8 Things You Really Need to Know About the Family and Medical Leave Act
It's all fun and games until someone requests some time off.
The Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) guarantees up to 12 weeks of job-protected leave to attend to a serious health condition you or your spouse, child or parent is facing, or to bond with a new child. But sometimes making the request to your employer for the time off can be confusing. Here's what you should know.
Don't get cocky ... you might not be eligible.
A guaranteed job following extended leave is a fantastic privilege, but the FMLA doesn't apply to every employee working anywhere. First of all, you must work at a company that has at least 50 employees who work within 75 miles of its location. You also need to have worked for the company at least 12 months and -- not or -- for at least 1,250 hours. If you work eight hours a day, then that's approximately 156 workdays.
It's time we all move to California.
Your state's laws might expand on the federal government's policies. For instance, eligible employees in Minnesota have job-protected leave for up to 10 days if their parent, child, grandparent, sibling or spouse is a member of the military and is killed or injured in active service. Meanwhile, California, New Jersey and Rhode Island are the only states that offer paid family and medical leave.
Your employer can dictate how you use paid time off.
Employers use good leave policies to entice the best job candidates. But the flip of that coin is employers may enforce those policies as they wish. If your employer wants you to exhaust your paid sick leave before taking FMLA leave, you'll have to do so. And if your employer wants you to only use FMLA leave and not any of your paid sick days, you'll have to do that as well.
Keep your receipts.
It's not written in the law that you must always garner proof of the reason you need to take leave, but your employer is entitled to ask for a doctor's note within five business days of when you requested leave. You then have 15 calendar days to obtain that proof. Employers might also contact a health care provider for clarification or authentication of the proof you provide.
Keep close tabs on that intermittent leave.
Maintain good records of the exact time you're off each time you're out so both you and human resources have a proper tally. Total intermittent leave is calculated by dividing the amount of leave taken by the number of hours in a week you would have normally worked. For example, if you normally work 40 hours but due to FMLA you only worked 36, then you've used one-tenth of a week of FMLA leave.
The job guaranteed by the FMLA might be your old job ... but seen through a fun mirror.
Twelve weeks is a short span of time in your personal life, but it's an entire financial quarter at a workplace. It's possible that your boss has to hire or restructure his or her department to keep the business operating properly. In other words, you're not guaranteed the same job you had when you return to work. However, you are guaranteed a job complementary in function and compensation to your previous position.
Being married is double the fun, but possibly half the time.
If you and your spouse work for the same employer, you might not be able to take 12 weeks each to deal with the same issue at the same time. According to FMLA regulations, you could take up to 12 weeks combined at the same time. For example, you could choose to each take six weeks, or you could choose to use 10 weeks while your spouse uses two.
There are different FMLA policies for being a caregiver for a member of the military.
The rules are slightly different if you're requesting to take FMLA time to care for a member of the military. The FMLA allows eligible caregivers to take up to 26 weeks in a single 12-month period if you are the spouse, parent, child or nearest blood relative of someone in the regular or reserved armed forces.
Jada A. Graves is the Careers product manager at U.S. News. You can follow her on Twitter @jadaagraves, circle her on Google+ or email her at jgraves@usnews.com.
