A high-level overview of the Family and Medical Leave Act, established by Congress in 1993 and overseen by the U.S. Department of Labor. 

Not all employers are covered under the FMLA. First, it's vital to determine if your business meets the requirements. However, doing so isn't always so clear-cut. Rules around counting part-time employees, changing worksites, and remote work in today's workplace can all make determining your coverage requirements confusing.

Even if the FMLA covers your workplace, not all employees might be covered. New employers or employees who work part-time may not meet the cut-off. Before approving an FMLA leave request, ensure the employee meets the criteria. If you let one ineligible employee take protected leave on accident, you may find yourself stuck letting others benefit from the law or risk unequal treatment claims.

12 Weeks over a 12-month period may seem straightforward, but how your FMLA calendar period is outlined in your employee handbook will have a significant impact on how things play out. If your FMLA resets each calendar year, then an employee who takes FMLA leave in December would be eligible to retake it starting January.

FMLA leave can be taken for an employee's serious health condition. However, it can also be taken to care for a family member's medical condition. Identifying who counts as a "family member' may feel intuitive. Still, when it comes to the law, you need to double-check your work carefully, as in some cases — a blood relative may not count while a child's caregiver or other close family friend might.

Taking time to care for a new child (or a child recently placed from foster care) is one qualifying reason for leave under the FMLA. However, some employers have made the mistake of thinking that only counts for the mother — and they paid for it in hefty fines. If both parents work for your company, you may have more leeway in approving unpaid leave. 

The most common qualifying reason for taking FMLA leave is for an employee's serious health condition. Generally, a cold or the flu doesn't qualify for FMLA-protected leave. However, long-term complications from them might. Understanding how to differentiate between FMLA-qualifying medical conditions and those that don't quite meet the bar is vital.

The Family and Medical Leave Act references health care providers, especially when medical certification is needed, but that doesn't just include traditional physicians. You'll need to understand what medical providers count, and what testimony you can dismiss when ensuring you have enough information to make a decision on an employee's leave request.

Employees requesting leave must give employers notice before the leave is needed to process the employee's request. However, there are some cases where advanced notice may not be possible. If an employee is in an accident, they won't be able to submit paperwork before being rushed to the hospital. However, suppose an employee receives a sudden diagnosis and needs medical treatment. In that case, you might be walking a finer line in determining if an employee must give the entire notice period or if they can begin taking leave right away.

Even if an employee is considered covered under the FMLA, there can be some exceptions for employees designated as "key." The guidelines for designating key employees are not clear-cut under this federal law, so be sure you understand them well before doing so or risk battling it out in court.

While covered employees must be able to take their leave entitlement under federal law, companies are permitted to work with employees to try to reduce the disruption that taking leave causes.

Employees' weeks of leave are typically taken in one lump sum, but employees may be permitted to take intermittent leave. For example, an employee's medical treatment may require them to take one day off a week. Or they're subject to occasional and unexpected flare-ups and need to take leave periodically. 

However, this does not allow employees carte-blanche to miss work whenever they want. The employee must still follow a company's leave policies, even if leave is protected under the FMLA. 

Unfortunately, Intermittent FMLA leave is full of opportunities for employees to abuse, so requests must be reviewed carefully and verified with a healthcare provider.

When an employee's leave request comes in, you must send a letter within five business days outlining your organization's requirements and policies, including any medical certification, whether an employee may use sick leave while on FMLA, how coverage of premium payments for health benefits will work, and more.

FMLA leave, as required by the federal government, is unpaid. However, employers may allow (or sometimes need) employees to use paid leave before taking unpaid FMLA leave. This, however, comes with some nuance and thus should be a carefully outlined policy in your handbook, as you'll need to apply these practices equally to all employees or risk facing a lawsuit.

Employees on FMLA leave are entitled to keep their benefits, such as health insurance. However, if leave is unpaid, the employee may still be required to pay their premiums, which would usually be deducted from their paycheck. This can be a complicated and messy process, with some stipulations, so it's essential to understand your responsibility here fully and to communicate clearly with employees about their responsibilities. 

When an employee returns, often they'll start their existing job again. However, it is not required. Instead, an employee may be given an equivalent job with "similar duties and responsibilities," the same "conditions of employment," and a few other poorly specified requirements. Understand these requirements well, or you may find yourself in a sticky lawsuit.

There are limited situations where you may choose not to reinstate an employee, such as if your company undergoes layoffs or if you find evidence the employee was breaking company policy. However, you'll need to have well-documented evidence that taking FMLA leave was not factored into decisions, as it's very likely such a case will end up in court.

The FMLA does not have as strict requirements on record keeping as some other federal laws. However, you'll still want to know what records you need to keep and for how long, especially as some documents may be required for legal action.

Even if you understand the FMLA and how to implement it, you'll need to consider other laws that interact with it. Many state laws and other local laws, such as paid sick leave laws, interact in unique ways with the FMLA. Additionally, workers' compensation and the ADA can be closely tied to conditions requiring FMLA leave.

Under the National Defense Authorization Act of 2008, eligible employees may take up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave over a single 12-month period of "any qualifying exigency" arising from the active duty military service or call to service of a spouse, child, or parent. There are many "qualifying exigencies," so be sure to understand them well should the situation arise.

The Uniformed Services and Reemployment Rights Act requires employers to re-employ someone returning from duty in the uniformed services if they meet specific criteria. Time spent on such deployment counts toward an employee's FMLA eligibility, so be sure not to make the mistake of considering recently returned military service members as ineligible for FMLA leave.