I’m reluctant to ascribe specific behaviors to people being members of certain immutable categories, such as race, sex, or generation (e.g., millennials), perhaps because I don’t like being stereotyped myself and I think I always have a choice as to how to act. That said, I also don’t want to expect people to behave in ways that they likely won’t because of them being within a category.
With that introduction, here’s the situation. I have a much younger, newish-to-my-workplace coworker whose wife just had a baby. He is taking what we are calling paternity leave but, as far as we can tell, he didn’t discuss the issue with anyone at work, either in our department or in human resources, before the baby was born. He also mentioned for the first time last week, when he stopped in the office after the baby was born, that he might go part time after his leave ends. I don’t think he’s eligible for FMLA leave (because he hasn’t worked at our organization for 52 weeks yet) but I don’t know if he knows that, despite the topic being discussed at length in our personnel guide.
Here’s my question: are personnel guides and communicating with employers about major topics such as anticipated leave things that millennials (generally speaking) don’t think about as much as us old fogies? I also think it’s possible that my coworker is just not accustomed to working for an organization; he was self-employed previously.
BTW, I hope our employer is able to work out something with my coworker for his leave, because I think daddies as well as mommies should spend lots of times with their children.
As a millenial, I can tell you that we ABSOLUTELY think about things like maternity/paternity leave. It’s a huge topic among my friends- male and female- who are taking jobs in all sorts of fields.
It’s bizarre to me that he would just assume he has it and can dictate his schedule like that.
It might just be he felt it was best to keep the news close to the vest since he was the new guy. He might not really know how he should act while working for a group.
If he is entitled to the leave, then I think he is ok in accepting that benefit. He probably figured it was a personal matter.
The best thing for you to do is refer this employee to HR. It is his responsibility to read the employee handbook on benefits, and if he is unclear on anything it is up to him to contact HR. He shouldn’t assume anything when it comes to benefits and time off. I don’t care what race, age, sex (did I leave anyone out?) he is.
How do you know he didn’t discuss his leave with HR? HR people can’t discuss it with you, and even your department head shouldn’t discuss it (but I know such discussion does happen). If he doesn’t qualify for FMLA (it’s not 52 weeks to qualify, but a number of hours), then he won’t be guaranteed his position but he still may be able to work part time if the company agrees to it.
I think many people don’t understand leave policies, especially FMLA rules. Your co-worker may not understand medical coverage for part-time workers (unless his wife has coverage) so it may not work out.
My niece is in the first year of a job. I was surprised that she got to take a week’s vacation at Thanksgiving, and then took 3 weeks of working remotely over Christmas, and her company has an office here so she went into the office a few times. This is not a situation I had available when I was first working, even though my company had offices here too.
Maybe when he was hired he negotiated getting this time off when the baby came. Unless you are his boss or work in HR, I don’t know how you would know the details of the arrangement. I think its time to mind your own business.
I don’t know for a fact that he hasn’t hashed out the FMLA issue with HR. That is the no-skin-off-my-teeth issue of the two. I do hope for his sake that he has talked to someone about it already. My immediate supervisor plans to talk to him ASAP. She was just promoted to that position, effective today, and is also new to the organization, so also is not very familiar with the organization’s FMLA policy.
As for knowing the details, yes, I don’t need to know them nor do I want to. On the other hand, as one of the people who will be having to do his work while he’s out on leave and might have to take over some of his projects if he goes part time, I do think that a head’s-up would have been nice as a courtesy.
Some people have the personal philosophy that it is better to apologize than ask permission. If the company’s policies are not crystal clear, maybe he feels the most effective strategy to get what he wants is to simply say he is taking parental leave (perhaps based on the maternity leave policy) and to wait for someone to tell him he is not entitled to do so, if it is not allowed. It is not a millenial thing; I know a lot of aggressive people of all ages who do stuff like this.
He can’t just clear with HR. I thought OP was his manager. It is customary to clear it with one’s manager first. If exception is to be made then HR is brought in. More often than not, HR would ask me what I wanted to do as a manager. Whenever I do not want to grant exceptions, I refer the person to HR, otherwise I would contact HR and work it out on the employee’s behalf.
I’ve informally become a trainer of sorts for both this coworker and our (new) immediate supervisor but I figured that my responsibilities did not include instructing them to read the personnel guide (because, as several people have stated above, that is a personal and HR issue). This is what I was trying to get at with my original post: should I assume, based either on my young coworker’s generational affiliation or his individual personality, that I need to tell him these things?
You may wish to ask your manager how you will all adapt to this and to PT. A manager who knew would prepare the staff for the changes.
I’ve had a few who just leave for a week when j cousin dies assuming they get berievement time. Or who take more than alloyed time off saying, just don’t pay me…(hardly the point).
So some ppl are entitled or clueless. Most of the millenials here check first tho!
I don’t think anyone here can answer that. Most companies require new hires to sign a certification that they’e reviewed, understand, and agree to comply with company policies as stated in the employee manual, and there is generally a well-established procedure in place for ensuring that happens. The ad hoc approach you are describing is unusual.
“My niece is in the first year of a job. I was surprised that she got to take a week’s vacation at Thanksgiving, and then took 3 weeks of working remotely over Christmas, and her company has an office here so she went into the office a few times. This is not a situation I had available when I was first working, even though my company had offices here too.”
My son just took a new job with new company and they have an “all you can eat vacation policy.” You can take vacation whenever you want for as many days as you want. Perhaps her company has a similar policy. He can also work remotely, too.
As for the OP, since they don’t know if the employee hasn’t cleared his leave with HR, I don’t see why this should be any other employees business.
@oldfort Coworker not a boss. Informally training a new employee doesn’t make you privy to their personal HR things. “I have a much younger, newish-to-my-workplace coworker”
Re unlimited vacation: I used to work at a place like that. As long as you were billing 2300 or 2400 hours a year, meeting your commitment to spend hundreds more hours in administrative and committee work, completing all work in a timely, efficient and excellent manner, being available to clients and team members 24/7, 365 days a year (including vacation and holidays), doing significant and meaningful pro bono and community service projects, and doing the necessary work to cultivate and bring in new clients, no one cared how much vacation you took.
As long as you were instantly available by phone and email, and able to stop whatever you wre doing at any moment to review and revise critical documents, that is.
We had a happy hour every Friday night in that job, too. With stuff like margarita-making contests. Not a sign that things were chill. Sounds like your son has a much better gig.
