How does intermittent leave work

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It helps us understand the number of visitors, where the visitors are coming from, and the pages they navigate. The cookies collect this data and are reported anonymously. FMLA intermittent leave is granted for the following reasons: To take care of a child.

This includes time for bonding with a newborn baby, with a newly adopted child, or with a recently placed foster child. Employees are also entitled to take FMLA leave in the event of a complicated pregnancy. To care for a sick family member. This includes caring for a spouse, parent or child with a serious health condition. Medical certification from a health care provider is usually requested.

If you have a serious health condition that is affecting your ability to perform one or more of your essential duties. Certifications are also required. A qualifying exigent situation in the event a spouse, child or parent is on active duty service such as short-notice deployment, military events and related activities. WHF form if you are caring for a family member with a serious medical condition.

Step 3: Employer and employee complete the form Employees must ask their employer to complete Section 1 of the form. Step 4: Employee meets with a healthcare provider Employees must then take their form to their healthcare provider within 15 days of receiving the form back from their employer. Step 5: Return completed FMLA to the employer Once all medical information has been provided, the form must be returned to the employer for a full review.

Eligibility is not automatic and organizations can dispute suspicious employee claims. Employees can take up to 26 weeks of unpaid FMLA leave in each month period to care for family members who suffered a serious injury or illness related to military service. Leave can be designated retroactively so, for example, if an employee develops a serious health condition requiring hospitalization during the second week of a holiday, that week should be covered by FMLA leave instead of being taken as vacation leave.

Wherever possible, employees must consult with employers to schedule medical appointments at a time that has the least impact on operations. Once the certification is approved, make a limited inquiry each time the employee requests more leave, particularly in the case of intermittent leave. The goal is to determine whether the leave is for the same qualifying reason. Watch the schedule of absences closely in cases of intermittent leave to determine whether a suspicious pattern develops e.

Such actions could suggest a change in condition that enables you to request a recertification. Request recertifications as often as the law allows. The frequency of recertification permitted will differ depending on the type of leave and the type of serious health condition. Require accrued leave to run concurrently with FMLA leave when allowed by law. When an employee realizes that taking leave today will affect future vacation time, he or she is more likely to take FMLA only when the need is legitimate.

Ask the physician to verify that the medical certification is exactly as he or she signed it and has not been altered. Inquire about the intended method of transportation if an employee requests to leave work early because of his or her own serious health condition.

Aggressively pursue potential fraud , and if concrete evidence of fraud is discovered, take appropriate disciplinary action. Always follow up on reports from fellow employees or other sources that the employee does not, in fact, need leave. Final note: Even if these actions uncover no fraud, your efforts will still reap dividends.

Once employees become aware that you intend to use these tools to detect fraud, employees otherwise inclined to take advantage of the FMLA will wait until a legitimate need arises. Employees who take intermittent leave can wreak havoc with work schedules. Because their conditions can flare up at any time, their absences are by nature unpredictable.

But there are ways you can legally curtail intermittent leave. Sometime during the calendar year, an employee submits medical documentation showing she will need intermittent FMLA leave for a chronic condition.

If she is eligible for leave at that time because she has worked for the employer at least one year and has worked more than 1, hours in the preceding 12 months , she can take up to 12 weeks of intermittent leave until the end of the calendar year.

If, on Jan. Case in point: Candice Davis worked for Bell Telephone and suffered from chronic depression. By September, she reached the 1,hour threshold she had already worked for the company for more than one year and became eligible for FMLA leave.

She asked her therapist to certify that she suffered from a chronic serious health condition that required intermittent leave. The phone company granted her FMLA request, and she missed work periodically through the fall because of episodes of depression.

The company terminated her for violating the attendance policy. The 6th Circuit Court of Appeals rejected her claim. It reasoned that employers that use the calendar method could start the FMLA process over at the beginning of the year. She would have had to meet the 1,hours eligibility requirement on Jan. Davis v. Michigan Bell Telephone, No. No new formal certification is required. If an employee calls off intermittently for migraine headaches, how can we verify the real reason for the leave?

Can we ask for information each time the employee is absent? Many employers have struggled with employees whose conditions seem to flare up on Fridays and Mondays. However, you can minimize it by making sure that you promptly designate all time off—including intermittent leave—to help you exhaust the week FMLA clock as quickly as possible.

If you have reason to be suspicious of a certification, you can send the employee to a company-selected physician for a second opinion.

One of our employees, who recently immigrated to the United States, is pregnant. She has informed us that she expects to take eight weeks of FMLA leave immediately after the child is born.

USERRA requires that a person reemployed under its provisions be given credit for any months of service he or she would have been employed but for the period of absence from work due to or necessitated by USERRA-covered service in determining eligibility for FMLA leave.

A person reemployed following USERRA-covered service should be given credit for the period of absence from work due to or necessitated by USERRA-covered service towards the months-of-employment eligibility requirement. For example, someone who has been employed by an employer for nine months is ordered to active military service for nine months after which he or she is reemployed. Upon reemployment, the person must be considered to have been employed by the employer for more than the required 12 months nine months actually employed plus nine months of USERRA-covered service for purposes of FMLA eligibility.

