Faculty & Staff
Employee Family & Medical Leave
Job-protected, mostly unpaid leave for a serious health condition or a new child, layered with the paid leave Porter offers on top of the federal minimum.
The federal baseline
Under the federal Family and Medical Leave Act, an eligible employee (twelve months of employment and a minimum hours threshold) can take up to twelve weeks of job-protected leave per year for their own serious health condition, to care for an immediate family member with one, or for a new child by birth, adoption or foster placement. FMLA leave itself is unpaid; it guarantees the job and health coverage continue, not a paycheck.
What Porter adds on top
Employees can apply accrued sick leave and vacation to an FMLA leave to keep receiving pay for part or all of it, and Porter offers six weeks of paid parental leave for a birth parent and two weeks for a non-birth parent, running concurrently with (not in addition to) the twelve-week FMLA clock.
How to request it
Requests go through Human Resources with (for a medical leave) a healthcare provider’s certification; HR coordinates the specific return-to-work date and any temporary workload redistribution with the employee’s supervisor, so the employee is not the one explaining the situation to colleagues.
Graduate students and student employees
Graduate assistants and student employees are generally not eligible for FMLA (the hours threshold rarely applies to a typical assistantship), but see graduate parental leave for the separate policy that covers them.