Just over half of human resource professionals expect the U.S. Department of Labor to propose new Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) regulations within the next 2 years.
When asked "Will the federal government publish new FMLA regulations within the next 2 years?," fifty-five percent responded "Yes" and forty-five percent responded "No" in a recent Compensation.BLR.com poll.
In December 2006, after nearly 14 years of administering the FMLA, the Department issued a Request for Information (RFI) asking the public to comment on their experiences with the Department's administration of the law and the effectiveness of the regulations. The Department received over 15,000 comments. The report observed that the top complaint by employers regarding the FMLA is employee use of unscheduled intermittent leave. Employers whose business operations have a highly time-sensitive component seemed to be the most adversely impacted.
In issuing its report in June 2007, the Department acknowledged that normally "the organization of comments received in response to a Departmental Request for Information would first be seen accompanying proposed changes to the rules" but no such proposed changes accompanied the comments. Instead, with the report, the Department intended to "provide information for a fuller discussion among all interested parties and policymakers about how some of the key FMLA regulatory provisions and their interpretations have played out in the workplace."
The report's executive summary is available on the Internet here. The full report is available here.
