Intermittent leave creates more administrative difficulty than any other part of FMLA, and the difficulty is genuine rather than a failure of organization. Absences are unpredictable, increments are small, and the tracking burden sits with the employer.
Intermittent leave must be counted in increments no greater than the shortest period the employer uses to account for other forms of leave. An employer tracking other leave in fifteen-minute increments cannot deduct a half day for a fifteen-minute FMLA absence.
This is the single most commonly breached requirement, and the breach always runs one way — over-counting, which reduces the employee's remaining entitlement and creates interference exposure.
There is a narrow exception where physical impossibility prevents an employee starting or ending work mid-shift, but it is narrow and should not be relied on routinely.
For each intermittent absence: the date, the amount of time taken, the certified reason it relates to, and the running balance of entitlement used. Where leave is for a family member's condition, the relationship should be on file from the original certification rather than re-established each time.
Records need to be good enough to reconstruct the entitlement calculation months later, because that is when it will be questioned.
An employee on intermittent leave will also have absences unrelated to the certified condition. Those are ordinary attendance matters and may be managed as such.
Conflating the two is dangerous in both directions. Counting non-FMLA absence against entitlement over-counts. Treating every absence as protected leaves genuine attendance issues unaddressed and creates inconsistency with other employees.
The practical control is requiring employees to identify whether an absence relates to the certified condition, and recording that identification.
For foreseeable intermittent leave — scheduled treatment — employees are required to give advance notice and to make a reasonable effort to schedule treatment so as not to unduly disrupt operations, subject to the provider's approval.
For unforeseeable absences, the employee must comply with usual call-in procedures absent unusual circumstances. Employers may enforce those procedures, and doing so consistently is important — selective enforcement is itself a problem.
Where the circumstances described in the original certification change significantly, or where the employer receives information casting doubt on the stated reason or the pattern of absence, recertification may be requested within the limits the regulations set.
A pattern of absences falling consistently on Fridays and Mondays is the textbook example of information justifying recertification. Requesting it is legitimate; acting on suspicion without requesting it is not.
Operational managers experience intermittent leave as unpredictable absence and frequently push for restrictions the regulations do not permit. Two things help.
First, explain that the constraints are statutory rather than an HR preference. Second, where the leave is foreseeable, use the scheduling provisions that do exist — employees are expected to make reasonable efforts to minimize disruption for planned treatment.
What is not available is reducing the entitlement, transferring the employee punitively, or counting absences under an attendance policy.
For foreseeable planned treatment, an employee may be temporarily transferred to an alternative position with equivalent pay and benefits that better accommodates recurring absence. It must not be used punitively.
No. The certification process is what establishes the need; per-absence medical documentation is not permitted in the ordinary course.
For the period the regulations require, with medical information kept separately and confidentially.
See the FMLA certification program and key components of FMLA administration.
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