Jeni Hoyt

This issue of @Work magazine illustrates the need for professionals to track leave laws (and their variations across the country) while taking a creative approach to accommodation requests to ensure compliance and help employees stay at work when possible and return to work when it is safe to do so.

This issue of @Work magazine offers suggestions for how employers can encourage appropriate use of available leave to avoid and address burnout and ensure whole-person health, guidance for designing return-to-work pathways that minimize employee stress, practical approaches that help one employer support absence and disability managers, and more.

Ongoing challenges with Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) compliance highlight the need for and value of education and training. And passage of the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (PWFA), which mirrors some but not all of the ADA requirements, makes it even more important for employers to ensure compliance and support employees. This issue includes insights into the differences between the ADA and PWFA, ways employers can encourage stay-at-work options and faster return to work for employees, and guidance for getting to a “yes” with all types of accommodation requests.

It is becoming harder to decipher where absence management ends and disability management begins, which is one (of many) reasons employers should consider an integrated approach. This issue of @Work magazine showcases practical examples of how integrated absence management streamlines operations, saves employers money, enhances the employee experience, and helps support employees in their recovery and return to work.

The conversation about workplace mental health is expanding from a focus on treatment and support for mental illness to designing environments that protect and promote mental health and wellness. This issue of @Work magazine offers tips and tools to help employers reassess how they approach, invest in, and manage workplace mental health. With examples of successful employer approaches, suggestions for expediting safe return-to-work timelines, and more, there is abundant guidance on an age-old issue that threatens employee productivity, morale, and livelihood.

Absence and disability compliance continues to challenge the savviest professionals as the number of new and modified laws expands, covered relationships shift, and more is required from DEIB initiatives. Gain practical perspectives and implementation guidance in this issue of @Work magazine, which includes articles on how to navigate paid family and medical leaves, whether employers need short-term disability insurance as paid leave programs emerge, how to make eligibility determinations, and more.