QUESTION:
Our employee has used up their 12 weeks of FMLA, and now they are off due to COVID-19. Will we allow our employee another 12 weeks? Do they have to work another 1250 hours, or can we just give them the leave for COVID-19?
ANSWER:
The Family First FMLA leave is a 12 week benefit through December 31, 2020.
The Family First FMLA did not create an opportunity for more than 12 weeks of leave to stay home with children. So once the 12 weeks are exhausted, no additional Family First FMLA time through December 2020 is available.
Now, remember, the employee must have FMLA time available if you have 50 to 500 employees to use Family First FMLA. If the employee exhausted their current FMLA annual benefit (if you are over 50 employees), but still has weeks available to use for Family First FMLA once the employee is eligible for FMLA again (in the next calendar year of FMLA, rollback/roll forward or calendar year), they would be able to use any remaining Family First FMLA eligibility time available through December 2020. The same applies if you have under 50 employees, they have up to 12 weeks of Family First FMLA to use until December 2020.
For example, if they had 3 weeks of FMLA available for the current annual time period, they could use those 12 weeks for Family First FMLA. Then, once they have more FMLA leave available, maybe later this year, then they could use the remaining 9 weeks of Family First FMLA through December 2020. To requalify for FMLA, they will only need the 30-day employment criteria for Family First FMLA. For both over and under 50 employees, the employee is only eligible for a total of 12 weeks for Family First FMLA through December 2020.
Don’t be caught unprepared – get our COVID-19 EZ HR Solution today!
The Ultimate Guide to California Medical Leave and Accommodation Management
The Two-Day Live Stream Workshop On the Ultimate Guide to California Integrated Medical Leave and Accommodation Management is coming up on May 14th-15th. Get tailored solutions to your precise medical leave and accommodation management challenges in this interactive 2-day live training with Beth De Lima, an HR expert, HR Trainer, and HR Consultant who has been “in-the-trenches” managing real-life HR scenarios and providing HR expert testimony for more than 25 years.
It will be available via live streaming so you don’t need to leave the comfort of our home. Only a few seats are left for the special early bird price. Don’t allow one small mistake to lead to costly litigation—protect yourself and your organization and register for the upcoming training today!