The Department of Labor’s Field Assistance Bulletin 2023-1 considers what compliance with the FMLA looks like for businesses that have employees working remotely.

Specifically, employers may be uncertain about one of the eligibility requirements: having 50 or more employees within 75 miles of the worksite.

As the guidance lays out, employees’ personal residences or other telework locations aren’t worksites for FMLA eligibility purposes. Rather, their worksites are the offices to which they report or from which their assignments come.

Here are two examples:

Company ABC has 10 employees working on site and 40 telecommuting from within 75 miles of the worksite. The 50-employee mark has been met for purposes of FMLA eligibility at Company ABC.

Company 123 has 10 employees working on site, 40 telecommuting from within 75 miles of the worksite and 50 telecommuting from over 75 miles away. Because Company 123 has met the 50-employee threshold for FMLA eligibility, even those employees working remotely from over 75 miles away would be eligible for FMLA leave (assuming all the other requirements are met).