I am considering taking a long period of unpaid-leave absence from my company (long story) - perhaps 1 year or even longer - but the only way I think I could get this approved would be if my employer didn’t have to provide me with health insurance, dental insurance, or all those other benefits. (I would be in Taiwan and covered by Taiwanese coverage during this absence, anyway, so I don’t need those benefits.)
Generally, an employer must still keep the employee covered under health/dental insurance and other things even if the worker is away unpaid (such as under FMLA leave.) Such coverage can still cost $7,000 a year. But can a worker request to go on a totally-unpaid-and-un-covered leave of absence (to make things easier for the company,) under US laws?
In the Federal government, there is a status of Leave Without Pay. It’s generally discouraged, because the employee loses benefits, but it sounds like what you want.
In short, yes, it’s legal. Your employer may or may not be willing to do it, though. Depends on whether they could refill your position.
Under federal law, I think that is only required for FMLA leave and not any other sort of unpaid leave. There may be state laws that require benefits to continue for some period of time for certain types of unpaid leave - but even those would have some limits.
It’s definitely legal for employers to allow employees to go on unpaid leave without benefits. A former employer of mine (a municipality) allows most employees a four year unpaid childcare leave when a child enters the household by birth or adoption ( for subsequent children, it’s three years.) My last employer ( a state government) gives most employees up to seven months of leave for birth or adoption. But in both cases, once the employee has both gone off the payroll and has used up the 12 weeks of FMLA, they would have to pay the full cost under COBRA to continue their health insurance. And if an unpaid personal leave unrelated to FMLA was approved, the employee would have to pay the full cost as soon as they went off the payroll.
The problem is not going to be the legality, it’s going to be convincing your employer to do it, which is very likely to depend on how large your employer is, how many people do your job and how often they hire for your job. That employer that gave up to four years - it’s not that difficult for them to do it. They had a very large workforce in a small geographic area and the easiest way to describe it is to use the school system. Every year teachers leave and every year teachers are hired. So if a teacher takes a child care leave starting July of 2022 and plans to return in September 2024, that just means one more teacher gets hired for September 2022 and one fewer new teacher gets hired in September 2024. They won’t have to hire someone to start in September 2022 and terminate that person to have a spot for the teacher returning in 2024.
But that’s not going to work if you are the only (fill in your function) in a 100 person company. Even if you only want a one year leave, will it be possible to hire someone to take that job for only a year? Even if it’s possible , will your employer be willing to do it?
Except for FMLA or other special case, like a sabbatical specifically offered in your contact, I would find it odd an employer would allow this. You were hired to do a job, the job needs to be done, yet you are requesting a year long “vacation” and expect your employer to hold your job open until you decide to come back?
For some jobs it makes sense. In my job, it costs well over $300,000 to hire and fully train a new person, and even then, the expectation is that it will be several years before they’re as good at the job as a current employee.
So it’s worth it for my employers to be generous about allowing us to leave and come back under such circumstances. I know of several people who’ve done just that - they wanted to see what a new job would be like, so left for a year or two, but then came back when the other job either wasn’t what they expected, or just didn’t pan out. Others have taken the same deal, but then stayed in the new job, as well. It’s not common, but not incredibly rare, either.
Outside of certain categories of leave like FMLA and military leave, pretty much any leave arrangement you and your employer can agree to is kosher under federal law (although there may be state laws that come into play depending on your location and circumstances). I do think there are several issues that you will want to have addressed in writing in any such leave arrangement. Can your employer require you to return from leave early should a need arise? How will your job be held open in your absence? Is there some guarantee that you would return at your current salary, benefits and job responsibilities?
Otherwise, I don’t see why they wouldn’t just let you go with the option to rehire in the future should they so desire.
I’m not a lawyer, but I just don’t see any legality issue here at all. I don’t think it is illegal for you and your employer to come to an agreement that you leave and come back.
But I wonder why the employer would really do this. Its also not illegal for them to say: “Sure, take a year!” than NOT bring you back when you return. That would be my fear. And as an employer, I’d have to fill your role for a year somehow…and I might find that we’ve done well enough without you.
For clarification, it’s not a “vacation” for fun, it’s that I need to get full citizenship in Taiwan which unfortunately comes with a 1-year residency requirement (can’t leave the island for 365 days.) Remote work isn’t an option.
I realize there’s a good chance my employer would eventually terminate my job, but it’s more of a Hail Mary attempt to keep my job.
