Serious health condition of a parent, child, spouse, or self. Child for health-related FMLA is defined the same as under sick leave under 18 or over 18 if incapable of self-care due to a physical or mental disability at the time leave is to commence. Employee's own serious health condition. If you know ahead of time that you will need to use FMLA leave, you must tell your employer 30 days 1 month in advance. If you know you will need to take leave in less than 30 days, you should tell your employer right away.
If you have to take leave for something you did not know about ahead of time, you should tell your employer as soon as possible. When you ask for FMLA leave, you need to give your employer enough information so your employer can find out if the FMLA applies to your leave request.
Depending on the situation, such information may include that you are unable to come to work because you are pregnant, you have been hospitalized overnight, or you or your qualifying family member is getting continuing care from a health care provider.
When you ask for leave because you or your family member has a serious health condition, your employer may ask for certification of the condition from a health care provider. The employer may also seek a second opinion about the condition from another health care provider as long as the employer pays for it.
The FMLA makes it illegal for an employer to stop you, fire you, or discriminate against you treat you unfairly or unequally when you exercise your rights under the FMLA. Learn about reasonable accommodations and programs that help make work possible. Jump to content Jump to menu.
Try It. Know Your Rights and Responsibilities. Add to favorites. Add to favorites Add to favorites One of my favorites. Who Is Eligible? FMLA is designed to help employees balance their work and family responsibilities by allowing them to take reasonable unpaid leave for certain family and medical reasons.
It also seeks to accommodate the legitimate interests of employers and promote equal employment opportunity for men and women.
FMLA applies to all public agencies, all public and private elementary and secondary schools, and companies with 50 or more employees. These employers must provide an eligible employee with up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave each year for any of the following reasons:.
Q What happens if I do not submit a requested medical or fitness-for-duty certification? If an employee fails to timely submit a properly requested medical certification absent sufficient explanation of the delay , FMLA protection for the leave may be delayed or denied. If the employee never provides a medical certification, then the leave is not FMLA leave. If an employee fails to submit a properly requested fitness-for-duty certification, the employer may delay job restoration until the employee provides the certification.
If the employee never provides the certification, he or she may be denied reinstatement. On return from FMLA leave whether after a block of leave or an instance of intermittent leave , the FMLA requires that the employer return the employee to the same job, or one that is nearly identical equivalent.
Employees seeking to use FMLA leave are required to provide day advance notice of the need to take FMLA leave when the need is foreseeable and such notice is practicable. If leave is foreseeable less than 30 days in advance, the employee must provide notice as soon as practicable — generally, either the same or next business day.
When the need for leave is not foreseeable, the employee must provide notice to the employer as soon as practicable under the facts and circumstances of the particular case. Employees must provide sufficient information for an employer to reasonably determine whether the FMLA may apply to the leave request.
When an employee seeks leave, however, due to a FMLA-qualifying reason for which the employer has previously provided the employee FMLA-protected leave, the employee must specifically reference either the qualifying reason for the leave or the need for FMLA leave. Sam has a medical certification on file with his employer for his chronic serious health condition, migraine headaches. He is unable to report to work at the start of his shift due to a migraine and needs to take unforeseeable FMLA leave.
Sam has provided his employer with appropriate notice. An employer that willfully violates this posting requirement may be subject to a civil money penalty for each separate offense. For current penalty amounts, see www. Additionally, employers must include this general notice in employee handbooks or other written guidance to employees concerning benefits, or, if no such materials exist, must distribute a copy of the notice to each new employee upon hiring.
When an employee requests FMLA leave or the employer acquires knowledge that leave may be for a FMLA purpose, the employer must notify the employee of his or her eligibility to take leave, and inform the employee of his or her rights and responsibilities under the FMLA. When the employer has enough information to determine that leave is being taken for a FMLA-qualifying reason, the employer must notify the employee that the leave is designated and will be counted as FMLA leave.
