FAMLI leave may be taken continuously, intermittently, or in the form of a reduced work schedule.
Continuous Leave
Continuous leave is taken for a specific period of time without any interruption. Some examples include:
- Your family member is recovering from heart surgery and needs your full-time care for several weeks at a time.
- You welcome a new child and would like to take twelve consecutive weeks of leave to bond with the child.
- You welcome a new baby and would like to take four weeks to bond with the baby right after birth, return to work for several weeks, then go back on leave to bond with the baby for the remaining eight weeks before the child’s first birthday. This scenario would be taken as two separate continuous leave claims. When you go to open your second (or third) block of continuous leave to bond with your child after returning to work for a period of time during the first year of birth or placement, you’ll be able to link it to the first claim, which will result in faster processing times.
Intermittent Leave
Intermittent leave is taken in separate blocks of time occurring at irregular intervals that are not continuous or steady within a six-month period. These blocks of time are not continuous or steady. Some examples of when to take intermittent leave include:
- You undergo periodic medical treatment twice a week over the course of three to six months and the dates of treatment vary each week.
- You must care for a family member with a medical condition that has episodic flareups.
- You experience unexpected, chronic migraines that prevent you from working.
Here are some important things to keep in mind when filing an intermittent leave claim when taking leave to care for yourself or a family member with a serious health condition:
- Intermittent leave claims must be certified by your health care provider.
- Intermittent leave claims cannot be filed with a weekly average of hours.
- Claims can be filed for less than eight hours of leave, but the claim will not pay wage replacement benefits unless there is a minimum of eight hours of leave per claim. So, you may not get paid benefits until you have filed another claim and reached the eight hour threshold.
Reduced Work Schedule
Leave in the form of a reduced work schedule is when the same amount of time off work is taken each day or week and you work fewer hours than your regular schedule. Some examples include:
- You are recovering from back surgery, and your doctor tells you not to be on your feet more than four hours a day. You temporarily go from working full-time to part-time and leave work each day after working four hours.
- You want to reduce the number of days you work each week for the next three months to bond with your child. Instead of working Monday - Friday, you’d be working a reduced schedule of Tuesday - Thursday.
