Family Medical Leave

July 9, 2023

Family Medical Leave, COVID Leave, and Paid Time Off
Occasionally, employees need to leave work. This can be for medical emergencies, planned medical procedures, family support, or leisure. Several laws govern the management of these kinds of leave, and they affect most employers.


Managing multiple types of leave can become a full-time job if you don’t have the right tools. Let’s break down the main leave laws:

Family and Medical Leave
The Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) entitles eligible employees to take unpaid, job-protected leave for specified family and medical reasons with the continuation of employer health insurance coverage.


In March 2020, Congress passed the Families First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA) which includes The Emergency Paid Sick Leave Act (EPSLA).


The FFCRA requires employers to provide paid leave through two separate components;

● The Emergency Paid Sick Leave Act (EPSLA)

● Emergency Family and Medical Leave Expansion Act (Expanded FMLA)


The EPSLA is the second law contained in the FFCRA that provides paid leave. Specifically, it provides full-time employees up to 80 hours (two weeks) of paid sick leave for basically the same coronavirus-related reasons as outlined in the EFMLEA.

Paid Time Off


Paid time off is offered by many employers. In most cases, employers allow employees to accrue time off based on their work history. Typically, employers offer a specified number of accruable hours for every week on the job. Tracking and managing the number of hours accrued, and the number of hours the employee has applied to time off is where employers can get tripped up.

Except for the previous types of family and medical leave, there are no federal laws that mandate employers provide paid time off. However, many states regulate PTO to some degree.

24 states: Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New York, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island (after one year of employment), Tennessee, West Virginia, and Wyoming—and the District of Columbia have laws regarding payment of accrued vacation time.

‘Use it or lose it’ policies are prohibited in California, Montana, and Nevada. In addition, some cities regulate PTO. Check your state and local departments of labor.

Case Study: Delta Fabrication
Complying with FMLA and COVID leave while administering company PTO is not a simple task. Our example case shows how tricky leave compliance can be.

Delta Fabrication, a California-based sheet metal manufacturer, paid $19,694 in back wages to 71 employees after a Department of Labor (DOL) investigation. The company wrongly paid workers only two-thirds of their regular rates when they took coronavirus-related sick leave, a violation of the Families First Coronavirus Response Act (FFCRA).

DOL investigators found that Delta Fabrication first used the employees’ available accrued sick days to compensate them, wrongly subtracting hours from the workers’ accrued sick leave instead of providing the additional leave provided by the act. https://www.dol.gov/newsroom/releases/whd/whd20201124

Correctly administering leave is a compliance minefield for even experienced HR professionals. Common problems include:

● Failure to notify employees of FMLA and COVID-related leave rights

● Failing to confirm when employees become eligible for state or federal leave

● Managers who don’t understand FMLA or EPSLA or who neglect to inform HR when an employee takes leave

● Failure to keep sufficient records including separate documentation for FMLA and COVID leave

● Penalizing an employee who takes protected leave

● Failure to create a formal PTO policy

● Failure to enforce PTO policies equitably

Solution: Automated PTO and Leave Management
With Automated PTO and Leave Management, you simply set up custom time-off categories. This allows you to allocate, accrue and track the use of federal FMLA and COVID leave, state family leave, vacation, and company PTO. Automatically.

Automated leave management benefits employees and managers as well. Employees can check their leave balances and request time off using any mobile device. Managers have all PTO requests in one location and can approve, modify or deny.

In addition, managers can see employees on leave or scheduled for leave as they build shift schedules.

Automated PTO and Leave Management streamlines PTO tracking and ensures employers can see the big picture before approving or declining time off. Automated time and attendance also provide historic data that can make audits easy, productive, and worry-free.



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