Benefits and Compensation

Parental Leave Now Mandated Under Military Exigency FMLA

The Final FMLA rule makes four changes (or clarifications) to the listed qualifying exigencies, says Schoenfeld, Senior Legal Editor on BLR’s human resources team.

  • Clarifies that, for the purposes of leave for childcare and school activities, the child must be the military member’s child or a child for whom the military member stands in loco parentis;
  • Increases the number of days taken for Rest and Recuperation leave from 5 to 15 days;
  • Adds “attending funeral services” to the list of covered post-deployment activities; and
  • Adds parental care as a new category to the list of covered qualifying exigencies.

Parental Leave Is Brand New

Under new Sec. 825.126(8), the Final Rule grants FMLA leave time for the employee to care for a parent of the military member when the parent is incapable of self-care and the covered active duty or call to covered active duty status of the military member necessitates a change in the existing care arrangement for the parent.

As with leave for the serious health condition of a family member, the parent must be the military member’s biological, adoptive, step, or foster father or mother, or any other individual who stood in loco parentis to the military member when the member was under 18 years of age. As with all instances of qualifying exigency leave, the military member must be the spouse, son, daughter, or parent of the employee requesting qualifying exigency leave.


Get ADA compliant job descriptions for your jobs with a Free Market Analysis Report. Also receive guidance on how to use our Compensation Analyzer tool to do market analysis, identify internal and external inequities, and track compensation.


The Final Rule grants parental FMLA leave time under the qualifying exigency provision for the employee to:

  • Arrange for alternative care for a parent of the military member;
  • Provide care for a parent of the military member on an urgent, immediate need basis (but not on a routine, regular, or everyday basis) when the parent is incapable of self-care and the need to provide such care arises from the covered active duty or call to covered active duty status of the military member;
  • Admit to or transfer to a care facility a parent of the military member when admittance or transfer is necessitated by the covered active duty or call to covered active duty status of the military member; and
  • Attend meetings with staff at a care facility, such as meetings with hospice or social service providers for a parent of the military member, when such meetings are necessary due to circumstances arising from the covered active duty or call to covered active duty status of the military member but not for routine or regular meetings.

Effective Dates

The regulatory changes contained in the Final Rule took  effect March 8, 2013 (30 days from the date the Final Rule was published), including an eligible employee’s entitlement to take military caregiver leave to care for certain veterans.

Complicated new FMLA rules, just what every compensation manager needs, right? Unfortunately, it’s just one of comp and benefits’ daily challenges. “Maintain internal equity and external competitiveness and control turnover, but still meet management’s demands for lowered costs.” Heard that one before?  

Many of the professionals we serve find helpful answers to all their compensation questions at Compensation.BLR.com, BLR’s comprehensive compensation website.

And there’s great news: The site has just been revamped in two important ways. First, compliance focus information has been updated to include the latest on COBRA, Lilly Ledbetter, and the FMLA. Second, user features are enhanced to make the site even quicker to respond to your particular needs:

  • Topics Navigator—Lets you drill down by topical areas to get to the right data fast.
  • Customizable Homepage—Can be configured to display whatever content you want to see most often.
  • Menu Navigation—Displays all of the main content areas and tools that you need in a simple, easy format.
  • Quick Links—Enables you to quickly navigate to all the new and updated content areas.

The services provided by this unique tool include:

  • Localized Salary Finder. Based on reliable research among thousands of employers, here are pay scales (including 25th, 50th, 75th, and 90th percentiles) for hundreds of commonly held jobs, from line worker to president of the company. The data are customized for your state and metro area, your industry, and your company size, so you can base your salaries on what’s offered in your specific market, not nationally.

Get an ADA compliant job description, grade assignment, rate range for that job, and salary data, all customized for your industry and geography. Better news? It’s FREE. Download Your Free Market Analysis Report.


  • State and Federal Wage-Hour and Other Legal Advice. Plain-English explanations of wage-hour and other compensation and benefits-related law at both federal and state levels. “State” means the laws of your state because the site is customized to your use. (Other states can be added at a modest extra charge.)
  • Job Descriptions. The website provides them by the hundreds, already written, legally reviewed, and compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) mandate that essential job functions be separated from those less critical. All descriptions carry employment grade levels to current norms—another huge time-saver.
  • Merit Increase, Salary, and Benefits Surveys. The service includes the results of three surveys a year. Results for exempt and nonexempt employees are reported separately.
  • Daily Updates. Comp and benefits news updated daily (as is the whole site).
  • "Ask the Experts" Service. E-mail a question to our editors and get a personalized response within 3 business days.

If we sound as if we’re excited about the program, it’s because we are. For about $3 a working day, the help it offers to those with compensation responsibilities is enormous.

This one’s definitely worth a look, which you can get by clicking the links below.

Click here to get more information or start a no-cost trial and get a complimentary special report!

2 thoughts on “Parental Leave Now Mandated Under Military Exigency FMLA”

  1. I think the recent expansion of parental leave to care for adult children with disabilities could have more impact than parental leave for servicemembers, mainly because of the broad definition of “disability.”

  2. I used the M&M method of potty trinniag with the first; that didn’t work with the second; the 3rd potty trained himself; the 4th got a little red shiny new flyer tricycle; and, the 4th? I don’t remember – I just remember being finished with 12 years in diapers!My 3 oldest sons love Family Guy – but they don’t watch it on t.v. – the oldest ones bought the dvd! Sigh! I never have seen it, though!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *