773 Return to Work

Only HR is authorized to approve a request for reemployment from an employee who performed 31 or more days of uniformed service. Supervisors or managers must promptly notify HR when an employee who has performed uniformed service for 31 or more days requests reemployment. Employees who performed 31 or more days of uniformed service are not authorized to return to work until HR approves their return.

An employee who returns to work without HR’s approval has not been reemployed and remains subject to HR’s determination as to the employee’s eligibility for reemployment. However, requests to return to work should be expeditiously processed.

Employees must request to return to work after release from uniformed service as defined in 771.2a within the following time periods:

  1. Service of 1 to 30 days. The employee must return to work by the start of the first regularly scheduled work period on the next calendar day following completion of service, after allowance for safe travel home from the uniformed service duty location by the most direct route to the employee’s residence and an eight (8)-hour rest period. If an employee’s return to work within this time frame is unreasonable or impossible and he or she is not at fault for the delay, the employee must return to work as soon as possible.
  2. Service of 31 to 180 days. An oral or written request for return to duty must be submitted no later than 14 days after the employee’s completion of the uniformed service. If it is impossible or unreasonable to submit a request within 14 days through no fault of the employee, a request to return to duty must be submitted as quickly as possible.
  3. Service of 181 or more days. An oral or written request for return to duty must be made within 90 days from the employee’s date of separation or discharge from uniformed service.

Note: Individuals who fail to request to return to duty within the above specified time frames do not forfeit their rights automatically. However, they may be subject to discipline because of unexcused absences.

Example: An employee who requested reinstatement 93 days after the end of his or her military orders may be reinstated and charged with three (3) days AWOL.

  1. Service–connected hospitalization or convalescence. Members of the uniformed services, who are hospitalized or in a convalescent status directed by appropriate medical authority following release from uniformed service because of a service-connected disability incurred during uniformed service are required to apply to return to work within two (2) years of separating or being discharged from uniformed service or immediately upon recovery, whichever is sooner.
  2. Note: Management must consult HR before returning an employee to duty if the employee is returning from a period of hospitalization or convalescence.