Workplace Flexibility & Leave

SHRM advocates for modernizing foundational leave laws — particularly the FMLA — to reflect the realities of today’s workforce, family structures, and work arrangements. HR professionals represented by SHRM sit at the intersection of compliance, benefits, and employee experience, and they design, implement, and administer leave policies every day. SHRM research and member inquiries consistently reveal that outdated statutory definitions, unclear eligibility rules, and rigid provisions create confusion for both employers and employees, increasing administrative burden and compliance risk.

SHRM supports updating FMLA to better align with modern caregiving needs by expanding definitions of covered family members to include domestic partners, adult children, parents-in-law, and other immediate family members. SHRM also recommends revisiting qualifying events, clarifying intermittent and reduced-schedule leave provisions, and removing outdated limitations such as the aggregate leave cap for married couples. These changes would reflect how leave is actually used in practice and reduce unnecessary complexity. Modernizing FMLA is essential to creating a clear federal baseline that supports workers while remaining workable for employers of all sizes, industries, and operating models.

SHRM supports a coordinated national approach to leave policy that promotes regulatory consistency, clarity, and compliance across jurisdictions. Employers today must navigate a fragmented system of federal, state, and local leave laws, including FMLA, the American with Disabilities Act (ADA), the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (PWFA), workers’ compensation, short-term disability, and a growing number of state paid family and medical leave programs — now in 13 states plus the District of Columbia. Even employers operating in a single state face overlapping and sometimes conflicting obligations, while multistate employers encounter exponential complexity.

Over the years, SHRM has engaged with Bicameral Paid-Leave Working Group and the House Bipartisan Paid Leave Working Group, who introduced the Interstate Paid Leave Action Network Act of 2024 (the I-PLAN Act) and the Paid Family Leave Public-Private Partnerships Act. The I-PLAN Act represents an important step toward addressing challenges created by inconsistent state and local regulations. SHRM believes federal policy should function as connective tissue across leave systems by harmonizing key definitions, aligning reporting requirements, and reducing duplicative compliance obligations. Regulatory consistency lowers administrative costs, reduces legal risk, and allows HR professionals to focus on supporting employees rather than navigating complexity.

SHRM believes workplace flexibility and leave policies must be financially viable, operationally functional, and adaptable to the realities employers face. Ensuring that leave programs are sustainable for organizations of all sizes — particularly small and medium-sized businesses — is a core priority. Many employers struggle to balance the direct and indirect costs of paid leave with staffing needs, productivity, and business continuity. Without thoughtful policy design, well-intentioned leave mandates can create operational strain that limits employers’ ability to expand benefits. 

SHRM supports policy approaches that preserve employer choice while offering financial mechanisms to offset costs, including targeted tax credits and voluntary insurance-based models that enable cost pooling. Leveraging the tax code and other financial tools can help employers provide paid leave without undermining competitiveness or operational stability. SHRM also supports mitigating the burdens associated with self-funding and reducing administrative costs tied to compliance and reporting. 

Operational functionality is equally critical. By advancing policies that integrate financial sustainability with innovative flexibility, SHRM seeks to ensure leave benefits are accessible, practical, and scalable—supporting employee well-being while enabling employers to operate effectively in a dynamic labor market. 

SHRM advocates for policies that expand access to retirement security while preserving flexibility for employers to design benefits aligned with their workforce and business objectives. Retirement benefits remain among the most valued offerings for employees and employers alike, yet access gaps persist — particularly among small and medium-sized businesses and historically underserved workers. Cost, administrative complexity, and regulatory burden continue to limit broader adoption of workplace retirement plans. 

HR professionals play a critical role in supporting employees’ retirement readiness while ensuring compliance and plan sustainability. SHRM supports simplifying retirement plan administration, strengthening tax incentives that encourage employers to establish plans, and promoting employee participation through education and plan design flexibility. Reducing complexity and cost is especially important for small and midsize employers that want to offer retirement benefits but lack dedicated administrative resources. 

SHRM also supports innovation in retirement plan design to improve coverage for low-wage workers and other traditionally uncovered populations. Public policy should encourage solutions that balance simplicity, accessibility, and long-term financial security. By strengthening employer-sponsored retirement systems, policymakers can support workforce stability, improve financial resilience, and reinforce the role of employers as trusted providers of retirement benefits. 

SHRM believes addressing gaps impacting caregivers is essential to building an inclusive, stable, and resilient workforce. SHRM research shows that up to 20% of the workforce is engaged in caregiving at any given time, and these responsibilities are often long-term and expanding. Within five years, many workers anticipate new caregiving obligations. HR professionals routinely manage leave and know firsthand that when caregiving needs are unsupported, employees may experience career disruptions, reduced earnings, or workforce exit. 

SHRM’s advocacy emphasizes practical, bipartisan solutions supporting both workers and businesses in today’s caregiving landscape. These priorities include easing the economic burden of unpaid care through targeted financial incentives, modernizing workplace laws to reflect the realities of employees balancing work and caregiving responsibilities, and strengthening the nation’s care infrastructure through sustainable public-private partnerships that support families and workforce stability.

SHRM also encourages employer-driven solutions, including flexible scheduling, remote work options, dependent care assistance, and manager training to support caregivers. Employers that integrate caregiving into total rewards strategies report stronger retention, broader talent pools, and improved competitiveness. Addressing caregiving gaps is not only a workforce issue — it is a business imperative and a cornerstone of effective leave policy.