Feature

How to Administer Protected Leave Across Remote and Hybrid Teams

By Priya Ellison · 4 August 2026

Remote work changes where employees perform their jobs, but it does not change the basic purpose of the Family and Medical Leave Act. The difficult questions arise when employers treat three distinct arrangements as interchangeable: protected leave, an ordinary telework benefit, and remote work as a disability accommodation.

Effective FMLA remote work policies separate those issues. They determine eligibility using the employee’s assigned worksite rather than automatically using a home address, distinguish productive work from leave, prevent off-the-clock work during protected absences, and send disability-related telework requests through a separate accommodation process.

Start by separating FMLA leave, ordinary remote work, and accommodation

FMLA leave is protected time away from work for a qualifying family, medical, or military-related reason. Telework is work performed somewhere other than the employer’s usual premises. Changing the location of work does not convert productive time into leave.

This leads to a practical rule:

If an employee is performing productive work from home, that time is working time—not FMLA leave.

The FMLA does not independently establish a general right to work from home or require an employer to create a remote-work program. It gives eligible employees of covered employers protected leave for qualifying reasons. Depending on the circumstances, that leave may be continuous, intermittent, or taken through a reduced schedule. A separate law or employer policy may govern whether the employee may work remotely.

A policy should distinguish four arrangements that can look similar on a calendar:

Continuous FMLA leave: The employee takes a block of protected time and does not work during that block.
Intermittent FMLA leave: The employee takes separate periods of leave for the same qualifying reason.
Reduced-schedule FMLA leave: The employee temporarily works fewer hours per day or week because protected leave is medically necessary.
Telework: The employee performs work from an approved remote location, either under an ordinary workplace policy or as a disability accommodation.

The distinction turns on whether the employee is working, not merely where the employee is located. An employee who works from home for six hours and takes two protected hours off has a combined work-and-leave arrangement. An employee on continuous leave who happens to be at home remains on leave and ordinarily should not be completing assignments.

Similarly, an employee who is medically unable to work cannot use remote work as a substitute for leave merely by changing locations. An employee may be:

Unable to work at all;
Able to work only a reduced schedule;
Able to work, but unable to work successfully at the usual workplace because of a disability-related limitation; or
Fully able to work and requesting access to an ordinary telework benefit.

Each situation requires a different response. The FMLA protects qualifying leave but does not itself create a remote-work entitlement; remote work may instead be available under an employer policy or considered under another law, such as the ADA. This distinction is also reflected in a third-party analysis of why FMLA leave and remote work are different legal arrangements.

A useful policy framework asks three questions in order:

Does the employee qualify for FMLA leave?
If so, what leave format is appropriate—continuous, intermittent, or reduced schedule?
Separately, is the employee requesting a change in where work is performed under an ordinary telework policy or as a disability accommodation?

Managers should not answer all three questions by telling an employee either to “work from home” or to “take leave.” Their role should be to recognize the request, avoid discouraging available options, and refer the matter to the designated leave or accommodation team.

This article provides general federal compliance information, not legal, HR, or employment advice, consistent with the HRaizon Terms & Conditions. Federal guidance does not resolve every remote-work fact pattern, and state or local family-leave, paid-leave, disability, accommodation, wage-and-hour, and expense-reimbursement requirements may provide broader protections. Employers should obtain current, fact-specific advice for unusual or cross-state situations.

Apply the same core FMLA eligibility test to remote and on-site employees

Remote and on-site employees are evaluated under the same core federal eligibility rules. Remote status does not create eligibility, but it does not remove eligibility either.

Start by separating employer coverage from individual employee eligibility. A business may be a covered employer even though a particular employee does not meet every individual requirement.

Covered private-sector employers generally employ at least 50 employees in 20 or more workweeks during the current or previous calendar year. Public agencies and local educational agencies are subject to separate coverage rules and may be covered regardless of employee count. Individual eligibility generally requires at least 12 months of employment, at least 1,250 hours of service during the 12 months before leave begins, and employment at a worksite where the employer has at least 50 employees within 75 miles. The federal coverage, eligibility, qualifying-reason, benefit-continuation, and restoration rules are summarized in the U.S. Department of Labor’s FMLA fact sheet.

