Personal Leave of Absence & FMLA

CJD

We have an employee who was hired as a temporary non-benefitted employee working 20 - 40 hours per week for 8 months. After the 8th month she was hired as a full-time benefitted employee. Five months later she was placed on bedrest for pregnancy complications. We granted her 30 days Personal Leave of Absence. Are we required to provide her with Family Medical Leave? If we are would FMLA be retro back to include the first 30 days she was off on PLOA or should we start counting from the point when she will be eligible for FMLA based on the (temp & full-time)12 month/1250 hour ruling?

Theresa Gegen TX

There is a good article linked in an FMLA response below about counting FMLA retroactively.

Generally, it is best to count the time the person worked as a temp as adding to the 12 months and 1250 hours. If you hired them directly as a temp, but their job got extended (without a temp service), their hours 12 months and 1250 would be counted because they are always your employee. If you got them from a temp agency, they still might need to be given credit for their temp time because the FMLA regulations that cover "joint employers" (which would clearly make a temp agency and the business using the temps "joint employers") are not 100% clear about how to deal with a temp who becomes a permanent employee. But you can't go wrong by giving the employee the benefit of all her time and hours.

Good Luck!