Work Comp, FMLA and paid leave benefits

Leslie

This encompasses three different forums, so thought I'd post in this general subject...

Our paid leave benefits are based on hours worked and accrued each biweekly payroll period. Say someone is at a service level to earn two weeks of vacation each year. They see a 3.08 hour increase with each biweekly paycheck. If they only work 32 hours each week (64 for the pay period) they would only see a pro-rated amount accrual - in that scenario, 2.46. If they don't work any hours, and don't have paid leave time to cover the hours, they don't get any paid leave benefit accrual. It sounds more complicated than it actually is - especially when you have a system that does all the calculations for you.

Anyhow, when people are on Work Comp, we maintain their accrual. For FMLA we do not. I read an old post from a couple years back that very much confused me - it pointed to the fact that I may be doing this backwards. ?????

sandra_d

I believe it goes back to what your policy states. Our PTO accrual policy is just like yours, including pro-rated for people who work less than full-time. Our policy (which was blessed by an employment law attorney) read that since PTO is accrued based upon hours worked, if an employee didn't work for any reason, they did not accrue PTO. We don't allow people to accrue if they are absent from work for work comp, FMLA, or any other reason. FMLA was what we were most concerned about, but were told that if that was our policy, and it was consistently applied, we were fine. (However, if our policy said that you were given x number of PTO hours each week/pay period/year - then under FMLA the employee would still be entitled to it ... because it isn't associated with working or not - it is just given.)

Hope this helps.

Rockie

Our policy is exactly the same. If an employee is out on any type of leave, it is spelled out in our policy manual that they do not accrue PTO. In fact, they exhaust their PTO in most cases (excluding military where they are protected by law and can "freeze" the leave until they return).