The tenure and hours-of-service tests are determined as of the date leave is to begin. The worksite threshold is determined when the employee gives notice of the need for leave. For most employees, compensable-hours principles are relevant to the hours-of-service test, making accurate remote-work records especially important. The Department of Labor explains these timing and telework rules in Field Assistance Bulletin 2023-1.

An eligible employee must also have a qualifying reason and available FMLA entitlement. Principal qualifying reasons include:

The employee’s own serious health condition that makes the employee unable to work;
Caring for a spouse, child, or parent with a serious health condition;
Birth of a child and care following birth;
Placement of a child for adoption or foster care and care following placement;
A qualifying exigency connected to a covered family member’s military service; and
Military caregiver leave for a covered servicemember or qualifying veteran.

Meeting the remote-worksite threshold alone does not establish eligibility. An employee associated with a large headquarters may satisfy the 50-employees-within-75-miles test but still lack the required tenure, service hours, qualifying reason, or remaining entitlement.

Conversely, an employee may have years of service and enough hours but fail the worksite test. Every applicable element must be evaluated.

A compact remote-employee eligibility workflow

For each request, document the following sequence:

Covered employer: Is the organization subject to the federal FMLA?
Tenure: Will the employee have at least 12 months of employment when leave begins?
Hours: Will the employee have at least 1,250 hours of service in the immediately preceding 12 months?
Assigned worksite: To which office does the employee report, or from which office are assignments made?
Worksite headcount: Does the relevant worksite have at least 50 employees within 75 miles under the applicable counting rule?
Qualifying reason: Does the available information indicate a potentially covered family, medical, or military-related reason?
Available entitlement: How much protected leave remains under the employer’s applicable leave-year method?
Leave format: Is the request for continuous, intermittent, or reduced-schedule leave?
Separate workplace request: Is the employee also requesting telework under a general policy or as an accommodation?

This workflow is a recommended administrative control, not a substitute for applying the law to the particular facts. It should be used consistently and should not treat a remote employee’s mailing address as a shortcut for worksite analysis.

Accurate remote timekeeping is particularly important for the hours-of-service test. Work performed before or after scheduled hours through email, messaging applications, or other remote systems may affect both compensation and FMLA eligibility. Leave administration and wage-and-hour controls therefore should not operate as unrelated systems.

Determine the teleworker’s worksite before applying the 50-within-75-miles test

A teleworker’s personal residence is generally not treated as the employee’s FMLA worksite. The relevant location is ordinarily the office to which the employee reports or from which assignments are made.

Remote employees associated with that office may count toward its employee total even if they live and perform their work far away. The inquiry is not simply, “How many coworkers live within 75 miles of this employee’s house?” Federal telework guidance directs employers to consider the reporting or assignment office and to include teleworkers associated with that worksite in the relevant count.

Centralized-team example

Suppose an analyst lives 500 miles from company headquarters. The analyst receives assignments from a manager at headquarters, submits work to the headquarters team, and is organizationally assigned there. Other analysts also receive assignments from headquarters while working in several states.

The policy should apply the worksite rule to headquarters and the employees associated with that location—not draw a 75-mile circle around the analyst’s residence. That does not make the analyst automatically eligible. HR must still evaluate employer coverage, tenure, hours of service, the qualifying reason, and available entitlement.

Hybrid regional-office example

Now consider an employee who works from home three days per week and routinely reports to a regional office on the other two days. The regional director supervises the employee, but a centralized department at headquarters distributes some projects.

The home address still should not control the analysis. HR should document:

Where the employee routinely reports;
Which office exercises day-to-day supervision;
Where regular assignments originate;
Whether one assignment source is primary;
How the employee is coded in organizational systems; and
Whether the arrangement changed before the employee gave notice.

