Pregnancy and FMLA

GLC

I am wanting to know how other companies handle an employee who is pregnant. Do you start FMLA as soon as you find out that the employee is pregnant so all pre-natal doctor appts., etc. are protected or do you wait until she has the baby to start the 12 week clock? Is this our decision or the employees? We recently had an employee who wanted the FMLA to start after the baby was born so she could have a full 12 weeks off then. If an employee has a difficult pregnancy, would it not be better to start the FMLA when you find out they are pregnant in case they need to be off work a lot due to the difficult pregnancy. I know we need to come up with a rule on this and stay consistent.

Janet

Per the regs, it is the employer's responsibility to designate FMLA. I would definitely let the EE know that any pregnancy-related absences (up to and including delivery) count towards her FMLA total.

Margaret Morford

I agree with Janet. Designate it all. You might also want to check your state law. Many times states have a maternity statute that is more generous than the federal FMLA statute.

Margaret Morford
theHRedge
615-371-8200
[email]mmorford@mleesmith.com[/email]
[url]http://www.thehredge.net[/url]

jmssr

You should start the FMLA clock running as soon as you know about the pregnancy. The employee does not have the right to pick when the FMLA starts.

ppersails

I have a question regarding this, now that I know that this is something that I could do. I have an exempt employee who is calling at least once a week saying she is having cramping and will be late, usually about 2-3 hours. She is now due in October. I realize that I should have probably started from the beginning, but is it something I can make into effect now? How would you track a couple missed hours here and there? We do not pay for any kind of leave, so how would that work? I don't take away any hours from you pay, as that would change her to non-exempt. However, she doesn't make her missed hours up. Am I just out of luck?

JAM

You should be safe in classifying this as reduced leave schedule. A reduced leave schedule is one that reduces an employee's usual number of working hours per workweek, or number of hours per day. I've never read anything that requires the reduced leave schedule to be pre-determined hours, so I would think it could be classified as such after the fact. You should notify the ee in advance if you plan to document the hours this way. Just curious, has anyone else documented FMLA in hourly increments for exempt ees?

Gillian

For those of you with employees in California, FMLA can be run concurrently with Pregnancy Leave as described. The California Family Rights Act (our state family leave) cannot. It is possible to have an employee on pregnancy leave until that (and FMLA) runs out then go on CFRA for additional leave.