Originally Posted by mreid (Post 8955251)

So far the advice is incomplete as your supplied info is incorrect.

1. Do you have more than 50 employees (not counting contractors)?
Yes,135 employees
2. Do you offer STD (not that kind you dirty thinkers, short term disability)?
No.
3. Did you continue to pay her salary during fml (either salary continuation or std)?
Her first 5 days of absence was paid with PTO (Vacation/Sick leave) as stated in our employee handbook. After that, she collected state disability insurance.
4. Do you have all the paperwork declaring her leave as fml?
YES
5. Did you document her poor performance (it's not too late to document everything and collect performance statements from others)?
NO.
6. What does her performance review AND salary increase history look like (saying she is an poor performer, but then having a positive or neutral performance appraisal or merit increases detract from your credibility)?
She has not had any performance reviews as she's only worked here a little over a year. I believe her first formal annual review would be this month. I'm not 100% certain of that and will have to check her personnel file.
Even in the communist state of California you can be successful, but you have to have your act and documents together.

Originally Posted by Tidybuoy (Post 8956036)

At one point, she got permission to work at our other plant one day a week which was 6 miles from her home vs. the 50 miles to the main corporate office. She later turned in an expense report claiming 100 miles ea for about 8 trips. I questioned this and she immediately printed up the legal docs that state we must pay since she was scheduled to work away from her normal home base. However, the rules are pretty vague. This is an example of maybe not doing anything illegal but definitely unethical. This pretty much turned the owners off as they thought they were doing her a favor by letting her drive 12 miles on Fridays vs the normal 100 miles (round trip).

Originally Posted by Tidybuoy (Post 8956036)

Her poor performance is not that she is doing everything wrong, it's mostly that she is just not doing anything that is moving the company forward. She's lazy, goes home at 5 on the dot (or earlier). She does not report to me but reports to the owners who are absent 50% of the time.