Fewer than one third of employers have communicated recent changes to the Family and Medical Leave Act to employees, according to a survey by Compensation.BLR.com and HR.BLR.com.

Forty percent of respondents said they hadn't communicated the FMLA changes to employees. Another 32 percent said that while they haven't communicated the changes yet, they plan do so.

Twenty-eight percent of respondents said they had already communicated the FMLA changes to employees.

The new rules, which the Department of Labor first published November 17, 2008, cover several aspects of the FMLA and address new military family leave entitlements for employees. The new FMLA rules became effective January 16, 2009. The new FMLA regulations have brought a host of changes for both employers and employees.

The Department of Labor says many of the changes were designed to improve communication between employers and employees. The rules, for example, include clarifications and new requirements on how and what employers communicate to employees. The rules also include clarifications and new requirements on when and how employees notify their employer of a need for FMLA.

For more information, see New FMLA: Changes You Need to Make Now, which you can find on HR.BLR.com at http://hr.blr.com/timesavers.aspx?id=79218 and on Compensation.BLR.com at http://compensation.blr.com/whitepapers.cfm . The compliance report is available to subscribers only.

The editors of HR.BLR.com have also created a resource center that employers can use to help ensure that their organization is in compliance with the new FMLA. The resource center includes regulatory analysis, guidance, FAQs, forms, a poster, news articles, and white papers--all of which cover the new FMLA rules. The resource center is located at http://hr.blr.com/resource_centers.aspx?collection=21.