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Military Leave and Merit/Bonus
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Military Leave and Merit/Bonus
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I have an employee at our company in the Illinois office who was out on Military Leave end of 2008 through all of 2009 and returned January 2010. The outcome is this employee did not receive a Merit i
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Military Leave and Merit/Bonus

posted at 3/16/2010 11:56 AM EDT
Posts: 52
First: 9/8/2005
Last: 3/16/2010
I have an employee at our company in the Illinois office who was out on Military Leave end of 2008 through all of 2009 and returned January 2010. The outcome is this employee did not receive a Merit increase or bonus.

My question is are we required to make the employee whole based on the type of leave (Military). The challenge is how do you decide what to give in Merit if we have nothing to hang our hat on. Since the employee was not physically performing at our company, how do we decide what to rate which ultimately determines the amount of merit.

With bonus, it is based on eligible earnings for the previous year so if the employee was not with us for all of 2009 how are we expected to calculate a bonus.
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Military Leave and Merit/Bonus

posted at 3/16/2010 12:02 PM EDT
Posts: 1103
First: 3/16/2007
Last: 8/19/2011
Basically you have to pay it. The criteria is "would he have received the increase and bonus if not for his military service.."

You can learn more at http://www.dol.gov/elaws/vets/userra/ben_pay.asp

I would suggest calculating his bonus as if he was there and was paid a salary by you. Ultimately it will probably come down to that anyway.
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Military Leave and Merit/Bonus

posted at 3/16/2010 1:16 PM EDT
Posts: 52
First: 9/8/2005
Last: 3/16/2010
HRPro, this is exactly what I was looking for. I agree that we should calculate the bonus as if the employee was here on a full time status. Again, I appreciate the feedback and resource.
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Military Leave and Merit/Bonus

posted at 4/8/2010 4:25 AM EDT
Posts: 562
First: 11/12/2009
Last: 9/14/2011
"....narcissistic bugger programmers"?
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Military Leave and Merit/Bonus

posted at 2/12/2011 12:57 PM EST
Posts: 1
First: 2/12/2011
Last: 2/12/2011
[quote]Basically you have to pay it. The criteria is "would he have received the increase and bonus if not for his military service.."

You can learn more at http://www.dol.gov/elaws/vets/userra/ben_pay.[url=http://www.paycor.com]paycor[/url]

I would suggest calculating his bonus as if he was there and was paid a salary by you. Ultimately it will probably come down to that anyway.[/quote]

This is the ethical and legal way to conduct this matter. Do not get caught up in trying to find loopholes and save your company a couple thousand dollars in accounting. The perfect definition is to pretend he was never gone and put him on par with somebody in a similar capacity.
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Military Leave and Merit/Bonus

posted at 2/13/2011 3:56 AM EST
Posts: 2442
First: 2/12/2000
Last: 9/14/2011
Why are we going back in time again?
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Military Leave and Merit/Bonus

posted at 2/13/2011 8:46 AM EST
Posts: 562
First: 11/12/2009
Last: 9/14/2011
Maybe it's like the movie Groundhog Day - we have to do it over and over again until we get it right?
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Military Leave and Merit/Bonus

posted at 2/13/2011 12:09 PM EST
Posts: 2442
First: 2/12/2000
Last: 9/14/2011
Thank you narcisstic programmer )
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