FMLA is outdated in a remote world

Someone in Portland, ME can cover for someone in Portland, OR.

So why does FMLA only protect the job if they live close enough to grab a beer together? That’s broken.

FMLA was written for a world where offices were central and teams were local. A world where your phone was attached to the wall behind your desk. Where the only way to meet face-to-face was to be in the same place.

FMLA may not apply to distributed teams, even with hundreds of people.

In olden times, a worker in Milwaukee couldn’t answer the phone for a worker in Kentucky. An account manager in Alaska couldn’t visit a client in Nebraska.

If a company had fewer than 50 people in one place, it wasn’t always reasonable to expect them to hold a job for three months.

So FMLA didn’t kick in until a company had more than 50 employees in a 75-mile radius.

Times have changed. Today, workflows are remote. Coverage is distributed.

People across time zones, states, and even countries back each other up. 

Even with the RTO trend, most teams can manage coverage for a few months.

A remote contractor. A colleague in another office. A short-term redistribution of responsibilities.

And yet, if 50 of your employees can’t meet at Applebees after work, someone taking leave might not have legal job protection.

Even if the work is covered.

Even if the team has capacity.

Even if the impact is minimal.

It’s a technicality that puts real people at risk. Distributed teams deserve real leave protection, not rules based on the same logic as carpools.

It’s more important than ever for company policies to protect the vulnerable AND have a workable plan to keep things running in their absence.

I put together a practical guide to help you design a parental leave plan that actually functions. It works for other types of FMLA, too.

Check out the guide