That is why I put vacation in quotes. Your time off is not for a medical/family issues that would be covered under a normal extended leave (like FMLA) but for your own personal gain of no real benefit for the employer that I can see.
I worked with someone that was converting to Mormonism. Part of that required a minimum 2 year mission. He asked our employer, a big airplane company, about taking 2 years off to complete his mission then return to work. His only option was to quit and maintain his rehire rights through the union. When he returned he would have an advantage over any new hires. The only flaw in this plan was the union, to be eligible for rehire he must be available to return to work. If recalled and unable to return to work, his rehire status would change to not available. Besides losing his recall rights, he would also lose his union seniority and would have to hire as a new hire again.
Going on unpaid leave is as easy as walking out the door. You leave, they stop paying you.
The trick is to convince them that they should rehire you when you want to return. Nothing legal about it at all, just a matter of whether they like you enough to keep your job available.
You state that remote working is not on the cards, but is there no possibility of you performing some function for them in Taiwan?
I can see that it will depend a great deal on what your employer’s business is, but: Sales, sourcing suppliers, research? Even if it is casual, it keeps you in touch.
Remote work in another country may not just depend on the just the employer’s business - it might also require a visa that allows a person to work rather than a tourist visa, the employer may be considered to have set up a branch office in another country and be required to comply with the laws regarding employment and taxation in that country ,etc. It’s not hard to see why a company wouldn’t want to deal with that.
This is the key. Essentially, they bring you back - rehire - with all the seniority and other status that you had when you left. If you are union, it depends what the contract says. I worked one for a company that had a large union workforce; the pension plan was company managed, so if you opted not to take your money out when you left, then you could resume building pension time when you came back; whereas the union did not allow you to keep seniority, rehires started as new hires. (There was an exception for education leave)
Union seniority affected things like priority for overtime offers, bidding on job openings, and vacation amount and selection. There was also a series of “qualifications” for assorted jobs, so unless you had passed a test in the last year or had been working the job, you may not be qualified to bid on certain openings.
My dad many (many!) years ago worked for a chemical company in Scotland. When he went for his PhD., they gave him leave. After a two years, they eventually asked him “Well, are you actually coming back?” (He said no, moved to Canada). If there’s no formal union-type regulations to adhere to, and the company thinks you would be an asset, I don’t see why they would not jump at the chance to rehire you. The only question is - what’s the difference between being a fresh rehire to the same company vs. “returning from leave”? Benefits difference with seniority? Amount of vacation? Without a union some of these could be negotiable.
Presumably they would rehire you to the same position and salary - anything less would be an insult (but not untypical in modern business). If you are gone for a year or more, you may not get back the exact position you had. (Canadian maternity/parental leave can be up to a year, and the law requires the employer to provide “the same position or equivalent” - so even there, with the full protection of the state, you don’t necessarily get the exact same position you left.)
There are 20 other employees who do the exact same job, and this is a 1000-person company, so I think they may consider me more expendable (which may be good in terms of being willing to let me go on unpaid leave, but not so good in terms of being brought back.)
I wouldn’t mind being re-hired to the same position but lower (we have a ranking system of sorts) and having newbie pay - essentially, starting at the bottom of the ladder again. (There’s not a big difference between the bottom rung and top rung at our ladder anyway.)
I would presume if you are a good employee, they are happy with your work, and you explain this is a really really really important personal thing you have to do, they wouldn’t hold your departure against you and would be happy to rehire you. The only question then would be whether there’s an opening when you return. That goes to - how much turnover is there? How likely their business will expand or at least not contract? How sensitive is their business to the economic climate or other factors? Only you can decide.
I have a theory that a lot of organizations have accumulated a lot of debt and other problems thanks to the pandemic (our supply chain / inflation issues are an example of the problems). Even government organizations have run up debt, not to mention private companies and non-profits. Everyone will be tightening their belts for the next few years to get back to normal and pay down that debt. (OTOH, the pandemic has been erratically disruptive, some segments of the economy are doing fine)
So what the economic climate is like in a year or two and the ongoing outlook may matter as to whether they will hire you back. the important thing is whether they like your performance so far.
Mormon missions have always been voluntary (in the modern era) and not a requirement, although some local leaders may be more encouraging than other.
At that time, the minimum age for men would have been 19 and it was vary rare that anyone started at older than 21. There was one guy in my dorm at the Missionary Training Center who was 23 or something and he was called gramps.
That person may have wanted to go but it wouldn’t have been a requirement.