5 great HR lessons from Microsoft, Facebook and more.

This summer, America's "Second City" was first in HR knowledge as 15,000+ HR professionals converged on Chicago for the Society for Human Resource Management's annual conference. Here are five words of wisdom from the event:

1. FACEBOOK'S EVOLVING VIEW ON BEREAVEMENT LEAVE. "We see the benefit not just for the people who get it, but for the [employees] around them also... It's not going to cost a lot because people won't use it unless they need it, and no one wants to use it."--Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg, whose husband died suddenly in 2015. Facebook has since doubled its bereavement leave from 10 to 20 days for employees who lose immediate family members.

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2. TELL EMPLOYEES: FMLA ABUSE IS STEALING. "It doesn't take long for employees to realize that you're just going through the motions with FMLA paperwork, and that's where the abuse begins... You have to communicate the harm and say that it's stealing, or else employees will think that stealing FMLA is like stealing a pen."--attorney Michael Shetterly, Ogletree...