | Quote:
Originally Posted by kskinne  What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? -IA
The company's reasoning is that we need this information to make decisions on allowing time off, if we have more than one person requesting leave time at the same time and need to determine who can take time off, for coverage purposes, or if it's especially busy.
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If you have multiple people requesting time off that you can't grant due to coverage, why not simply make it a first come first served policy?
As has been stated, it's legal to ask why, but why on Earth do you want to bear the burden of doing so? | |
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