maternity leave - for father

HS

One of our employees is looking to take FMLA for the birth of his child. I think I remember reading something about this being possible for the father to do. Am I correct in that thinking?

Also, we usually require that an employee take any accrued PTO / vacation time up front. If he's requesting 2 weeks, and has one week of banked time, do both weeks count as FMLA, or just the one unpaid week?

Thanks as always for your help.

Theresa Gegen TX

Yes. The father gets it for the birth of the child.

Whether the paid week counts as FMLA (part of the 12 weeks), depends on how you policy is written.

HS

Thank-you Theresa. I'll have to check the new policy from our corporate HR.

morrisg

Theresa is correct, but most policies that I am familiar with run FMLA and paid time off concurrent just to avoid the type of problem you are describing. If you don't have this type of policy, I would suggest you implement one, else you could have an employee use all 12 weeks unpaid, and then ask for additional weeks after that based on unused paid time.

I assume this is not a union employee, because you may be limited in burning vacation time within FMLA if the vacation is considered a vested benefit.