The Essential Guide to Family & Medical Leave

chapter 6 | how much leave can an employee tAke? | 113
Caution
Make sure part-time employees are eligible for leave in the first place. As
explained in Chapter 3, part-time employees must work 1,250 hours in the
preceding 12 months to be eligible for FMLA leave. This works out to a
bit more than 24 hours a week, 52 weeks a year. You won’t have to do the
math on intermittent leave availability unless your part-time employees
can meet this initial eligibility requirement.
For employees who work irregular hours, the best practice is for you to
sit down with the employee and reach an agreement as to the employee’s
“average” workweek. Calculate the weekly average for the 12 weeks
immediately preceding the start of the leave. Put the calculation into a
written agreement and have the employee sign it.
Employees Who Work Overtime
If your company requires an employee to work overtime, the overtime
hours are considered part of the employee’s normal workweek for purposes
of calculating the amount of leave time an employee is entitled to. If an
employee chooses to work overtime but is not required to, the overtime
hours don’t count as part of the employee’s normal workweek.
Example: Claire and her coworkers all have to work four hours of overtime a week,
in addition to their regular 40 hours. In this situation, Claire’s usual workweek is 44
hours, and she’s entitled to 528 total hours of FMLA leave per year (assuming she’s
otherwise qualified).
If Claire’s overtime was voluntary—that is, the company didn’t require it but she
decided to work it anyway—then she would have a 40-hour week for purposes of
calculating her available FMLA leave.
Exempt Employees
It can be tricky to figure out what constitutes a normal workweek for
exempt employees—employees who are not entitled to overtime pay. Most