Vacation running concurrent with FMLA

funkysan

I understand it is legal to require an employee to run out vacation concurrent with using FMLA. Is it legal to designate vacation to FMLA leave not yet taken but has been requested and approved. We have an exempt female who will be leaving for maternity leave in Feburary '03. She has requested all her vacation to be used in January '03. She has 18 days which would allow her to be off almost the whole month of January. She would than start her FMAL leave after using all her vacation days. I feel she has no vacation to use in January because it has been designated it to her fmla leave. Would this violate any FMLA rules?

NaeNae55

You first need to review your current policies regarding FMLA and leave. Does your policy state that leave must run concurrent with FMLA? Aren't all your vacation leaves subject to approval? If the answer is yes to both questions, then you can refuse to grant vacation in January, unless the employee needs to start her FMLA time earlier than Feb. for some reason.

FMLA was designed to give employees 12 weeks for needed family time, not to have 12 weeks plus whatever other time the employee wants whenever they want it.

If you don't have a written policy in place regarding leave and FMLA your situation will be different, and you will need to tread much more carefully.

Renie

I agree with checking your company policy.

There is no reason why you can't deny the 18 days of vacation being requested in January. We do not usually allow employee's to take more than 2 weeks vacation off at a time because it disrputs operations. We leave it up to the employee's manager.

Rockie

I would just approach the employee and state that you are unable to approve her request to take this much leave. I would further state that it would be unfair to the rest of the staff to allow her to take an entire month off and then start 3 months of FMLA. I would offer to let her have a few days or a week off for vacation (if you want to do this), but that would still be excessive in my estimation.

This are the type of issues that give FMLA a bad name - a law that was put in place to protect employees, but is used by others for their own personal gain. The only thing that will happen here is that there is going to be much resentment against the employee from the other staff that will have to pick up her work for time over and above the FMLA and may be resentment towards you for approving it.