FMLA (Family and Medical Leave Act)

Not every employee qualifies for FMLA leave. To be eligible, an employee must meet all of the following criteria:

• Employer coverage: Work for a covered employer (public agency, school, or private employer with 50+ employees within 75 miles)
• Length of employment: Have worked for the employer for at least 12 months (these months do not need to be consecutive, but a break of seven or more years generally resets the clock unless due to military service)
• Hours worked: Have worked at least 1,250 hours during the 12-month period immediately preceding the leave
• Worksite size: Work at a location where the employer has at least 50 employees within a 75-mile radius

These eligibility rules mean that part-time employees, new hires, and employees at small or remote worksites may not qualify for FMLA protection even if their employer is otherwise covered.

Eligible employees can take FMLA leave for the following reasons:

Serious Health Condition: The employee's own serious health condition that makes them unable to perform the essential functions of their job. This includes conditions requiring inpatient care, continuing treatment, chronic conditions, and conditions requiring multiple treatments.

Family Member's Health Condition: To care for a spouse, child, or parent with a serious health condition. Note that in-laws, siblings, and grandparents are not covered under federal FMLA (though some state laws expand this).

Birth and Bonding: The birth of a child and to bond with the newborn within one year of birth.

Adoption or Foster Care: The placement of a child for adoption or foster care and to bond with the newly placed child within one year of placement.

Military Family Leave: Qualifying exigencies arising from a family member's active-duty military service. Additionally, military caregiver leave provides up to 26 weeks to care for a covered servicemember with a serious injury or illness.

Employers covered by FMLA must fulfill several obligations:

Job Protection: The employee must be restored to the same position or an equivalent position with equivalent pay, benefits, and working conditions upon return from leave.

Benefits Continuation: The employer must maintain the employee's group health insurance coverage during FMLA leave under the same conditions as if the employee had not taken leave. The employee remains responsible for their share of premium costs.

Notice Requirements: Employers must post a general FMLA notice in the workplace, include FMLA information in employee handbooks, provide eligibility and rights notices within five business days of a leave request, and issue a designation notice within five business days of determining whether leave qualifies.

No Retaliation: Employers cannot interfere with, restrain, or deny an employee's exercise of FMLA rights. They cannot retaliate against employees for requesting or taking FMLA leave, or for filing a complaint about FMLA violations.

Recordkeeping: Employers must maintain records for at least three years, including leave dates, hours of leave taken, copies of employee notices, and documentation of any disputes.

FMLA leave does not have to be taken all at once. Employees can take intermittent leave or work a reduced schedule when medically necessary.

Intermittent leave allows an employee to take leave in separate blocks of time — for example, taking one day off per week for chemotherapy treatments, or taking a few hours off for recurring medical appointments.

Reduced schedule leave reduces the employee's usual weekly or daily work hours — for example, working four days instead of five, or six hours instead of eight.

When an employee takes intermittent leave, the employer may temporarily transfer them to an alternative position with equivalent pay and benefits that better accommodates the recurring absences. Employers must track intermittent leave carefully, calculating it in increments no greater than the smallest increment the employer uses to track other types of leave (often one hour or less).

Intermittent leave for bonding with a newborn or newly placed child is subject to employer approval.