Supervisor FMLA Responsibilities
Your managerial responsibilities with FMLA include:
- Understanding and complying with FMLA, related state laws, and USU leave policies
- Recognizing when an employee’s absence may fall under FMLA
- Assessing and responding to employee leave requests
- Planning for coverage of the employee’s job duties while the employee is absent
- Ensuring that the employee’s records the FMLA leave in mytime.usu.edu or if they are a Facilities employee on the Logan campus that they enter their leave in the AIM system.
- Contact your HR leave specialist if you have any questions about your responsibilities or about FMLA in general.
Contact your HR leave specialist if you have any questions about your responsibilities or about FMLA in general.
Complying with the law
Be sure that you have read this website’s entire FMLA section to help you understand this topic. Additionally, it is important to know that it is unlawful to:
- Interfere with, restrain, or deny an employee’s FMLA rights
- Retaliate against an employee who exercises their FMLA rights
Recognizing FMLA
As a supervisor, you need to be attentive to whether an employee’s absence may be related to FMLA. Employees don’t always know about or understand FMLA protection, so don’t rely on them to request it by name.
Sometimes an employee will tell you directly that they need time off for medical treatment or other FMLA reason. Sometimes you learn indirectly, such as through an extended absence or repeated requests for leave.
If FMLA may apply to the employee’s situation, the Department of Labor requires the university to inform your employee about FMLA. Please have the employee contact HR or submit an FMLA request by visiting myfmla.usu.edu. Directing the employee to request a leave of absence in myfmla.usu.edu will also ensure the employee receives the FMLA notice of their rights and responsibilities.
Assessing and responding to employee leave requests
Campus: USU Human Resources will approve the leave as FMLA in the MyFMLA ServiceNow Dashboard when we receive a completed health-care provider certification from. Both you and your employee will receive a communication explaining the status of the FMLA.
Contact your HR leave specialist if you have any questions regarding these communications.
Intermittent absences
Your HR leave specialist will inform you of the timing and frequency of intermittent absences as estimated by the employee’s health-care provider. If the employee’s actual absences do not match what the health-care provider anticipated, speak with your HR leave specialist.
Work with the employee to schedule their planned FMLA-related absences (such as for treatment or appointments) ahead of time when possible. This can make staffing and timekeeping easier. If you have questions about how your employee is taking their intermittent FMLA leave, please contact Human Resources.
Ensure that your employee is accurately recording the employee’s intermittent FMLA usage in the correct university timekeeping system
The employee, supervisor, and leave manager make sure the FMLA leave is properly recorded when the employee has communicated they are on FMLA entitled leave.
Holidays
Holidays that occur during weeks where the employee is on FMLA leave the entire work week should be designated as part of the total time on FMLA-covered leave.
Disability leave or accommodation
If an employee needs more than 12 weeks of continuous leave. The employee may be eligible for short-term disability or an accommodation. The employee should contact Human Resources to review available options.