The answer should come from the actual reporting and assignment structure rather than an assumption based on commuting distance, payroll location, or tax address.

Maintain a worksite decision log

A prudent administrative practice is to identify remote worksites before a leave request exposes inconsistent records. A worksite decision log can include:

Field	What to record
Employee	Name or employee identifier
Reporting office	Office to which the employee reports
Assignment source	Office or unit from which regular assignments originate
Manager	Primary manager and any material secondary reporting relationship
Effective date	Date the worksite designation became effective
Associated headcount	Count used for the 50-within-75-miles analysis
Supporting records	Organization chart, offer letter, transfer record, HRIS code, or manager confirmation
Later changes	New manager, office, state, assignment source, or restructuring
Decision owner	HR or legal reviewer responsible for the determination

The log should not be treated as conclusive if operational reality changes. A review may be appropriate when an employee changes managers, departments, reporting offices, assignment sources, or states.

Worksite identification becomes more fact-specific when an employee has several managers, receives assignments from multiple offices, or has recently changed reporting relationships. Employers should not automatically select whichever location produces a preferred eligibility outcome. The safer approach is to document the actual structure, the timing of changes, and the basis for the conclusion.

Fully virtual employers present a harder edge case. The supplied federal guidance explains how to use an office to which an employee reports or from which assignments are made, but it does not definitively resolve every situation in which the employer has no meaningful physical office. A fully virtual employer should obtain qualified legal review rather than relying on a speculative universal rule. The same caution applies to divided assignment structures and recent reorganizations.

Choose the correct arrangement: continuous, intermittent, or reduced-schedule leave

Once eligibility and a qualifying reason are established, HR must identify the applicable leave format.

Continuous leave is a block of protected time during which the employee does not work.

Intermittent leave consists of separate blocks of leave for one qualifying reason. Examples may include recurring treatment, episodic incapacity, or separate periods needed to care for a qualifying family member.

Reduced-schedule leave temporarily reduces the employee’s normal daily or weekly schedule. Instead of working eight hours per day, for example, the employee may be medically able to work four hours and need four hours of leave.

Medically necessary intermittent or reduced-schedule leave can coexist with remote work. The employee works during approved working periods and takes protected leave during the remaining periods. The arrangement should be based on the qualifying need and applicable certification—not merely a manager’s informal preference.

Combined remote-work and leave example

Assume a hybrid employee normally works eight hours each weekday. Because of a qualifying serious health condition, the employee is medically able to work four hours each morning from an approved remote location and must remain off work for the rest of the day.

If the employee works four hours and takes four medically necessary hours off:

Four hours are recorded as productive work;
Four hours are recorded as FMLA leave;
Worked time is handled under the usual compensation rules; and
Only the four hours not worked reduce the employee’s FMLA entitlement.

The employer should not charge eight hours of leave merely because the employee did not report to the office. Nor should the manager assign afternoon work during the protected four-hour absence. Intermittent leave consists of separate leave blocks, reduced-schedule leave lowers the normal daily or weekly schedule, and only leave actually taken should reduce entitlement, as explained in this overview of intermittent and reduced-schedule FMLA rules.

Do not default to a universal 480-hour bank

Federal FMLA entitlement is measured in workweeks based on the employee’s normal schedule. A regular 40-hour schedule may produce a 480-hour equivalent for 12 workweeks, but 480 hours is not a universal entitlement.

For example:

A regular 32-hour workweek produces a different hourly equivalent from a 40-hour workweek.
A schedule that regularly includes overtime may require that overtime to be reflected in the normal workweek calculation.
A part-time schedule must be calculated using that employee’s normal hours.
An irregular or variable schedule requires a schedule-specific calculation rather than an automatic fixed-hour default.

A leave-management system may display usage in hours, but it should preserve the workweek basis of the entitlement. Otherwise, a fixed bank can overstate or understate leave for employees with nonstandard schedules.

