Family Medical Leave Act
The Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 (FMLA) entitles eligible employees to up to twelve weeks of unpaid leave during any twelve-month period for a variety of defined reasons. While employees are on leave, employers are required to continue to pay for medical benefits.
In 2008, an amendment to the law was passed, allowing for eligible employees who are a spouse, child, parent, or next of kin to a covered member of the armed services recovering from serious injury or illness sustained while on active duty to take up to twenty-six weeks of leave in a twelve-month span in order to care for said serviceman/woman.
To be eligible for FMLA leave, whether 12 week (standard) or 26 week (for active military service members), an employee must have an elapsed 12 months of employment in the past 7 years, and at least 1250 hours of work in the past year.
Advantage HRM provides the functionality to track employee FMLA eligibility by:
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Storing the eligibility requirements and querying employee information to make sure the employee fulfills those requirements.
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Providing the functionality to track employee FMLA usage.
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Identifying leave usages as FMLA Leave or FMLA Military Leave, and storing the usage limit amounts. This information is also made available to users through an online inquiry and report on the Leave Management (LEAVM) activity folder.
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The Employee FMLA Service Hour and Usage section of the LEAVM activity folder tracks the two FMLA eligibility requirements by displaying the employee’s Service Weeks and Service Hours that are counted towards FMLA.
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In order for the Employee FMLA Service Hour and Usage inquiry on LEAVM to identify the correct service hours that can be counted towards the FMLA eligibility requirements, the Service Hours Type (SERV) and Include in Service Hours (ISER) pages are used to link service hours to a specific Service Hours Type (for example, FMLA). The query then uses the information stored on these two reference pages to identify the correct service hours that should be populated on the query, so the user can easily identify whether an employee has met the eligibility requirements.
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The Pay and Leave Event (EVNT) page identifies leave events as an FMLA leave or FMLA Military leave.
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Time-to-Gross identifies FMLA leave usages, and validates those leaves based on the various FMLA limitations, such as the maximum leave hours and an employee’s FMLA leave eligibility.
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The Employee FMLA Balance Report is then created, which pulls employees who are currently taking FMLA leave and their remaining FMLA leave hours balance in order to easily identify any employees who are at the risk of running out of FMLA leave time.
FMLA Processing SetupFMLA Processing Setup
Please refer to Time and Leave Reference Pages in the Advanced - Setup section of this guide for additional information on reference pages required for setup for FMLA processing. The following reference pages contain information pertaining to FMLA processing.
Gross-to-Net Processing for Service HoursGross-to-Net Processing for Service Hours
Gross-to-Net (GTN) calculates Service Hours by summing all hours for events that have the Include in Service Hours flag selected on Pay and Leave Events (EVNT). Once these events are retrieved, Gross-to-Net then searches the Include in Service Hours (ISER) reference table for the Event Type. For every matching Event Type and Service Hours Type entry found, GTN counts the hours from that Event towards the Service Hours Type for the employee. If multiple Service Hours Types are found for one Event, the Event is included in the calculation of all Service Hours Types. If multiple Events are linked to one Service Hours Type, GTN totals the hours from all Events. The resulting amounts are then stored on the internal operation tables EMPL_SRVC_HRS and EMPL_SRVC_HRS_WKY for each employee. These service hours tables include a column for Service Hours Type so that the multiple definitions of Service Hours can be stored.
Time-to-Gross (TTG) Processing for FMLATime-to-Gross (TTG) Processing for FMLA
When timesheet transactions (for example, TADJ, TIMEG, TIMEI transactions) include FMLA Leave Events, Event Types that have the FMLA Leave or FMLA Military Leave check boxes on EVNT selected, TTG verifies the usage of these leaves. If FMLA Leave is accrued for employees who are eligible to take FMLA Leave, based on the Leave Policy Category table setup, TTG checks whether an employee has sufficient remaining unused FMLA Leave. If a site does not accrue FMLA Leave for eligible employees, the LPCT table setup should allow for the FMLA Leave category balance to go negative so employees are able to enter FMLA Leave Events on their timesheets without FMLA Leave accruals.
The following are examples of how the FMLA Leave Category and leave substitution logic for LPET is setup when the reduction of an employee’s leave along with FMLA leave usage is required.
FMLA leave usage event for FMLA Leave approved for sickness.
Leave Type: FMLAS (FMLA Sick)
Leave Category: SICK
FMLA Leave Category: FMLA
Substitute Leave Event Type: LWOP (Leave without pay)
The primary leave category is the employee’s sick leave category. The FMLA leave category is reduced at the same time the primary category is reduced. If the employee’s regular sick leave is exhausted, substitution would occur and leave without pay is used.
FMLA leave usage event for FMLA Leave approved for personal reason.