It should be noted that the 12 months of employment need not be consecutive to meet this FMLA requirement. Q How should the 1, hours-of-service requirement be calculated for returning servicemembers?

Accordingly, a person reemployed following USERRA-covered service has the hours that would have been worked for the employer added to any hours actually worked during the previous month period to meet the 1, hour requirement. Special hours of service eligibility requirements apply to airline flight crew employees. An airline flight crew employee is an airline flight crewmember or flight attendant as those terms are defined in the FAA regulations.

In order to be eligible to take leave under the FMLA, an airline flight crew employee must work for a covered employer; be employed at a worksite where the employer has 50 or more employees within 75 miles; have worked for the employer for 12 months; and meet the hours of service requirement.

Due to non-traditional work schedules, airline flight attendants and flight crew members are subject to special hours of service eligibility requirements under the FMLA. An airline employee who is not an airline flight crewmember or flight attendant as those terms are defined in the FAA regulations is subject to the generally applicable FMLA eligibility requirements.

The worksite is the terminal to which employees are assigned, report for work, depart, and return after completion of a work assignment. Therefore, in the case of airline flight crew employees, the worksite is their home base, or domicile.

For example, an airline pilot may work for an airline with headquarters in New York, but the pilot regularly reports for duty and originates or begins flights from the company's facilities located in an airport in Chicago and returns to Chicago at the completion of one or more flights to go off duty.

The pilot's worksite is the facility in Chicago. The applicable monthly guarantee for an airline flight crew employee who is not on reserve status i. For an airline flight crew employee on reserve status, it is the minimum number of hours for which an employer has agreed to pay the employee for any given month. Q How is the number of hours worked determined for an airline flight crew employee? In contrast to flight or block hours, duty hours encompass time spent performing a variety of support duties that begin before a plane takes flight and end after it lands.

Duty hours are widely recognized and used in the industry. Q How is the number of hours paid determined for an airline flight crew employee? The number of hours paid is the hours for which the employee received wages during the previous month period. An airline flight crew employee returning from USERRA-covered service shall be credited with the hours of service that would have been performed but for the period of absence from work due to or necessitated by USERRA-covered service in determining the employee's eligibility for FMLA-qualifying leave.

Accordingly, an airline flight crew employee re-employed following USERRA-covered service has the hours that would have been worked for or paid by the employer added to any hours actually worked or paid during the previous month period to meet the hours of service requirement. In order to determine the hours that would have been worked or paid during the period of absence from work due to or necessitated by USERRA-covered service, the employee's pre-service work schedule can generally be used for calculations.

As with all employers covered under the FMLA, an employer of an airline flight crew employee must observe any employment benefit program or plan that provides greater family or medical leave rights to employees than the rights established by the FMLA.

Conversely, the rights established by the FMLA may not be diminished by any employment benefit program or plan. For example, a provision of a CBA which provides for reinstatement to a position that is not equivalent because of seniority e.

This entitlement is based on a uniform six-day workweek for all airline flight crew employees, regardless of the time actually worked or paid, multiplied by the statutory workweek entitlement for FMLA leave.

An eligible airline flight crew employee is entitled to days of military caregiver leave during a single month period to care for a covered servicemember with a serious injury or illness.

This entitlement is based on a six-day workweek multiplied by the statutory workweek entitlement for military caregiver leave. Q Does an employer have to return an airline flight crew employee to work after a period of FMLA leave?

On return from FMLA leave whether after a block of leave or an instance of intermittent leave , the FMLA requires that, as with all employers covered under the FMLA, an employer of an airline flight crew employee return the employee to the same job or one that is nearly identical equivalent. Q I am a caregiver for my brother who is not able to take care of himself. FMLA leave to care for a relative is generally limited to caring for a spouse, son, daughter, or parent.

An eligible employee standing in loco parentis to a sibling who is under 18, or who is 18 years of age or older and incapable of self-care because of a mental or physical disability, may take leave to care for the sibling, if the sibling has an FMLA-qualifying serious health condition.

Under the regulations, an employer may deny a bonus that is based upon achieving a goal, such as hours worked, products sold or perfect attendance, to an employee who takes FMLA leave and thus does not achieve the goal as long as it treats employees taking FMLA leave the same as employees taking non-FMLA leave.

For example, if an employer does not deny a perfect attendance bonus to employees using vacation leave, the employer may not deny the bonus to an employee who used vacation leave for a FMLA-qualifying reason. Sasha uses 10 days of FMLA leave during the quarter for surgery. Sasha substitutes paid vacation leave for her entire FMLA absence.

Q My medical condition limits me to a 40 hour workweek but my employer has assigned me to work eight hours of overtime in a week. Employees with proper medical certifications may use FMLA leave in lieu of working required overtime hours.

Employers must select employees for required overtime in a manner that does not discriminate against workers who need to use FMLA leave. The regulations also clarify that substituting paid leave for unpaid FMLA leave means that the two types of leave run concurrently, with the employee receiving pay pursuant to the paid leave policy and receiving protection for the leave under the FMLA. If the employee does not choose to substitute applicable accrued paid leave, the employer may require the employee to do so.

Neila needs to take two hours of FMLA leave for a treatment appointment for her serious health condition. Neila can also take unpaid FMLA leave for the two hours.