The Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) is a federal law that entitles employees to a leave of absence for certain medical reasons. The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) provides reasonable accommodation to employees with a qualifying disability. Although these two employment laws have very different focuses, they can sometimes overlap.
Here’s how to determine whether FMLA or ADA applies to an employee’s leave request, and how to meet your obligations under FMLA vs. ADA leave policies.
Both the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) are available to eligible employees with an ongoing mental health or physical medical condition. But exactly which conditions are covered and what entitlements are available vary between FMLA vs. ADA.
The ADA’s definition of disability is an “impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities.” Qualified individuals must go through an interactive process to find an ADA accommodation that allows them to perform the essential functions of the job. This could include, but is not limited to, a job-protected leave of absence.
The Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) describes a serious health condition as one that requires inpatient care or incapacitates the employee for three or more days. When FMLA applies, the eligible employee can take up to 12 workweeks of unpaid leave in a 12-month period for their own medical treatment or to care for a family member.
Depending on the situation, the two laws might apply concurrently; in other cases, an employee can take 12 weeks of FMLA leave and additional leave under the ADA.
Unlike FMLA, the ADA isn’t first and foremost a leave law: Its main purpose is to protect people with disabilities from discrimination, including in the workplace. The ADA covers employees with an impairment that “limits one or more major life activities,” including eating, walking, speaking, or reading.
It also covers mental health conditions, such as:
People who have a history of impairment or may be “perceived by others” as having an impairment, even if it no longer substantially impacts them, are eligible as well.
Under the ADA, employees have the right to reasonable accommodation, as long as it doesn’t put undue hardship on their employer, as explained by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). This might include:
The amount of leave an employee is entitled to under the ADA depends on what type of accommodation the employee needs and what other options are available.
The Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) is primarily concerned with short-term health needs and family obligations, not disabilities. Some qualifying scenarios include:
According to the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL), employees can take up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave in a 12-month period if they have an FMLA-qualifying condition.
Of course, a short-term illness or injury could become a chronic condition that meets the ADA’s definition of disability. Under FMLA return to work guidelines, an employee could be eligible for ADA leave if they aren’t ready for reinstatement. You can ask for medical documentation from their health care provider to verify their fitness for duty.
As an employer, it’s your responsibility to know your employees’ rights, but it can be a challenge to keep up with leave laws and ensure compliance. Here are a few cases in which you’ll need to understand the differences between FMLA vs. ADA leave.
The ADA applies to most employers with 15 or more employees; FMLA only applies to covered employers, which includes state, federal, and local government agencies as well private-sector employers with 50 or more employees.
If you’re a small business, you may only be required to comply with the ADA and not FMLA; if you have more than 50 employees, you’ll need to comply with both.
If an employee gets hurt while on vacation, experiences a workplace injury, or has a history of illness (such as cancer in remission), their condition could move from one category to another. It’s not uncommon for employees to use up their FMLA leave before making a full recovery.
Both FMLA and ADA allow for intermittent leave, which can be useful if an employee needs to take small increments of time off for medical treatments.
Neither FMLA nor ADA leave automatically applies to pregnancy. FMLA offers parental leave and covers some pregnancy-related health conditions. Likewise, some pregnant workers may be entitled to reasonable accommodation under the ADA.
If neither law applies, the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act provides some protections, and employees may be covered by paid family leave laws at the state level.
Although they have some similarities, these two leave laws come with different sets of paperwork and eligibility requirements. Here are four best practices to follow to ensure dual compliance with FMLA and ADA without overwhelming your HR team.
When an employee requests a leave of absence under FMLA, you’ll need to provide a FMLA designation notice letting them know that their leave has been approved. If they request ADA leave, you’ll need to navigate the ADA interactive process instead.
Pulpstream speeds up the process with automated documentation and eligibility checks so you can quickly approve or deny an employee’s leave request. Plus, you can use it to streamline the return-to-work process with simplified case management tools.
Not all employees will be eligible for FMLA or ADA leave. In that case, consider other leave laws instead. They may still be eligible for sick leave or paid leave under state law or your company’s own personal leave policy.
You can’t require an employee to use another type of leave if they qualify for ADA or FMLA, but they may be able to claim paid leave simultaneously. They may also be entitled to keep their health insurance while on job-protected leave.
Employees on FMLA leave have a maximum of 12 weeks available each calendar year. There’s no upper limit to ADA leave, as long as it doesn’t present an undue hardship to the employer. With digital leave of absence tracking, you can monitor an employee’s leave balance to ensure they don’t exceed their annual entitlement.
Pulpstream’s intuitive leave management platform even offers a self-service portal so employees can log in to view their own leave balance.
There are a few differences between FMLA confidentiality rules and ADA confidentiality requirements, although they’re reasonably similar. The important thing is to keep health information separate from other personnel files and only request as much information as you need to approve a leave request or provide accommodation.
Pulpstream’s cloud-based platform is ideal for collecting FMLA and ADA information, since employees can upload documents themselves and you can store them securely. By digitizing the leave of absence process, you can provide a modern, user-friendly experience for your employees and your HR team.
Overlapping leave laws like the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) and Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) can present a compliance burden for your HR team. Is your employee’s medical condition a chronic health condition or a disability? When one or both of these laws apply, you’ll need to do extra work to assess their eligibility.
Pulpstream’s leave of absence automation platform helps to keep you on track, guiding you through the appropriate process so you can meet your obligations as an employer. By centralizing your leave of absence processes in one cloud-based platform, you can pay more attention to individual cases and provide a better employee experience.
Request a demo today to see how Pulpstream can help!