Can an employee work from home during FMLA leave?

Under federal law, an employer could allow—but could not require—an employee to work from home during a Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) absence. When an employee asks to work during his or her FMLA leave, this is actually a request for an intermittent/reduced schedule leave; any time spent performing work, regardless of the location, cannot be counted against the employee's FMLA entitlement (i.e., if the employee normally works 40 hours and now performs 10 hours of work per week while on leave, only 30 hours may be counted toward the employee's FMLA entitlement for that week). Employers may want to handle this type of request differently depending on the reason for leave:

Leave due to an employee's own serious health condition. Employers may want to require a release from the employee's health care provider before allowing an employee to perform work while out for his or her own disability.

Leave to care for a family member with a serious health condition. These circumstances may warrant more flexibility in allowing remote work when an employee is unable to come into the workplace but may have periods of time where he or she is able to perform work while on leave to care for someone else.

Leave for baby bonding. Employers are not required to allow intermittent leave for baby bonding but may do so if they choose.

Keep in mind that if working from home during FMLA is offered to one employee, it may need to be offered to all similarly situated employees in the future.