Managing the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) can be a major struggle for leave managers. In fact, a recent AbsenceSoft survey found that FMLA compliance was the top reported challenge by HR managers. The second most common challenge is also a notorious administrative headache, managing intermittent FMLA leave.
When employees use intermittent FMLA leave, they take time off in separate blocks rather than all at once. Employees often can’t give as much notice for intermittent FMLA leave, because they are often for last-minute emergencies or a sudden onset of medical symptoms. The random nature of intermittent FMLA leave creates a unique set of challenges for HR teams.
According to the Department of Labor, intermittent FMLA leave provides essential flexibility for employees dealing with serious health conditions, family caregiving responsibilities, and other qualifying circumstances. In this article, we explore the fundamentals of intermittent FMLA leave, how it works, and best practices for effective management.
How Does Intermittent FMLA Work?
The FMLA is a federal law that provides eligible employees with up to 12 workweeks of unpaid, job-protected leave per year for qualifying family and medical reasons. These reasons can include, but aren’t limited to:
- An Employee’s Own Serious Health Condition: For ongoing medical treatments, chronic conditions, or recovery from serious illnesses.
- Adoption or Foster Care: To attend necessary appointments, travel, or settle a child into a new home.
- Qualifying Exigencies: For matters related to a family member’s military deployment, such as legal arrangements or childcare needs.
- Family Medical Conditions: To care for a spouse, child, or parent with a serious health condition requiring intermittent leave.
- Health Care Treatments: For scheduled therapy, surgeries, or regular doctor visits related to a chronic or serious illness.
Importantly, employees aren’t required to take this time consecutively—they can use their intermittent FMLA leave or work on a reduced schedule when medically necessary.
Common Scenarios for Intermittent FMLA Leave Usage
Let’s look at a few ways employees might request to use intermittent FMLA.
- Managing Ongoing Medical Treatment: An employee receiving chemotherapy may need to take time off for treatment and recovery. They might have to miss a few hours each week for appointments, for several months.
- Supporting Family Members: An employee caring for a parent with Alzheimer’s might use their leave intermittently to attend medical appointments, manage unexpected crises, or provide essential health care during caregiver transitions.
- Mental Health Management: An employee with clinical depression could take intermittent FMLA leave for weekly therapy sessions, medication adjustments, or during acute episodes.
- Reduced Schedule Arrangements: An employee recovering from major surgery might gradually return to work by working four-hour days instead of eight-hour days, spreading their FMLA entitlement over a longer period.
Determining Eligibility for Intermittent FMLA Leave
Eligibility is very similar for both intermittent and consecutive FMLA. To qualify, employees must have:
- Worked for the employer for at least 12 months (not necessarily consecutive)
- Collected a minimum of 1,250 hours of service during the 12 months preceding leave
- Work at a location where the employer has at least 50 employees within a 75-mile radius
However, it must be medically necessary to take intermittent FMLA. Employees may take intermittent FMLA without notice if they have an urgent medical reason. Employers are not required to give consent for an employee to take intermittent leave.
Medical Certification Requirements
Employers are allowed to request a certification from a healthcare provider that intermittent FMLA leave is necessary. This documentation typically outlines:
- The nature of the serious health condition
- The expected duration and frequency of leave episodes
- Why intermittent FMLA leave or reduced schedule leave is medically necessary
- The expected treatment schedule (if applicable)
Tracking Challenges with Intermittent FMLA Leave
One of the trickiest things about intermittent leave is tracking how much time an employee has taken and knowing how much they have left. HR managers need to be able to tell an employee exactly how much time they have used, and how much time they are still eligible for. This is critical not only for employee transparency, but for staying compliant with the law.
Employers must track every hour—or even minute — of intermittent leave that an employee takes. Then, leave managers must also track this time over the course of 12 months. This makes it hard to know how much time an employee has left, and whether or not future requests should be approved.
Tracking intermittent leave without technology can be incredibly challenging. Numerous emails, calendar reminders, and spreadsheets can be required just to track a single employee’s leave usage.
With a leave management solution, tracking intermittent leave becomes much easier. Employees are able to request time off directly from their phone, tablet, or computer. As soon as this request is approved by HR, the hours taken are deducted from their overall entitlement. The system gets automatically updated, and everyone knows exactly how much time is left for the employee to take under FMLA.
Intersection with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA)
In some cases, intermittent leave can be granted as a reasonable accommodation under the ADA. Here are some situations where intermittent leave under the ADA may apply:
- When an employee has exhausted their intermittent FMLA leave but still requires intermittent absences
- For employees who don’t meet FMLA eligibility requirements but qualify for ADA protections
- When a condition requires accommodation beyond the 12-week FMLA entitlement
If an employee asks for leave as an accommodation, you should go through the interactive process. Together, employers and employees explore reasonable accommodations, which might include flexible scheduling, temporary reassignment, or additional leave time. Unlike FMLA, which provides a specific amount of leave, ADA accommodations are evaluated based on their reasonableness and potential hardship to the organization.
To learn more about the steps of the interactive process, check out our Guide to Improving Your ADA Interactive Process.
Improving Intermittent FMLA Leave Management with Technology
A leave management system like AbsenceSoft can transform your approach to intermittent FMLA leave administration through:
- Automated Eligibility Determination: Quickly identify whether employees qualify for FMLA protection based on their employment history and leave use.
- Streamlined Documentation: Generate and distribute required forms, including medical certifications, automatically through email or text.
- Self-Service Capabilities: Enable employees to request intermittent FMLA leave through user-friendly portals accessible from any device.
- Real-Time Tracking: Maintain accurate records of intermittent FMLA leave usage, with automatic calculation of remaining entitlement.
- Supervisor Notification: Automatically alert managers about employee absences to facilitate operational planning.
- Centralized Record-Keeping: Store all leave-related documentation securely in a single location for simplified compliance and auditing.
- Data and Reporting: Get real-time, comprehensive insights into leave usage to uncover patterns and trends.
Want to learn more about intermittent FMLA leave?
We’ve helped over 300 customers streamline and optimize their leave management processes. To share what we’ve learned over the years, we collected our best practices for managing FMLA into an informative free guide for HR professionals: Best Practices for Modern FMLA Management. From the initial request all the way to the employee’s return to work, we show you step-by-step how to save time, avoid pitfalls, and improve compliance.
If you want to see how AbsenceSoft streamlines intermittent leave management, schedule a call with a CLMS-certified specialist today.