One word: Outsource.
See you tomorrow.
Oh, you mean some of you actually do this yourselves?!? Ok. As you should know, in certain circumstances eligible employees may take leave under the Family and Medical Leave Act intermittently or on a reduced leave schedule. Intermittent leave is FMLA leave taken in separate blocks of time due to a single qualifying reason.
Here’s how to account for intermittent FMLA leave.
You company should account for intermittent FMLA leave in the shortest period of time that your company’s payroll systems use, provided it is one hour or less. (Otherwise, if your company accounts for other forms of leave use in increments greater than one hour, then, your company must account for intermittent FMLA leave use in increments no greater than one hour).
For example, if your company accounts for the use of annual leave in increments of four hours, then intermittent FMLA leave use must be accounted for using increments no larger than one hour. However, if your company accounts for the use of annual leave in increments of four hours and the use of sick leave in increments of one-half hour, then intermittent FMLA leave use must be accounted for using increments no larger than one-half hour.
Either way, your company can be more generous and account for FMLA leave in shorter increments than used for other forms of leave. Thus, based on the prior example, your company may account for intermittent FMLA leave in increments shorter than 30 minutes. If your company decides to account for intermittent FMLA leave in shorter increments, it won’t change the increment considered to be the shortest period used to account for other forms of leave or the use of FMLA leave in other circumstances.
And, remember, never require an employee to take more FMLA leave than is necessary to address the circumstances that precipitated the need for the leave.
Got it? I cut-and-pasted most of the prior paragraphs from the FMLA regulation, which you can find here. Or, just go ahead and outsource.