Bonding leave also requires care. Under the federal framework, intermittent leave to bond with a healthy child after birth or placement generally depends on employer agreement. That rule differs from medically necessary intermittent leave in qualifying circumstances.

For a combined remote-work and leave arrangement, a prudent record should identify:

The employee’s normal schedule;
Regular overtime, where applicable;
Approved working periods;
Approved leave periods;
Applicable medical restrictions;
Expected frequency and duration of absences;
Actual hours worked;
Actual FMLA leave used;
Paid leave running concurrently, if applicable; and
Deviations requiring review.

Managers should not adjust an approved arrangement informally. If medical needs change, absences materially exceed the anticipated parameters, or the business proposes a different working arrangement, the matter should return to the leave administrator for review.

Prevent off-the-clock work and interference during continuous leave

The default expectation during continuous FMLA leave should be clear: the employee is not expected to monitor email, attend meetings, complete assignments, answer routine questions, or remain available for ordinary business.

Managers should not require, encourage, or pressure an employee to perform substantive work during continuous leave, particularly when medical information indicates that the employee cannot work. A remote employee’s access to a laptop or phone does not make the employee available.

A strong policy separates two categories of communication:

Leave-administration communication: Notices, certification questions, benefit-premium information, return-to-work procedures, or necessary clarification concerning leave.
Productive-work requests: Completing reports, reviewing documents, joining meetings, serving customers, supervising staff, troubleshooting projects, or monitoring messages.

The first category may be necessary. The second conflicts with the ordinary no-work expectation during continuous leave.

Brief administrative contact should still be handled cautiously. Not every message is automatically lawful or unlawful. Purpose, frequency, burden, timing, medical restrictions, and the degree of pressure all matter. Repeated “quick questions” may collectively become a meaningful work demand.

Where an employee remains copied on automated or team emails, a recommended control is to state that no response is expected during continuous leave. Managers should arrange coverage rather than leaving assignments in the employee’s queue and assuming they will be completed from home.

Employees also should not be required to make up protected absences after returning. Employers may not interfere with or retaliate against employees for exercising FMLA rights. Attendance points, performance criticism, or make-up-work demands tied to protected time can therefore create compliance risk.

If the employee voluntarily performs work

An employee may answer messages or complete a task without being asked. The employer should not ignore that work merely because it was described as voluntary.

A practical response is to:

Remind the employee to follow the approved no-work or reduced-schedule arrangement;
Notify HR or the leave administrator;
Record the time accurately;
Pay for the time where required;
Remove the worked time from the FMLA usage calculation; and
Review whether access, workload, or manager practices contributed to the work.

For nonexempt teleworkers, an employer must compensate work it knows or has reason to believe is being performed, including work away from the employer’s premises. Federal telework guidance explains that employers must account for known or reasonably discoverable work and maintain accurate records of compensable time.

A no-work policy does not erase the obligation to record and pay for work already performed where applicable. Conversely, paying for productive time does not make it appropriate to charge that same time as FMLA leave.

Manager checklist for continuous leave

Managers should:

Pause or reassign active work;
Redirect customers and internal requests;
Remove routine deadlines that fall during leave;
Avoid sending substantive assignments;
State that no response is expected to copied messages;
Avoid performance criticism tied to protected absence;
Never demand make-up work for protected time;
Route leave and certification questions to HR;
Document necessary administrative contact; and
Escalate any work the employee performs.

These are policy controls designed to support compliance. Managers should not independently convert continuous leave into remote work. If the employee says they can perform some work, HR should assess whether an intermittent or reduced schedule may be appropriate and whether a separate accommodation process is needed.

Build a remote-ready FMLA administration workflow

Employees do not have to use the term “FMLA” to raise a potentially qualifying need. They must provide enough information to indicate that the absence may qualify. Notice should be given as soon as possible and practical, with advance notice expected when the need is foreseeable.

