Ep. 1: Top FMLA mistakes #1: Misunderstanding eligibility
February 25, 2020
Episode details
Ellen McCann, a national expert on leave management, gives an overview to the Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA). She unpacks the most common eligibility errors that employers make while administering the FMLA – and why correctly determining eligibility is such a crucial first step.
Top takeaways
- Once an employer is covered for one year, they’re covered for two years. Check your math: Did you have at least 50 employees on your payroll for at least 20 weeks this year or last year? [04:03]
- The only employees you don’t count are expats and independent contractors. You do need to count temps. [05:20]
- Remember there are different standards for covered employers and covered employees. You may have no covered employees, but as an employer you may still have obligations. [06:34]
- You don’t have to count leaves of absence in your hours worked, apart from instances of military leave. However, be careful to count hours worked by temp workers. [10:05]
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Featured speaker
Ellen McCann
Assistant Vice President, Leave Solutions — Unum Group
Ellen McCann serves as a leading expert in applying benefits and benefits technology to power modern solutions to more effective employee leave programs, stronger regulatory compliance and enhanced digital HR transformation. In this role, she combines more than 30 years of employment law experience with practical knowledge of the complexities of leave and accommodation management to help develop and create solutions that enable employers to address the challenges of leave and accommodations. She is an acclaimed national speaker on leave management issues including FMLA and ADA, and is a certified trainer for SHRM and CE credit.
About the host
Clare Morin
Unum Content Marketing Manager
Clare Morin is the Content Marketing Manager at Unum and a journalist who’s spent the last 20 years interviewing hundreds of thought leaders on topics ranging from wellness to culture, finance, human resources and technology. Born in the UK, raised in Hong Kong and based in the U.S. since 2009, she brings a global outlook to the HR Trends studio.
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