It’s just four letters, but it can cause a lot of stress in an organization if not administered properly. It can be your best friend or your worst nightmare.
The Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) is a federal law passed in 1993 and revised in 2009. It requires covered employers to:
Understanding FMLA requirements is an imperative aspect of running a compliant organization. And we all want to be compliant, don’t we?
If employers do not properly administer requests, they run the risk of becoming liable for misappropriation of benefits.
Although this area can become confusing, today we are going to highlight the top 10 FMLA mistakes business professionals make, as well as how to avoid doing so.
Is your company covered by FMLA? Are your employees eligible for FMLA? You need to figure out the answers to those two questions first and foremost.
Covered employers include companies with 50* or more employees within 75-mile radius of a worksite.
*50 or more employees in 20 or more workweeks in the current or preceding calendar year.
An eligible employee is an employee of a covered employer who:
How To Avoid This FMLA Mistake:
Make sure you follow all the criteria above! And here are some more important tips:
The 12 months of employment do not need to be consecutive. Separate periods of employment will be counted, provided that the break in service does not exceed seven years.
Separate periods of employment will be counted if the break in service exceeds seven years due to covered National Guard or military service obligations or when there is a written agreement stating the company’s intention to rehire the employee after the service break.
And what about couples?
When a husband and wife both work for the company
When an employee needs time off, they often times don’t know to ask for FMLA by name. As the employer, you need to inform the employee of their options.
How To Avoid This FMLA Mistake:
When your employee needs time off that could be FMLA leave, provide your employee with the notice of eligibility and rights & responsibilities (more about that in the next point).
If you don’t provide the designation notice, time off cannot be counted toward the employees 12 weeks of FMLA. So be sure to follow the steps below.
When an employee asks for FMLA, you are required to explain to them eligibility requirements as well as their rights and responsibilities. This is most easily accomplished by providing the employee with the Department of Labor Form WH-381.
After you receive a completed certification, then you are required to provide your designation. This tells the employee if the time has been approved or not. The easiest way to do this is to use the Department of Labor FORM WH-382.
Now you might be wondering how long do you need to keep all of these notices and records?
3-year retention required and records must be separate from personnel files!
What to keep:
An employer is permitted to choose one of the following methods for determining the “12-month period” in which the 12 weeks of leave entitlement occurs:
The rolling backward method prevents employees from stacking leave, whereas the calendar method does not prevent this.
The calendar method allows for an employee to use 12 weeks of leave at the end of 1 calendar year and then take 12 weeks of leave at the beginning of the new calendar year.
The measured forward method is ALWAYS used for leaves to care for injured service members.
FMLA can be used for the following circumstances
FMLA leave may be taken intermittently or on a reduced leave schedule with the following exception:
Whew! Are you tired of reading already? No worries, you can download the complete Top 10 FMLA Mistakes and How To Avoid Them in our nifty whitepaper below.
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