The Essential Guide to Family & Medical Leave

100 | the essential guide to family and medical leave
Tip
FMLA leave cannot be carried over from one leave year to the next. No
matter how your company measures the 12-month leave year, employees
can’t carry over FMLA leave. An employee is never entitled to more than
12 weeks of FMLA leave in a given leave year.
Four Methods of Defining the Leave Year
The FMLA gives companies four different ways to define the leave year.
They are:
• the calendar year
• any fixed 12-month period, such as the company’s fiscal year, a year
starting on the anniversary of an employee’s hire, or a year defined by
state law
• the 12-month period counted forward from the date that the employee
begins FMLA leave, or
• a “rolling” 12-month period counted backward from the date that the
employee uses any FMLA leave.
(29 C.F.R. § 825.200(b).)
The Calendar Year or a Fixed-Period Year
If your company chooses to measure the leave year by either a calendar year
or another fixed 12-month period (like the fiscal year), an eligible employee
is entitled to up to 12 weeks of FMLA leave at any time in the selected leave
year. A major disadvantage for companies that use one of these methods is
that an employee could take 24 weeks of continuous leave in a row, if the
leave spans the end of one year and the beginning of the next. It’s difficult for
many employers to have an employee out for that long.