Managers therefore need recognition training. Statements such as these should be escalated:

“My treatment schedule means I will miss several afternoons.”
“I need time off to care for my parent after surgery.”
“My condition is flaring up again.”
“I can work in the morning, but my doctor says I need to rest in the afternoon.”
“I cannot return to the office because of my medical restrictions.”
“My spouse has received deployment orders.”

The manager’s job is not to diagnose a serious health condition or promise approval. The manager should collect only the information needed to route the request and notify the designated team promptly.

Intake through return-to-work sequence

A remote-ready process should use the following sequence:

Recognize a potentially qualifying request. Capture the stated need, expected timing, and preferred contact method.
Assess employer coverage. Confirm whether the organization is covered.
Assess individual eligibility. Review tenure and hours of service at the applicable time.
Determine the assigned worksite. Use reporting and assignment facts, not the employee’s residence.
Apply the employee-count rule. Document the relevant headcount and timing.
Identify the possible qualifying reason. Avoid requesting unnecessary diagnosis details.
Issue required notices. Communicate eligibility, rights and responsibilities, and designation as applicable.
Request certification when appropriate. Explain the deadline and any opportunity to address deficiencies.
Document the leave format. Identify continuous, intermittent, or reduced-schedule leave.
Coordinate pay and benefits. Separate productive work, paid leave, and unpaid protected leave.
Track actual usage. Do not charge scheduled leave that was not taken or time that was worked.
Plan return to work. Address restoration and any applicable fitness-for-duty process.
Trigger accommodation review where needed. Keep that analysis separate from FMLA designation.

An employer may request appropriate health-care-provider certification and generally must allow 15 calendar days for its return, subject to circumstances requiring additional time. FMLA leave is generally unpaid, although qualifying employer-provided paid leave may run concurrently under applicable rules and policies. Group health coverage generally continues on the same terms during protected leave, and employees generally have a right to restoration to the same or an equivalent position afterward. These notice, certification, pay, benefit, and restoration principles are covered in the Department of Labor’s FMLA fact sheet linked above.

Define operational ownership

Remote leave administration fails when several functions give conflicting instructions. A policy should assign responsibilities explicitly:

Function	Primary responsibility
Managers	Recognize and escalate potential requests; avoid unnecessary medical inquiries; follow approved schedules
HR	Determine coverage and eligibility; identify the worksite; issue notices; communicate decisions
Leave administrator	Track certification, entitlement, frequency, duration, and actual usage
Payroll	Separate productive work, paid leave, and unpaid leave; correct timekeeping errors
Benefits	Maintain applicable coverage and communicate employee premium obligations
Accommodation staff	Conduct the separate disability-accommodation process
Legal or compliance	Review unusual worksites, disputed classifications, cross-state issues, and high-risk decisions

Systems should retain the information needed to support decisions, including remote hours, normal schedules, regular overtime where applicable, worksite designations, reporting-line changes, assignment sources, notices, certification status, actual leave usage, communications, and return-to-work decisions.

Build anti-interference and anti-retaliation controls into other systems

FMLA compliance cannot sit only in the leave platform. Employers should review how protected leave interacts with:

Attendance-point systems;
Productivity dashboards;
Bonus and promotion processes;
Performance reviews;
Scheduling tools;
Return-to-office rules;
Telework approvals;
Workforce reductions; and
Manager communications.

An automated system can create risk even without overt hostility. Examples include assigning attendance points for approved intermittent leave or measuring productivity against a target that assumes uninterrupted attendance.

As a risk-management practice, employers may require an appropriate HR or compliance review before finalizing a materially adverse decision involving an employee who recently requested or used protected leave. That review should distinguish legitimate, consistently applied reasons from decisions affected by protected absences.

Administer ordinary telework without discouraging FMLA use

The FMLA does not require an employer to create an ordinary telework benefit. An employer may define which roles are eligible for remote work and establish performance, security, and workplace requirements, subject to other applicable laws.

Once an employer offers telework, however, telework and FMLA decisions should be documented separately.

