The Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA) applies to all businesses with fifty or more employees. As anyone who has dealt with an FMLA leave can tell you, the rules about which employees qualify, which circumstances justify a job-protected leave, and how the leave is tracked, can be complicated. A detailed handbook policy, reviewed for accuracy by an employment attorney, is a great start to tackling the complexity.

Recently, the Department of Labor made several changes to the FMLA regulations.

Effective March 8, 2013, FMLA regulations include military caregiver leave for veterans, qualifying exigency leave for parental care, and a special leave calculation method for flight crew employees.

As a result of the changes, employers are now required to update their FMLA posters. A new, free version of the required poster can be found here: www.dol.gov/WHD/regs/compliance/posters/fmlaen.pdf.

It is also a good time to review your FMLA handbook policies, to make sure that they do not conflict with the changes.