Family & Medical Leave ACT (FMLA)
The Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), a federal law, protects your job when you take time off or a leave of absence for any of the following reasons:
- Serious health condition (yours or a family member’s)
- New child
- Seriously ill or injured military member (military caregiver leave)
- Family member’s military deployment (qualifying exigency leave)
Visit the UW HR site for details about FMLA-covered situations.
Health-care provider certification forms
Visit UW HR's FMLA Healthcare Provider Certification Forms (specifically those for campus). Email the completed HCP certification to UW HR Leaves at hrleaves@uw.edu.
Note: Kaiser Permanente generally requires its members to use their own HCP form instead of UW’s; the University will accept Kaiser’s forms.
*If your situation is not one of the circumstances listed in the Provider Certification Forms, speak with your supervisor or Pediatrics HR to discuss other possible leave options.
Paid Family & Medical Leave (PFML) – administered by WA State Employment Security Department.
The Paid Family and Medical Leave program is a statewide insurance program that provides paid family and medical leave to eligible employees. The program is administered by WA State Employment Security Department (ESD). PFML does not replace the federal Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA). In many cases, PFML and FMLA will run at the same time.
Supplemental benefits
UW has designated certain types of paid time off as supplemental benefits. This means employees can choose to use paid time off to supplement the money they receive as partial wage replacement from the ESD while on a PFML leave. Please review the types of time off that can be designated as supplemental benefits while taking leave under PFML.
PFML is often retroactive, so employees must adjust previously approved absence requests to recode paid time off as a supplemental benefit rather than a wage. Once approved for PFML, send a scan of the approval letter or screenshot from the website to pedshr@uw.edu for Workday entry.
Faculty paid sick, medical or family leave
Per the Faculty Sick Leave Policy, faculty may be eligible for up to 90 calendar days of paid sick leave (UW Faculty Code Section 51-1). Read more on the HR Faculty paid sick, medical or family leave page for guidelines, eligibility, funding, and Paid Sick Leave as a Supplemental Benefit.
Resources
- Paid Family and Medical Leave Application Checklist – Review the PFML application checklist to prepare you to apply.
- Staff taking leave for a personal health condition – Review frequently asked questions for a personal serious health condition as well as scenarios on how to plan time away.
- Washington Employee Assistance Program - The Washington State Employee Assistance Program (WA EAP) supports PEBB-eligible University of Washington employees and their household members to help identify and resolve personal concerns to promote individual and workplace wellbeing.
- Disability accommodation: The University provides reasonable accommodation for employees who have a medical condition that affects their ability to perform their job duties.
- UW Shared Leave Program: The state of Washington’s Shared Leave Program allows time-off-accruing employees to donate their accrued time off to another state employee who is experiencing a severe, extraordinary, or life-threatening health crisis, for parental leave, pregnancy disability, or other qualifying circumstances. To use shared leave donations, an employee’s own Vacation Time Off and Sick Time Off balances must be near or below 40 hours each.