A leave record should show when the employee was not working for a qualifying reason. A telework record should show when the employee was authorized to perform work from another location. Combining them under a vague status such as “remote medical leave” invites inaccurate timekeeping and inconsistent expectations.

A neutral policy principle is:

Apply ordinary telework criteria consistently while preserving approved FMLA leave and avoiding retaliation, discouragement, make-up-work demands, or the charging of worked time as leave.

Employers should audit telework rules for indirect barriers affecting employees who use protected leave. Review:

Minimum office-attendance requirements;
Rules disqualifying employees based on attendance records;
Productivity thresholds that fail to account for protected leave;
Manager discretion to approve or revoke telework;
Requirements to “make up” office days;
Performance-rating formulas;
Eligibility waiting periods; and
Whether employees using intermittent leave are treated differently from comparable employees.

An employer should not offer remote work as a way to pressure an employee to forgo qualifying leave. “You can work from home instead of taking leave” is not an appropriate answer if the employee is unable to work or needs protected time away.

The opposite error is also possible. If an employee is permitted and able to work remotely, the employer should not require additional FMLA or paid leave for that same productive time. Location does not turn work into leave.

Public secondary summaries of Kemp v. Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc. characterize aspects of its remote-work interference analysis differently. Without relying on that disputed characterization as a categorical rule, employers can follow principles supported more broadly by FMLA administration:

Do not deny or restrict an otherwise available workplace benefit because an employee uses protected leave.
Do not pressure an employee to substitute telework for needed leave.
Do not treat remote productive time as FMLA leave.
Do not demand that an employee compensate for protected absences.
Apply legitimate telework criteria consistently.
Refer disputes to HR rather than allowing managers to improvise restrictions.

If a manager believes that remote work and intermittent leave are creating operational problems, HR should review the approved schedule, certification parameters, actual work performed, and treatment of comparable workers. The response should not be an informal schedule change, an inflated leave charge, or a request that the employee work during protected time.

Create a separate ADA and state-law handoff

An employee may be able to work remotely but unable to work successfully at the employer’s premises. That situation does not convert telework into FMLA leave. It may trigger a separate disability-accommodation analysis.

The ADA does not require every employer to establish a general telework program. Nevertheless, changing where work is performed may be a reasonable accommodation in an appropriate case. The EEOC’s telework accommodation guidance explains that the review should consider disability-related limitations, essential job functions, remote-work feasibility, effective alternatives, and undue hardship.

An accommodation request does not need legal terminology. A statement that a medical condition interferes with successful on-site work may be enough to require follow-up.

Conduct an individualized review

The review should address:

The employee’s disability-related limitations;
The essential functions of the position;
Which functions require physical presence and why;
The need for direct supervision;
Equipment and system access;
Collaboration and coordination requirements;
Face-to-face customer or patient contact;
Access to information available only at the workplace;
Security and confidentiality constraints;
Whether full-time, part-time, temporary, hybrid, or as-needed remote work would be effective;
Other effective accommodations; and
Undue hardship.

The conclusion should be based on the actual job and current circumstances, not a slogan that “all jobs can be remote” or “collaboration requires everyone on-site.”

An employer may choose an effective alternative accommodation rather than the employee’s preferred arrangement. Depending on the facts, alternatives may include a hybrid schedule, modified hours, workplace equipment, a different workspace, temporary telework, additional leave, or reassignment to a vacant position.

Employers do not have to remove essential job functions or lower production standards simply because work is performed remotely. At the same time, the fact that a role involves coordination or interaction does not automatically make telework ineffective. The analysis should identify the frequency, purpose, and practical method of performing those functions.

Prior remote-work approval is relevant but not conclusive. A previous arrangement may provide evidence that certain duties can be completed remotely, but it does not prove that the same arrangement remains feasible after job duties, medical capacity, technology, staffing, or operational circumstances change.

Add a post-FMLA checkpoint

When FMLA entitlement is exhausted and the employee still has limitations, the process should not end automatically with termination or an immediate demand for full on-site return. The employer should determine whether a separate accommodation review is required.

