U.S. Intermittent & Reduced Workweek Balancer
Standard weekly hours the employee was scheduled to work before FMLA leave.
Expected work hours per week under the temporary FMLA accommodation. (Must be < Standard)
FMLA weeks already exhausted in the current 12-month rolling period. (0 to 11.5 weeks)
Converting intermittent leave or temporary part-time transitions into FMLA workweek fractions (e.g., reducing a 40-hour workweek to 24 hours consumes exactly 0.4 weeks of FMLA entitlement) is highly susceptible to manual tracking errors, especially during weeks with company holidays or shifting schedules.
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A reduced leave schedule is an FMLA-protected arrangement that reduces an employee's usual number of working hours per week or per day. It temporarily transitions a full-time employee to part-time hours due to a medical condition.
Under the FMLA, only the actual hours missed are deducted from the employee's 12-week pool. For example, if a 40-hour employee works 30 hours, they consume 10/40 (0.25) of an FMLA week per calendar week.
Even though hours are reduced and the employee's earnings drop, the employer is legally obligated to maintain their group health insurance benefits on the same terms as if they had worked their full, standard schedule.
Tracking continuous FMLA leave is relatively straightforward: once the employee goes out, their 12-week clock begins. However, when an employee requests a "reduced schedule"—such as working 4 hours a day instead of 8, or dropping to 3 days a week—FMLA administration becomes exponentially more complicated. Managing this proration in spreadsheets is a fast track to compliance errors.
The Department of Labor outlines that FMLA leave calculations must be made in hours or weeks based on the employee's actual scheduled work hours. If an employee normally works 40 hours a week and is approved to work 24 hours a week under FMLA, they are missing 16 hours.
The weekly FMLA week proportion used is calculated as:
Since the employee has a total of 12 FMLA weeks, at this rate of 0.4 weeks per calendar week, the leave can stretch out for a maximum duration of **30 weeks** (12 weeks / 0.4). This allows the employee to maintain their job-protected part-time status for much longer than the standard 12 calendar weeks.
What happens when the 12-week FMLA hour pool is fully exhausted, but the employee's physician states they still cannot return to full-time work?
This is a critical transition point. At this juncture, the employer must initiate the **ADA Interactive Process** to determine if extending the part-time schedule constitutes a "reasonable accommodation" under the Americans with Disabilities Act. While the FMLA *forces* the company to allow the reduced schedule, the ADA allows the company to review if continuing part-time hours causes an "undue hardship" to business operations.
Employers must be extremely careful regarding health benefits. Under FMLA rules, an employer must maintain the employee's coverage under any group health plan on the same conditions as coverage would have been provided if the employee had worked continuously. If the employee normally pays 20% of their premium, they continue paying 20%—even if their reduced schedule earnings are not enough to cover it (in which case, HR must set up a payment plan).
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