Agency Obligations
- Agencies must provide employees notice of the rights, benefits, and obligations of such persons and such employers under USERRA. The notice must be posted where employee notices are customarily placed. See APPLICABLE LAWS AND REGULATIONS
- Agencies must grant a leave of absence to employees to perform service in the uniformed services.
- An employee absent because of service in the uniformed services must be carried on Absent-Uniform Service unless the employee elects to use other leave.
- An employee absent because of service in the uniformed services must be permitted, upon request, to use any accrued annual leave, military leave, earned compensatory time off for travel, or sick leave, if appropriate, during such service.
- When an agency grants a leave of absence, restores or fails to restore an employee because of uniformed service or compensable injury, it must notify the employee of his or her rights, obligations, and benefits relating to Government employment, including any appeal and grievance rights.
- Agencies must maintain the necessary records to ensure that all employees who leave to enter military service are preserved the rights and benefits granted by law and regulation.
- Agency promotion plans must provide a mechanism by which employees who are absent because of uniformed service can be considered for promotion. In addition, agencies have an obligation to consider employees absent on military duty for any benefit of employment that they may have been entitled to had they not been absent (e.g., missed promotional opportunities, non-seniority benefits).
- Agencies may not deny reemployment rights to employees because of performance or conduct that occurred prior to the employee's departure for uniformed service.
- Agencies must promptly reemploy persons following uniformed service, and such employees are generally entitled to be treated as though he or she had never left. Agencies must provide such employees full credit for the entire period of the absence for purposes of rights and benefits based upon seniority and length of service, including within-grade increases, career tenure, completion of probation, leave rate accrual, and severance pay.