Potential options may include:

Additional leave;
Temporary or ongoing telework;
Hybrid work;
Modified scheduling;
Workplace modifications;
Reassignment; or
Another effective accommodation.

These are possibilities for individualized review, not automatic entitlements. The employee’s current ability to perform the job remains central. Remote work may be ineffective if the employee is medically unable to perform any work, while additional leave requires a separate assessment of duration, effectiveness, and hardship.

State and local law may provide broader family-leave, paid-leave, disability, accommodation, or job-protection rights. Cross-state employers should identify the jurisdictions potentially governing each remote employee rather than assuming that the law of the employer’s headquarters controls every issue.

Final policy audit checklist

A periodic FMLA remote work policy audit should confirm that the organization:

Assigns and documents worksites for remote employees;
Records reporting offices and assignment sources;
Updates designations after organizational changes;
Maintains defensible worksite headcounts;
Tracks compensable remote hours;
Calculates entitlement from normal schedules rather than a universal hour bank;
Uses distinct codes for work, FMLA leave, concurrent paid leave, and other absences;
Prevents managers from assigning work during continuous leave;
States that no response is expected to routine messages sent during leave;
Records and pays for remote work where applicable;
Removes worked time from leave calculations;
Applies telework rules consistently;
Prohibits make-up-work demands for protected absences;
Routes disability-related requests to accommodation staff;
Conducts a post-FMLA accommodation checkpoint;
Reviews applicable state and local law; and
Updates the policy as work structures and legal requirements change.

Effective FMLA remote work policies do not treat telework as leave or assume that an employee’s home is the controlling worksite. They document where employees report and where assignments originate, apply eligibility tests consistently, separate productive work from protected leave, prevent pressure to work during continuous leave, and route disability-related telework requests into a distinct accommodation process. Fully virtual, multi-office, recently restructured, and cross-state cases warrant current, fact-specific legal review.

Frequently asked questions

Does FMLA require an employer to approve remote work?

No. FMLA provides qualifying employees with protected leave; it does not independently create a general right to telework or require an employer to establish a remote-work program.

Remote work may nevertheless be available under an ordinary telework policy or may need to be considered separately as a disability accommodation. An employer should not pressure an employee to work remotely instead of taking qualifying leave or charge productive remote work against FMLA entitlement.

Which office counts as a remote employee’s worksite for FMLA eligibility?

A remote employee’s personal residence is generally not the FMLA worksite. The relevant worksite is ordinarily the office to which the employee reports or from which assignments are made.

When reporting lines or assignment sources are divided among multiple offices, the answer may be fact-specific. Employers should document the reporting office, assignment source, manager, effective date, and associated headcount rather than relying on the employee’s home address.

Do remote employees count toward the 50-employees-within-75-miles threshold?

They may. Teleworkers who report to or receive assignments from the relevant office may count as employees associated with that worksite even when they live and work elsewhere.

Satisfying that threshold does not by itself make an employee eligible. The employee must still meet the tenure and hours-of-service requirements, have a qualifying reason, work for a covered employer, and have available entitlement.

Can time spent working from home be deducted from an employee’s FMLA balance?

No. Time spent performing productive work is working time and should not be charged as FMLA leave.

If an employee works four approved hours remotely and takes four medically necessary hours off, only the four hours not worked should reduce the employee’s entitlement. Employers should accurately record and compensate worked time where applicable and track only the leave actually taken.

What should happen when FMLA ends but an employee still cannot work on-site?

The employer should determine whether the employee is requesting an accommodation and conduct the separate individualized review required by applicable disability law. Potential options may include additional leave, telework, hybrid work, a modified schedule, workplace changes, reassignment, or another effective accommodation.

Neither automatic approval nor automatic denial is appropriate. The review should consider current medical limitations, essential job functions, effectiveness, operational circumstances, undue hardship, and any broader state or local protections.