FMLA and Beyond
Posted March 11th, 2013
The Family and Medical Leave Act is 20 years old this year, and a recent report from the U.S. Department of Labor shows that the number one reason employees used the law was for their own illness.
Almost half of all leaves lasted 10 days or fewer. Only about 60 percent of employees are eligible to take leave under the law. Nearly 60 percent of those who took leave were women.
The FMLA allows workers to take a leave of absence for certain situations, such as a serious illness or the birth/adoption of a child, and requires a company to hold the person’s job for him or her until the individual returns. The company does not have to pay the employee during the leave, but it must continue the person’s health insurance.
Employment experts say the Act has had an enormous impact. It has been used by tens of millions of workers, and has helped to change the culture of work, putting more of an emphasis on work and life balance. It was used by women who needed medical care during difficult pregnancies, fathers who needed to care for children with cancer, people who needed to care for aging parents, and workers who needed time to recover from a serious illness.
But policy analysts also say that women are actually less likely to be covered by the FMLA because they usually work for smaller companies or work part time. To manage their work and life obligations, women need predictable schedules for childcare, and more flexibility at work to enable them to check on sick children, for example.
But the FMLA has led to a change in business culture, leading to more of an emphasis on work and life balance. Most large companies today have leave policies that cover everything from maternity leave to military caregiver leave.
But the need now is to go beyond the FMLA, according to policy expert Emily Zuckerman. Companies are focusing now on hiring and retaining the most talented workers. To do this, offering work schedule flexibility is important, because it is valued by many people working today.
The FMLA is a good start, Zuckerman says, and corporate leaders now realize that to foster workplace morale and performance, they need to continue to offer workers new ways to balance their life and work in a world that is rapidly changing with globalization and technological change.
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