New Jersey Family Leave Act

Automatic: System handles this automatically, no action needed

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

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

Best Practice: AbsenceSoft recommendation for optimal management

Configuration Note:

• The state of emergency absence reasons are available for use in select circumstances.

  • Employee Caring for Individual Isolated/Quarantined

  • Care of Child during Public Health Emergency

  • Care for Family Member during State of Emergency

• Pregnancy/Maternity is included in this policy to allow for employers to manage a full birth of child event in one case.

Refer to Legislative Guidance for details.

Configuration Note: AbsenceSoft's policy is configured for employers with 15 or more active employees, effective July 17, 2026. Prior to this date, the threshold was 30 or more employees.

This configuration does not evaluate the active employee count over 20 work weeks in the current or preceding year.

Manual Action Required: Manually override eligibility for employees of excluded employers or where the employer does not meet the applicable threshold.

Also may need to override the active employee count rule depending on the counts across the current or preceding year.

Best Practice: Note that the employer threshold is scheduled to further decrease to 10 or more employees on July 17, 2027, and 5 or more employees on July 17, 2028. The platform will be updated to reflect these thresholds at that time. No action is needed now.

Configuration Note: AbsenceSoft's policy is configured to apply to employees with Work State = New Jersey.

Configuration Note: AbsenceSoft's eligibility rule group for hours worked in last 12 months is configured with two OR conditions:

(1) Total Hours Worked in the Last 12 Months >= 250, OR

(2) Total Hours Worked in the Last 12 Months including Paid Leave >= 250

(only one of these conditions are required to meet the criteria)

Manual Action or Tracking Required: Employers who are not sending the ‘Hours Paid’ Field on the eligibility files will have their employee’s evaluated under the hours worked rule. Employers may need to override if found including paid hours meets the service hours for eligibility.

Manual Action Required: Manually override eligibility for excluded employees.

Automatic: AbsenceSoft automatically tracks entitlement usage across all absence reasons against the shared 12-week pool.

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

Manual Action or Tracking Required: Pregnancy/Maternity cases that do not add bonding dates will make the policy begin as of case start date. The user will need to deny out the time that is related to the pregnancy versus bonding time, or enter in bonding start dates within the case info section.

Configuration Note: The NJ-FML policy is currently configured to use the Rolling Back measurement period over 24-months.

• The measurement period will be updated to the Employer Default period on 9/15/2026.

Manual Action Required: If your organization's employer default measurement period is not Rolling Back, and the NJ-FML policy was not previously customized to match your measurement period, some actions are required:

1. You must notify all employees of the measurement period change at least 60 days before the configuration update takes effect.

   1. Scheduled 60 day window = 7/17/2026 - 9/14/2026

2. During the 60-day transition window, the more generous method must be applied to any open cases, meaning employees cannot lose entitlement as a result of the change.

   1. AbsenceSoft will perform this calculation on your open cases for you and provide details of the analysis during the 60 day window.

   2. Based on the AbsenceSoft analysis, some updates to your impacted cases may be required. AbsenceSoft will share the recommended changes with you for each open case (if any).

3. When the measurement period is updated to Employer Default with the September release on 9/15/2026, you will need to close all open cases as of 9/14/2026 with the NJ-FML policy and create a new case as of 9/15/2026. The new case will automatically apply the new version of the NJ-FML policy and all calculations will accurately reference the Employer Default period going forward.

Best Practice: AbsenceSoft has provided a notification template for communicating measurement period changes to employees. Review this with your internal legal or HR resources before distributing. Document notification dates in case notes for any open cases active during the transition window.

Manual Action Required: Monitor the state's release of updated required notices and update your communication templates accordingly once revised paperwork is available.

Manual Action Required: Review all active NJ-FML cases to identify those that:

1. were open before July 17, 2026 and continue on or after that date, and

2. evaluate employees at employers newly covered under the 15-employee threshold who were not previously eligible. For newly eligible employees, override eligibility or manually add the NJ-FML policy to qualifying open cases effective July 17, 2026. Manually deny dates previous to 7/17/2026.

Best Practice: Document in case notes: "NJ-FML policy added for in-flight case effective 07/17/2026 following AB 3451 employer threshold change."

Tracking Required: Create a list of all potentially affected in-flight cases before July 17, 2026 to ensure none are missed.

Manual Action Required: For any open NJ-FML cases with usage or expected usage during the 60-day transition window to ensure the more generous usage is applied to employees:

1. AbsenceSoft will perform this calculation on your open cases for you and provide details of the analysis during the 60 day window as new cases are created and cases get updated.

   1. Based on the AbsenceSoft analysis, some updates to your impacted cases may be required. AbsenceSoft will share the recommended changes with you for each open case (if any).

Best Practice:

1. Document in case notes: "NJ-FML measurement period updated to [new method] effective [date]. Entitlement calculated under [old/new] method as the more generous option during transition window."

2. Notify the employee of the change regardless of whether their usage is impacted.