Human Resource Blog

FMLA and the Protection of Benefits

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We have a company in Idaho that has about 100 full time employees and 30 part time employees. There are a couple of employees that are going to take time off to care for sick family members. I want to confirm that those employees are covered by the FMLA when they take their time off. Is there anything in particular that would keep them from receiving their medical coverage and other benefits during that time?

No. According to the FMLA (Family Medical Leave Act) your employees are entitled to receive their full benefits during the time that they are out of the office on their FMLA leave. During this time, they are not allowed to have any negative punishment as a result of their time away, including the removal of benefits or a change in their position that would hurt their benefits or salary.

The FMLA was established in 1993 as a federal program that allows employees to take up to 12 weeks off of work each year as long as the employees have worked for 12 months prior to the necessary time of or for 1,250 hours during the previous year. The FMLA applies not only to full time employees, but also to seasonal workers and part time employees. As such, your employees that need to take the time off should fall within the requirements for eligible employees.

In addition to being able to take a full 12 weeks off for qualifying conditions, your employees have a variety of options, including intermitted time off and the reduction of hours. Intermittent time off means that the employee does not have to take all of the days off at once. Instead, the employee can vary the weeks or hours off. The reduction of hours is typically used when an employee wishes to go from being a full time employee to being a part time employee.

Keep in mind that when your employees take their time off, there are specific reasons that they must be taking the time off. For example, they cannot take the FMLA time off to recover from a cold. They either need to be tending to their own serious medical condition, recovering from birth (both men and women can take time off for birth, adoption and new foster parent circumstances), or to take care of an eligible family member. You may want to go over these requirements with your employees just to double check that they qualify for FMLA time off.