As covered in the last installment, You have flexibility in choosing a calendar method for your organization to follow in keeping track of employee use of Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) leave, other than military caregiver leave. This article will cover how to calculate leave entitlement.
The methods for calculating the FMLA 12-week limit may be based on:
- The calendar year;
- Any fixed 12-month period (such as a fiscal year, year required by state law, or year that begins with an employee’s anniversary date);
- A 12-month period, measured forward, that begins on the date an employee first starts the FMLA leave; or
- A “rolling” 12-month period, measured backward, from the date an employee last used any FMLA leave.
Whichever method is used, it’s imperative that you calculate the correct amount of time each employee has available for intermittent FMLA leave. An employee’s total FMLA entitlement—not including military caregiver leave—is 12 weeks in a 12-month period, and you can reduce the entitlement only by time actually used.
Since the FMLA doesn’t specify how many hours are in a workweek, the Fair Labor Standards Act’s regulations are helpful. The regulations define a workweek as the number of hours an employee usually works.
In the case of an employee who works 12 hours a day, 4 days a week, the number of FMLA hours to which he’s entitled for purposes of intermittent or reduced-schedule leave is 576 (48 hours x 12 = 576). If the leave is taken on an intermittent or reduced-schedule basis, the amount of leave actually taken will be reduced from his total leave based on his normal work hours.
In other words, if the employee takes 9 hours of intermittent leave during a 1-week period, his total amount of remaining FMLA leave will total 567 hours. This example points out the importance of keeping up-to-date and accurate records. Failure to do so may subject you to liability for denying the employee FMLA leave to which he’s entitled.
In the next installment, we’ll cover the substitution of paid leave and whether or not leave can be “made up.”