Communicating with employees after a hurricane

Difficult situations can lead to difficult questions for your policyholders. To assist your policyholders with these and any other employment matters, Motorists partnered with Enquiron to provide the Motorists Insurance Employment Matters Resource Center, available online at motoristsresourcecenter.com. These value-added services are included as part of all active Motorists commercial policies.

If your policyholders are wondering what they’re obligated to communicate to their employees in the aftermath of a hurricane, you can direct them to the Employment Matters Resource Center where they will find, in more detail, that:

…while no federal or state law directly addresses this, as a best practice employers should take steps to communicate with each and every employee to ensure that they are accounted for and safe. The employer should secure from employees their contact information and, if they’ve had to relocate, their current address as well as multiple emergency contacts.

Your policyholders will also find suggestions for setting up a central point or hotline to communicate with their employees who are facing significant personal challenges (e.g., loss of their homes, lack of child care, etc.).

The aftermath of a hurricane can produce extenuating and extraordinary circumstances where businesses are faced with their own challenges as well as the challenges of their employees. The Employment Matters Resource Center can relieve them of some of the demands of the situation, freeing up time that can be used to focus on resuming business activity. Policyholders can be assured that employment attorneys are available to guide them through difficult post-hurricane questions, such as:

• Can the company require that employees use PTO/vacation time during business closures due to storm damage?
• We are not certain when we will be up and running and our employees are in an “on-call” situation – must we pay them while they are waiting to be called back to work?
• Are employees entitled to FMLA during a natural disaster such as the recent hurricanes in Texas and Florida?
• Several employees who are reservists in the military and members of the National Guard have voluntarily responded to a federal call for military personnel to assist with search and rescue efforts during the storm. Do I have to grant these employees time off to voluntarily respond to search and rescue efforts?

If your policyholders have these questions, direct them to the Motorists Insurance Employment Matters Resource Center at motoristsresourcecenter.com. First time visitors will be asked to click “New user registration.”