Leaves of Absence

Bringing home a new baby or newly adopted child? Need to care for a sick parent? You may need dedicated time to concentrate on your loved one. With the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), you can take the following unpaid, job-protected leaves if you’ve been with CSL for at least a year: 

• Bonding leave — Bond with your new baby or adopted or foster child; it must be taken within 12 months of the birth or placement of the child.
• Serious health condition leave — Recuperate if you’re unable to work due to a serious medical condition.
• Family care leave — Care for your spouse, domestic partner, child or parent with a serious health condition.
• Military caregiver leave — Care for a spouse, child, parent or next of kin (nearest blood relative) who is a covered service member or covered veteran who has a serious injury or illness.

Length of leave

Take up to 12 weeks within a 12-month period for bonding, a serious health condition, family care or military emergency leaves, and up to 26 weeks within a 12-month period for military caregiver leave.

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Adding to your family is one of the most important events you may ever experience. And we want you to be able to appreciate every minute of it. If you grow your family through birth or adoption, you’re eligible to take up to eight weeks of 100% paid leave and up to 10 weeks of unpaid leave to bond with your new child (within the first six months from date of birth or adoption). Your pay is based on your base annual salary and coordinated with other disability and state family leave programs. Your health and welfare benefits will continue for the duration of your leave.

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If you’re a mother who gives birth, you receive eight weeks of paid short-term disability immediately after giving birth and before your parental leave starts. When all options are combined, mothers who give birth have a total of up to 26 weeks of job-protected time away.

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You always want to be there for the people who mean the most to you, and we want to support you in that endeavor. If you’re tending to a family member’s (spouse, domestic partner, parent, legal guardian or child) serious health condition, you can take advantage of our unique family care benefit: a paid caregiver leave of up to 10 days, to be taken in five-day increments. To be eligible, you must have worked for CSL for at least 12 months before starting your leave. You’ll need to provide documentation that the requested time off is for a qualifying purpose. Notify your manager, and contact Lincoln Financial to request a paid caregiver leave.

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Sometimes you may need more time away than your other time-off options will allow. If you need to take time away from work for personal reasons and have no other paid leave available, you can request an unpaid personal leave of absence for up to six weeks.

A personal leave is at the discretion of your manager and Human Resources. The business needs, your performance, the reason for the leave and other relevant factors will be taken into consideration. A personal leave of absence request will only be granted if your need for a leave is not covered by other CSL time-off policies or other leaves available under applicable laws (i.e., you’ll need to exhaust all your accrued PTO).

You may retain health insurance coverage during your personal leave; however, you’ll need to continue to make all premium payments that would have been made if you were actively employed. Continuation of other benefits is subject to the provisions of those plans.

CSL cannot guarantee that your current or a similar job will be available when you return from leave.

Notify your manager and contact Lincoln Financial to request a personal leave. Your personal leave needs to be approved in advance of your first day of absence.

Accepting other employment, working in another job or, where applicable, filing for unemployment insurance benefits while on leave will be treated as your voluntary resignation from employment, unless you and CSL have agreed otherwise, in writing.

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If you serve in the military, you’re eligible for unpaid military leave under the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act (USERRA).
Your leave cannot exceed five years during employment, except in special circumstances.

Paid Military Leave

In addition to rights provided by USERRA or any applicable state or local law, CSL provides paid leave, based on the length of leave indicated in your military orders, as follows:

• Weeks 1–8: 100% base pay for up to eight weeks
• Weeks 9–52: Supplemental top-up pay, up to 100% of base pay, for up to 12 months

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We want you to be able to take time to grieve and be with your loved ones if you should experience the death of a family member. That’s why we offer a number of bereavement leave options: 

• Up to 80 hours if your spouse, domestic partner, child or stepchild passes away (must be taken within 30 days after the first day taken)
• Up to 40 hours if your parent, parent-in-law, sibling or stepsibling passes away (must be taken within a 10-day period after the first day taken)
• Up to 24 hours if your son- or daughter-in-law, grandparent or grandchild or spouse’s grandparent or grandchild passes away
• Up to eight hours if your brother- or sister-in law, aunt or uncle, cousin, niece or nephew or someone living in the same residence as you and/or whom you have a close relationship with passes away

Notify your manager and submit your request in Employee Cloud. If you need more than the allotted time off for your situation, your manager can approve PTO or unpaid leave.

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