Senior staff from the Massachusetts Department of Family and Medical Leave (DFML) recently told AIM members at a webinar that some companies do not yet have paid-leave leave administrators in place. Given the popularity of the Paid Family and Medical Leave law among employees across the commonwealth, it is essential that employers designate a leave administrator to serve as the point of contact with the DFML.

There are three basic requirements for PFML compliance efforts.  Failure to meet these requirements may impact your employees’ leave experience, put your organization at risk for improper management of benefits, and/or leave the company open to penalties for non-compliance.

First, you must have a verified Leave Administrator. If you have taken this critical step, you are receiving alerts about employees who are filing for leave.

• Once you are verified, you can review each application for information that ensures your employee gets the appropriate amount of leave and benefits. Your employee may take more leave than she or he is entitled to or receive more benefits if you do not inform the DFML about previous leaves taken. If you don’t review these applications, you are giving up your voice in the decisions made about your employees’ leave.
• Promptly reviewing applications improves your employees’ experience and can reduce their approval time by up to 10 business days.
• You also have access to a dashboard that will help you manage your employees’ leave schedules and payments.

If you haven’t done so, please create your employer account with DFML now and register your paid leave administrator.

For more information on the role of leave administrators, visit: Employer Role in the Paid Family and Medical Leave Review Process.

You play a key role in ensuring your employees are aware of their rights and responsibilities.

• Inform all your employees about the PFML program by displaying a poster about PFML physically in your workplaces, and in accordance with your own policies and procedures for remote workers.
• Provide new employees with a notification form explaining PFML benefits, contribution rates, and other provisions within 30 days of hire. Employers are responsible for documenting their compliance with this notice requirement.
• When the contribution rate changes, distribute an updated notice with the new rates.  These do not need to be signed but you must be able to prove that you sent the rate change to all employees.

The posters and notices for 2023 are available for download here: https://www.mass.gov/info-details/pfml-workforce-notifications-and-rate-sheets-for-massachusetts-employers

The third basic requirement for PFML is financial compliance.

• Employers are responsible for sending Family and Medical Leave contributions to the DFML on behalf of their employees.
• Your organization’s contributions depend on how many of your employees and contractors are covered under the PFML law.
• Contributions are made to the Department of Revenue through MassTaxConnect.

Any member employer that missed the webinar in December may download and listen to the presentation. In addition to covering the leave administrator role in detail, the agency leadership team responded to questions from members on different aspects of the law.

AIM members with questions about the Paid Family Medical Leave law, other leave of absence laws, or any