New Jersey Family Leave Act

Overview

The New Jersey Family Leave Act (NJ-FML) provides eligible employees with unpaid, job-protected leave to bond with a new or newly placed child, care for a family member with a serious health condition, or respond to certain public health emergency situations affecting a family member or child.

For detailed legislative requirements, see our Legislative Guidance.

How to Use

Throughout this guidance, look for these labels to quickly identify what actions may be needed:

✅ Automatic: System handles this automatically, no action needed.

📝 Configuration Note: How the policy is set up in the platform.

💡 Best Practice: AbsenceSoft recommendation for optimal management.

❌ Manual Action or Tracking Required: User must complete this action or track elsewhere.

How AbsenceSoft Manages the Law

AbsenceSoft manages this law through 1 policy.

• Policy Name - New Jersey Family Leave

• Policy Code - NJ-FML

• Benefit Type - Job Protected

Employer Coverage Requirements

Refer to Legislative Guidance for details.

Employee Count Thresholds

📝 Configuration Note: NJ-FML is configured with a minimum of 15 active employees at the employer.

❌ Manual Action or Tracking Required: Manually override eligibility for employees where coverage thresholds may not align with information sent on the employee demographic file.

❌ Manual Action or Tracking Required: Public and state government employers are covered under NJFLA with as few as one employee in New Jersey. Because the platform's 15-employee threshold applies uniformly, government and public-entity employers with fewer than 15 employees will need eligibility manually overridden to reflect the law's lower statutory threshold.

Employee Eligibility

Refer to Legislative Guidance for details.

📝 Configuration Note: The NJ-FML eligibility rule group for hours worked in the last 12 months is configured with two conditions:

• Total Hours Worked in the Last 12 Months greater than or equal to 250, or

• Total Hours Worked in the Last 12 Months Including Paid Leave greater than or equal to 250. Only one of these conditions must be met, together with a minimum of 3 months of service, to satisfy eligibility.

❌ Manual Action or Tracking Required: Key employee reinstatement denials (based on the employee being among the employer's highest-paid group) are not automated in the platform; case managers must manually track and apply New Jersey's key employee provision when determining an employee's right to reinstatement following NJ-FML leave.

Work State Requirements

📝 Configuration Note: Policy is configured with a work state of New Jersey - meaning all employees with that work state will be reviewed for eligibility.

❌ Manual Action or Tracking Required: Eligibility may need to be overridden if the work state for the employee is different from the policy configured work state, based on the employer's review of the employee's work locations.

Qualifying Family Members

Refer to Legislative Guidance for details.

Special Family Relationship Requirements

📝 Configuration Note: The relationship dropdown for the Family Health Condition, Care for Family Member during State of Emergency, and Employee Caring for Individual Isolated/Quarantined absence reasons includes an "Individual with Close Association Equivalent to a Family Member" option to capture NJFLA's broad familial relationship definition, rather than requiring a match to a specific relationship type.

Leave Entitlements and Duration

Refer to Legislative Guidance for details.

Entitlement Overview

All NJ-FML absence reasons share a single combined entitlement of 12 work weeks per 24 month employer default period for the following absence reasons:

• Adoption/Foster Care

• Bonding

• Care for Child due to Place of Care/School Closure

• Care for Family Member during State of Emergency

• Care of Child during Public Health Emergency

• Employee Caring for Individual Isolated/Quarantined

• Family Health Condition

• Pregnancy/Maternity

Entitlement Rules

✅ Automatic: AbsenceSoft automatically tracks the shared 12-work-week entitlement across the 2-year period for all absence reasons.

📝 Configuration Note: NJ-FML is configured to use the employer's default measurement period over a 2-year duration. The platform applies whichever of the state's four permitted 2-year measurement methods the employer has selected. 24 months is shown as 2 years in the configuration and has no impact to the entitlement.

📝 Configuration Note: Bonding dates must be entered for Pregnancy/Maternity absence reasons for NJ-FML to reflect the correct application of the law.

❌ Manual Action or Tracking Required: Pregnancy/Maternity cases that do not include bonding dates will cause NJ-FML to begin as of the case start date. Users must deny the time related to the pregnancy versus the bonding time, or enter bonding start dates within the case info section.

❌ Manual Action or Tracking Required: Care for Child due to Place of Care/School Closure, Care for Family Member during State of Emergency, Care of Child during Public Health Emergency are only applicable during a public health emergency which cannot be determined in the platform. Case managers should allow these reasons if there is a public health emergency declared.

Interaction with Other Policies

Refer to Legislative Guidance for details.

❌ Manual Action or Tracking Required: NJ-FML is not configured with a Consecutive To or Not Concurrent With relationship to other New Jersey leave programs. Case managers must manually review and track interactions with New Jersey Temporary Disability Insurance, New Jersey Paid Family Leave Insurance, New Jersey Pregnancy Disability Leave, the New Jersey SAFE Act, and the federal FMLA on a case-by-case basis.

Required Paperwork/Communication

📝 Configuration Note: AbsenceSoft provides core paperwork for NJ-FML through the NJ Family Leave Act Fact Sheet (NJFML) paperwork/attachment. Paperwork is configured to be sent as part of the Employee Eligibility packet.

❌ Manual Action or Tracking Required: Updates to existing paperwork items can occur. When updates happen, they are automatically applied to paperwork unless the client has customized. Clients with customizations on the relevant paperwork will need to review to determine how to adopt the new paperwork and apply any new customizations to the updated paperwork manually.

💡 Best Practice: Customers with customized communications should review their templates to confirm that the above paperwork is included in the appropriate packets.

Need Help?

For questions about policy configuration or case management, contact your AbsenceSoft support team or consult the Legislative Guidance for compliance details.