The Essential Guide to Family & Medical Leave

342 | the essential guide to family and medical leave
As explained throughout the book, your company’s policies can
affect its rights and obligations—and the rights and obligations
of its employees—regarding FMLA leave. What you say in your
FMLA policy and other company policies relating to leave is therefore very
important.
This appendix explains how various policy choices affect your
responsibilities under the FMLA. Here, we provide:
• A sample FMLA policy. As explained in Chapter 2, covered companies
must include accurate, complete information about the FMLA in their
employee handbooks, written policies, or other documents describing
leave, wages, absences, and similar matters. The policy provided in this
appendix will help you meet this obligation.
• A guide explaining how your company’s FMLA policy affects its rights
and obligations. You will have some choices to make when creating your
company’s policy; this section explains the ramifications of these choices.
Use the guide in conjunction with the sample policy.
This appendix will help you draft a family and medical leave policy
that complies with the FMLA, but remember—you may have additional
obligations under state laws. Appendix A summarizes each state’s family and
medical leave laws. If the family or medical leave law of a state in which your
company has employees is more generous than the FMLA or your policies,
you must comply with the state law.
As a practical matter, if you company has employees in more than one
state, it may be simpler to draft your family and medical leave policy to
comply with the most generous of the state laws that apply and adopt that as
the company-wide policy. This way, you won’t have to draft separate policies
for offices in the different states. You should consult with a lawyer for help
devising a family and medical leave policy that meets both the FMLA’s
requirements and the legal requirements imposed by the state(s) where your
company does business.