Q How soon after an employee provides notice of the need for leave must an employer determine whether someone is eligible for FMLA leave?
Q Does an employer have to provide employees with information regarding their specific rights and responsibilities under the FMLA? Employers are expected to responsively answer questions from employees concerning their rights and responsibilities.
Q How soon after an employee provides notice of the need for leave must an employer notify an employee that the leave will be designated and counted as FMLA leave? Under the regulations, an employer must notify an employee whether leave will be designated as FMLA leave within five business days of learning that the leave is being taken for a FMLA-qualifying reason, absent extenuating circumstances.
The designation notice must also state whether paid leave will be substituted for unpaid FMLA leave and whether the employer will require the employee to provide a fitness-for-duty certification to return to work unless a handbook or other written document clearly provides that such certification will be required in specific circumstances, in which case the employer may provide oral notice of this requirement.
Where it is not possible to provide the number of hours, days, or weeks that will be counted as FMLA leave in the designation notice e. For a member of the Regular Armed Forces, covered active duty or call to covered active duty status means duty during the deployment of the member with the Armed Forces to a foreign country.
For a member of the Reserve components of the Armed Forces members of the National Guard and Reserves , covered active duty or call to covered active duty status means duty during the deployment of the member with the Armed Forces to a foreign country under a Federal call or order to active duty in support of a contingency operation.
Q What is the definition of deployment of a member with the Armed Forces to a foreign country? Deployment to a foreign country means the military member is deployed to an area outside of the United States, the District of Columbia, or any Territory or possession of the United States.
Deployment to a foreign country includes deployment to international waters. Q Are families of servicemembers in the Regular Armed Forces eligible for military caregiver leave?
Military caregiver leave extends to those seriously injured or ill members of both the Regular Armed Forces and the National Guard or Reserves. Q Can I take military caregiver leave if I am the stepson or stepdaughter of the covered servicemember or if I am the stepparent of a covered servicemember? The regulations provide that an eligible employee is entitled to a combined total of 26 workweeks of military caregiver leave and leave for any other FMLA-qualifying reason in this single month period, provided that the employee may not take more than 12 workweeks of leave for any other FMLA-qualifying reason during this period.
For example, in the single month period an employee could take 12 weeks of FMLA leave to care for a newborn child and 14 weeks of military caregiver leave, but could not take 16 weeks of leave to care for a newborn child and 10 weeks of military caregiver leave. Q Can I carry-over unused weeks of military caregiver leave from one month period to another? If an employee does not use his or her entire workweek leave entitlement during the single month period of leave, the remaining workweeks of leave are forfeited.
After the end of the single month period for military caregiver leave, however, an employee may be entitled to take FMLA leave to care for the covered military member if the member is a qualifying family member under non-military FMLA and he or she has a serious health condition. Q Can I take military caregiver leave for more than one seriously injured or ill servicemember, or more than once for the same servicemember if he or she has a subsequent serious injury or illness?
Q Can I care for two seriously injured or ill servicemembers at the same time? However, an eligible employee may not take more than 26 workweeks of leave during each single month period. Q What if my covered servicemember receives a catastrophic injury and the military issues me travel orders to immediately fly to Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany to be at his bedside. Do I have to provide a completed certification before flying to Germany?
The regulations also permit an eligible employee who is a spouse, parent, son, daughter or next of kin of a covered servicemember to submit an ITO or ITA issued to another family member as sufficient certification for the duration of time specified in the ITO or ITA, even if the employee seeking leave is not the named recipient on the ITO or ITA.
Q How is leave designated if it qualifies as both military caregiver leave and leave to care for a family member with a serious health condition? For military caregiver leave that also qualifies as leave taken to care for a family member with a serious health condition, the regulations provide that an employer must designate the leave as military caregiver leave first. The Department believes that applying military caregiver leave first will help to alleviate some of the administrative issues caused by the running of the separate single month period for military caregiver leave.
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