According to the provisions of the Paperwork Reduction Act of 1995, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) must approve all federal government forms and assign them expiration dates. Thus the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) forms issued by the Department of Labor (DOL) in 2008 (when new regulations were issued) on Dec. 31, 2011, met their three-year duty date on and have expired.
The DOL has submitted the forms to the OMB for re-approval and notes on its Web site that " [a]ccording to law [5 CFR 1320.10(e)(2)], the agency may continue to use the form while its renewal is pending at OMB."
Use of DOL forms WH-380-E, WH-380-F, WH-381, WH-382, WH-384 and WH-385–all dealing with FMLA leave and certification–is not required, and businesses are free to develop their own forms so long as the information gathered thereon meets or exceeds the standards set on the DOL forms.
For more information on managing your FMLA program at work, please consider obtaining a copy of Personnel Concepts' informative and easy-to-use FMLA Regulatory Updates Compliance Kit.