Leave Type: FMLAP (FMLA Personal)
Leave Category: HOLI (Holiday)
FMLA Leave Category: FMLAM (Category for FMLA Military or regular FMLA depending on the reason)
Substitute Leave Event Type:
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ANNL (Annual)
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LWOP (Leave without pay)
The primary leave category is the employee’s holiday leave category. When an FMLA Leave approved for personal reasons is entered, the employee’s holiday leave balance is reduced first, along with the FMLA leave category. Once the Holiday leave category is exhausted, substitution would occur to reduce the employee’s annual leave, and then leave without pay.
In order to continue to count employee service hours while employees are on leave without pay, a zero dollar positive pay event that is counted towards service hours is associated with the leave without pay leave usage event. For exception paid employees, the unpaid leave usage event is setup to generate a negative pay event to reduce the pay to account for the leave, and generate a positive pay event, which will have a dollar amount of zero. The positive pay event is setup to be included in service hours, so that the hours when the employee is on leave are still counted towards service hours and the employee does not receive any pay. For positive paid employees, the unpaid leave usage event is setup to generate a positive zero dollar pay event that is included in service hours. To generate a dollar amount of zero for the zero dollar positive pay event, the pay event is setup on EVNT to use the PPET rate. The Pay Type Factor Amount is then set to zero on PPET. When this pay detail goes through GTN, service hours are populated on to the Employee Service Hours table since the event is included in Service Hours, and the employee receives a zero dollar pay detail.
The Employee FMLA Service Hour and Usage tab on the Leave Management (LEAVM) activity folder, displays the employee’s information that determines his/her FMLA eligibility.
This inquiry provides the option to define the period for which the information should be displayed by using the following search criteria:
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Selection Date - The selection date is used to calculate the time period for populating the FMLA Hours Served (by subtracting the number of weeks entered in FMLA Hours Served Period from Selection Date) and FMLA Weeks Served (by subtracting the number of weeks entered in FMLA Weeks Served Period from Selection Date). The Selection Date also represents the To date of the time period. The default value is the current date.
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FMLA Hours Served Period - To perform a search for FMLA Service Hours, enter the number of weeks to be subtracted from the Selection Date to determine the start date of the period for the FMLA Service Hours in the search criteria for this section. The default value is 52 weeks, as the system defines 1 year as 52 weeks. For example, if the Selection Date is 2/3/10 and the FMLA Hours Served Period is 52 weeks (default value), the From date of the period is 2/3/09 and the To date is 2/3/10.
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FMLA Weeks Served Period - To perform a search for FMLA Weeks Served, enter the number of weeks to be subtracted from the Selection Date to determine the start date of the period in the search criteria for this section. The default value is 364 weeks (7 years). This means the search looks at all available data up to the defined period, even if there might not be the full period worth of data. For example, if Selection Date 2/3/10, and the FMLA Weeks Served Period is 364 weeks (default value), then the From date for the period is 2/3/03 and the To date is 2/3/10.
The following information is displayed in the FMLA Service Hours section:
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FMLA Weeks Served As Of Date - To be eligible for FMLA, an employee must have at least twelve months of employment with the employer, but that employment does not have to be consecutive. The ITD Months Served field on the Employee Enquiries (EINQ) page indicates whether or not the employee has accrued twelve months of total employment (or whether they are close to reaching the milestone). Instead of searching for all ITD Service Months for a given employee, the FMLA Weeks Served As Of Date field on the FMLA Service Hour and Usage section of (LEAVM) is populated based on the Service Hours Type designated with a Service Hours Purpose of FMLA on the Service Hours Type (SERV) page. To determine the number of weeks that count towards FMLA eligibility, the field selects the Service Hours that occur between the selection date of the inquiry, which would be the date the employee would start FMLA Leave, and counting backwards, the number of weeks entered on the FMLA Required Weeks field, which is 52 based on the current FMLA regulation. If multiple Service Hours Types are designated as FMLA Service Hours Purpose, the amounts are accumulated. Only week amounts greater than zero on the Employee Service Hours table are counted as a served week. If an employee has hours for the same week and year for multiple appointments, the week is only counted once.
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FMLA Service Hours As Of Date - FMLA requires that an employee has worked at least twelve hundred fifty hours during the 12 months preceding the leave in order to be eligible to take leave. The YTD Service Hours field on the Employee Enquiries (EINQ) page displays the year to date total service hours. Instead of searching for all YTD Service Hours for a given employee, the FMLA Service Hours As Of Date field is populated based on the Service Hours Type designated with a Service Hours Purpose of FMLA on the Service Hours Type (SERV). To determine the Service Hours that count towards FMLA eligibility, the field selects the Service Hours that occur between the selection date of the inquiry, which would be the date the employee would start FMLA Leave, and counting backwards, the number of weeks entered on the FMLA Served Period field, which is 52 based on the current FMLA regulation. If multiple Service Hours Types are designated as FMLA Service Hours Purpose, the amounts are accumulated. If the employee has more than one appointment, hours across all appointments are counted.
