Opinion | The problems with Minnesota’s new paid leave program

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In human resources, you spend a lot of time dealing with moments that do not fit neatly into statutes or policy manuals: a serious diagnosis. A complicated pregnancy. A parent who declines faster than expected. These situations arrive without warning, and they are the moments when work and life collide most directly.

From that perspective, most HR professionals agree on something basic: People should not have to choose between caring for themselves or their family and keeping their job. Paid family and medical leave reflects that value, and the goal behind Minnesota’s Paid Family and Medical Leave Act is easy to understand.

The harder question is whether the program, as it will operate in practice, is ready for what comes next.

As state director of the Minnesota Society for Human Resource Management, I hear regularly from HR professionals across the state — in manufacturing, health care, nonprofits, professional services and small businesses. These are not ideological conversations. They are practical ones. And two concerns come up repeatedly: fraud and the strain the law’s reinstatement provisions will place on small employers.

The risk of fraud is not hypothetical. This year, Minnesota has already identified a significant amount of fraud within its system of services, prompting increased scrutiny and enforcement activity. That experience should not surprise anyone who has worked with leave programs in other states. Systems that rely on medical certifications, intermittent absences and self-reported need are inherently vulnerable to misuse. HR professionals have managed those challenges under the federal Family and Medical Leave Act for decades.

The second concern is more structural and, for many employers, more immediate: reinstatement rights and their impact on small businesses.

Large employers often have options when an employee is out for an extended period. They can redistribute work, rely on internal transfers or absorb absences with relatively little disruption. Small employers do not operate that way. For a business with 10 or 15 employees, holding a position open for months is not an inconvenience — it can destabilize operations.

HR professionals in small organizations see the consequences firsthand. Temporary replacements are difficult to recruit and harder to retain. Cross-training is limited. Work piles up. Other employees stretch themselves thin. Customers notice. These are not edge cases. They are predictable outcomes when legal requirements assume a level of organizational depth that many employers simply do not have.

The issue is not whether employees should be able to take leave. They should. The issue is whether the law meaningfully reflects the difference between a large employer with built-in redundancy and a small business that depends on every role being filled. As written, the reinstatement provisions place the greatest strain on the smallest employers — often the same ones most embedded in their communities.

Most employers want to support employees during major life events. Many already do, often informally and at real cost. But employers also have obligations to customers, to other employees and to the survival of the business itself. When policy does not reflect that balance, employers respond in practical ways: slowing hiring, limiting growth or hesitating to place employees into roles that are difficult to backfill. These are not political decisions. They are operational ones.

Paid family and medical leave is a worthy goal. HR professionals support that goal. But good policy requires more than good intentions. It requires vigilance, transparency and a willingness to respond when predictable problems emerge.

Getting clear-eyed about those risks is not opposition. It is a responsibility.