With Labor Day just around the corner, it’s critical that you know when to count holidays against an employee’s FMLA leave entitlement.
Miscalculating the amount of FMLA leave an employee has left can land your company in court and prove to be a very costly mistake. So it’s critical that you know the ins and outs of the law.
Here’s what the regulations say:
If an employee takes FMLA leave in full-week increments, and a holiday falls within one of those weeks, the week is still counted as a full week of FMLA leave.
So let’s say your employees work a traditional Mon-Fri workweek. When it comes to Labor Day, if an employee takes the entire workweek of Sept. 6 off, he or she has used up an entire week of FMLA leave, not just four days.
Intermittent leave
Now here’s where the FMLA gets tricky. Let’s say an employee is taking FMLA leave in increments of less than one week. In this case the holiday will not count against the employee’s leave entitlement — unless the employee would’ve otherwise been scheduled and expected to work during the holiday.
Another reason in which the holiday can’t be counted against a worker’s leave entitlement: if your business operations have temporarily ceased, and employees are not expected to report to work for one or more weeks.
Some instances in which this might occur:
- If a plant is closed for retooling or repairs
- A business is closed for two weeks for a Christmas and New Year’s break, and
- If an organization (like a school) is closed for summer vacation.
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