September 2018 Federal Employment Law Training Group Newsletter

Ah, September. Finally, we’re turning the corner away from the heat of the summer. When that first slight chill hits in the fall, I am each year reminded of how that feeling – that smell – used to signal the beginning of another year in college. Perhaps, this new semester I’ll actually buy all the books for my classes, begin to study earlier than the night before the exam, even raise my C-plus average to something closer to a B-minus. Yes, September has always been a chance to reflect on past shameful shortcomings and to commit to doing what I should have been doing all along. I wonder if others feel the same way? Does the administration regret waiting 15 months to nominate new Board members at MSPB, where the number of pending cases is now around 1,750? Does the Senate sniff the fall air and commit to voting on the new nominees who zipped through their confirmation hearing many weeks ago and have been stalled ever since? Will OPM finally comply with the law (the freaking federal LAW!) that requires it to issue life-saving Notice Leave regulations by LAST SEPTEMBER? Although I was a mediocre college student, I remained hopeful at the beginning of each school year that I would get better, that I would stop frittering away Daddy’s money, and put my efforts into doing what I should have been doing all along. Perhaps, as well, some of our leaders in government will notice what month it is on the calendar, feel a little shame like I used to, and start to do a better job. A 2.5 grade-point average might have been good enough to get me through LSU, but that is not really a good enough score for managing our civil service.  By the way, 2.5 was not only my grade-point, but for most of my undergraduate days it was also my blood alcohol level.  Yes, the best four years of my life I spent as a sophomore at LSU. I hope that our civil service leadership is at least having as much fun as I did, because it’s just about as effective.Bill Signature

The Leave Mistakes that Supervisors Make

By Deborah Hopkins, September 19, 2018 Oh, leave. It’s a topic that intersects with everything we do here at FELTG: conduct, performance, EEO, union issues, supervisor skills, and on and on. If you get it right, it’s easy; getting it wrong can cause big problems,...

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Why Not an Administrative Jury?

By William Wiley, September 19, 2018 This is the first part of a three-part series. In our FELTG seminars, we sometimes have to explain the difference between the two burdens of proof relevant in our business of civil service law: substantial and preponderant...

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Michael Keaton, Burt Reynolds, and the FMLA

By Dan Gephart, September 19, 2018 Thanks to Facebook, I’m reminded of the birthday of that odd kid from sixth grade who had the massive nosebleed problems and carried a Land of the Lost lunchbox. However, Mark Zuckerberg’s programmers failed to remind me of a more...

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Tips From the Other Side, Part 9

By Meghan Droste September 19, 2018 No one — at least no one I know — likes to get in trouble. It’s never fun to be caught in the act or to be called out for failing to meet expectations. When it looks like we have been caught, we tend to deflect: I didn’t do it; and...

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Summary Performance Ratings and PIP Initiation

By William Wiley, September 19, 2018 Here at FELTG, we invite seminar participants to address follow-up questions to us in case we were unclear in class, or simply if the old memory isn’t working too well on a particular day. The following is a question we received...

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Our Most Popular Topic This Year

By William Wiley, September 19, 2018 When you’re in a classroom as much as we are here at FELTG, you start to notice topics that come up from participants when they form a pattern or are repeated. The most asked-for repeated topic we’ve had so far this year is for a...

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