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Selection Date - Selection Date entered in the search criteria.
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FMLA Hours Served Period - FMLA Hours Served Period entered in the search criteria.
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FMLA Weeks Served Period - FMLA Weeks Served Period entered in the search criteria.
The following information is displayed in the FMLA Leave Usage section:
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The FMLA Usage and FMLA Military Usage fields display FMLA usage in the past year. The YTD FMLA leave usage hours and FMLA military leave usage hours taken are calculated by querying the LEAVE_DETL table for the employee’s leave detail entries that are FMLA Leave Events for the past year. The annual basis for the past year is determined by the employee’s leave policy and the Leave Category Calculation field on Pay and Leave Category (CATG). The employee’s leave policy is used to query Leave Policy Category (LPCT) for a category that has FMLA Leave selected, if it is calculating the FMLA Usage, or that has FMLA Military Leave selected, if it is calculating the FMLA Military Usage. The Leave Category Calculation value indicated on CATG, for the first FMLA category found on LPCT for the employee, is used as the annual basis.
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Remaining FMLA Leave and Remaining FMLA Military Leave display the remaining FMLA leave in the past year. This is calculated by taking the maximum allowable amount of the annual FMLA leave for the leave policy and reducing it by the amount already taken by the employee (FMLA usage). This amount is then converted to weeks dividing by the standard hours per week for the employee based on the assigned Pay Class.
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Annual Basis - Displays the annual basis for calculating the past year
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From and To dates - Display the period for which the FMLA Usages are calculated.
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From - If the annual basis is Year to Date, January 1st and the Selection Date’s year is displayed. If the annual basis is Leave Year to Date, the 1st date of the month after the month that is entered on the Leave Year Ending Month field on LPOL for the employee’s Leave Policy, and the Selection Date’s year is displayed. If the annual basis is Rolling Year, the date of the week one year (52 weeks) backward from the Selection Date is displayed.
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To - Selection Date entered on the search is displayed.
In order to support multiple Service Hour Types for Service Hours Inquiries on the Employee Inquiries (EINQ) activity folder, the Service Hours Type field can be used to choose a Service Hour Type on which to perform a query.
The Employee FMLA Balance Report batch job is used to inform HR of all users currently taking FMLA leave and their remaining FMLA Balance hours through the creation of the Employee FMLA Balance Report and email notification triggers. Employees who are currently taking FMLA leave or have an effective LREQ in place, are selected to be populated on the report. During the report generation, if an employee’s balance is less than or equal to the minimum stored on the Minimum FMLA Balance Hours parameter, an email trigger is generated to notify HR of employees at risk of losing FMLA eligibility,
The report displays the following information for each employee selected.
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Employee ID
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Employee Name
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FMLA Max - If the employee has an effective LREQ in place that approved FMLA Military Leave, then the amount stored on the Annual Maximum Threshold on LPCT for the Category of the FMLA Military Leave Event that the employee uses is displayed. If not, the amount stored on the Annual Maximum Threshold on LPCT for the Category of the FMLA Leave Event that the employee uses is displayed. If the Annual Maximum Threshold is 0, the positive amount of the Annual Minimum Threshold is displayed.
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FMLA Leave Usage - The sum of all of the employee’s FMLA Leave taken in the past year is displayed.
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FMLA Military Leave Usage - The sum of all the employee’s FMLA Military Leave taken in the past year is displayed.
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Balance - The total of the FMLA Leave Usage and FMLA Military Leave Usage is subtracted from the FMLA Max, and the balance is displayed the here.
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At Risk Employee - If the employee’s Balance as identified above in this report is less than or equal to the entered value on the Minimum FMLA Balance Hours job parameter, this column is populated with Yes.
Formula for calculating the FMLA amount are as follows:
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FMLA Usage (weeks) - This field displays the total amount of weeks of FMLA time used in the past year. This is calculated by taking the total amount of FMLA time used from leave details and dividing by the standard hours per week for the employee based on the assigned Pay Class.
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FMLA Usage (hours) - This field displays the total amount of hours of FMLA time used in the past year. This total is derived from leave details and converted to hours.
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Remaining FMLA Leave (weeks) - This field displays the remaining weeks of the FMLA time available to the employee based on what’s already been used in the year. This is calculated by taking the maximum allowable amount of the annual FMLA leave for the leave policy and reducing it by the amount already taken by the employee (FMLA usage). This amount is then converted to weeks by dividing by the standard hours per week for the employee based on the assigned Pay Class.
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Remaining FMLA Leave (hours) - This field displays the remaining hours of the FMLA time available to the employee based on what’s already been used in the year. This is calculated by taking the maximum allowable amount of the annual FMLA leave for the leave policy and reducing it by the amount already taken by the employee (FMLA usage).