FMLA Requirements
The employee must give notice, and you might require the employee to provide evidence of need.
Notice
Your employee must give you notice, usually at least 30 days in advance. If that’s not possible, the employee should give notice as soon as possible (usually within one to two days of finding out that he or she needs to take leave). If your employee fails to give enough notice, you employer may delay the leave. But the leave cannot be taken away entirely.
An employee who suddenly needs to take leave in an emergency should give you notice as soon as is reasonably possible.
Medical proof
You may ask for evidence that your employee or family member is sick – such as a doctor’s note. The employee is not required to provide this information unless you request it in writing.
The law of your state might give the employee the right not to disclose the illness to you. In that case, all the employee (or his or her doctor) must tell you is that the employee or family member has a “serious health condition.”
You also can require your employee to get a second opinion, and you can choose the doctor who furnishes that opinion. You must pay for that visit to the second doctor, however. If the second doctor finds that the employee does not have a serious health condition, the employee has the right to see a third doctor. Although you and your employee must agree on who the third doctor will be, you are required to pay the third doctor too. The third doctor’s opinion is binding and will determine whether the employee can take the leave.
Restrictions on leaves
When an employee takes leave, you must give written notice telling the employee of any restrictions on the leave and the employee’s obligations, such as whether he or she will be required to use sick time or vacation time or whether he or she must submit medical certification during the time off.
Designation of leave
If you want to make sure that your employee’s time off is considered FMLA leave, you must notify the employee in writing (either before the employee takes leave or during the time off) telling the employee that the leave is FMLA leave and not some other type of unpaid time off. If you do not provide this notice until the middle of the leave, only the time the employee takes off after receipt of the notice will be considered FMLA leave.
So, if the employee takes twelve weeks of leave, but you don’t designate the leave as FMLA leave until after the employee has been gone seven weeks, only the last five weeks of the leave should be FMLA leave. The employee will then be able to take an additional seven weeks of FMLA leave later in the year.
