Leave of Absence Letter: How to Ask, and What to Put in It

Read the policy first and use the route it requires — many employers specify an HR portal, a form or a call-in line, and for FMLA leave you are generally expected to follow the employer's usual and customary request procedures absent unusual circumstances. Raise it with your manager verbally if that suits your relationship, and make sure it ends up in writing regardless. The written request should name the leave type, give a start date and an expected return date, state the reason briefly, set out what happens to your work while you are away, and ask the pay, benefits and accrual questions explicitly. Work out first whether protected leave may apply: a discretionary personal leave is something your employer can decline, while qualifying FMLA leave for an eligible employee is an entitlement you are invoking rather than a favor you are requesting.

Six things: the type of leave, the start and expected return dates, a brief statement of the reason, a coverage plan for your work, the questions you need answered in writing, and an offer to provide any documentation the process requires. What it should not include is extensive personal or medical detail. You are establishing that your request falls within a policy category, not making a case — and for a medical leave in particular, the detail belongs with whoever handles certification rather than in an email to your manager.

First, use whatever route your employer's policy actually requires — an HR portal, a specific form, notifying a particular manager, or a call-in line. For FMLA leave you are generally expected to comply with the employer's usual and customary notice and procedural requirements for requesting leave, absent unusual circumstances, so an email to your manager is not a safe substitute for a required portal submission. Beyond that, what matters is that a dated written record exists. Email does that well because it is timestamped and both sides keep a copy. If the required route is a portal or a phone call, follow up with a short email confirming what you submitted and when. A formal signed letter is worth adding where the policy requires one — attach it as a PDF rather than sending it alone.

Check the policy, because it will specify one. For FMLA leave the federal standard is clearer than most people realise: where the need for leave is foreseeable — a scheduled surgery, an expected birth — you must generally give at least 30 days' advance notice before the leave is to begin. Where 30 days is not practicable, because you did not know the timing, circumstances changed, or there was a medical emergency, notice must be given as soon as practicable instead. That is also the standard for unforeseeable leave. Certification deadlines run alongside this once a request is made. If your situation is urgent, say so and give the earliest date you can rather than waiting until you can give a complete one.

Enough for the employer to identify which policy applies and to understand that the leave may qualify for protection — and generally no more. For FMLA specifically you do not have to use the word 'FMLA' when you first request leave; you do have to give enough information for the employer to recognize the leave may qualify. For a medical leave that usually means saying it is a medical leave and offering certification, not describing the condition in detail. Employers can require certification through a defined process for FMLA leave, and that process is where medical information belongs. For a discretionary personal leave the calculation is different — you are asking for something the employer does not have to grant, so a reason that makes the request easy to approve genuinely helps.

Find out exactly why, because the reason determines whether it is fixable. A refusal to grant or to designate leave as FMLA can come from your eligibility, from whether the employer is covered at all, from whether the reason qualifies, from a missing or incomplete medical certification, from notice requirements not being met, or from your entitlement already being exhausted for the applicable 12-month period. Some of those are curable — an incomplete certification usually is — and some are not. If you were given an eligibility notice stating you are not eligible, it should give at least one reason why, which is the quickest route to the answer. If the leave was discretionary, a denial is generally within the employer's rights, and the productive move is to ask what alternative would be considered: a shorter leave, a later start, intermittent leave, or a schedule change. Where a medical condition is involved, raise the ADA route as well — additional unpaid leave can be a reasonable accommodation, including where FMLA was never available or is exhausted, unless it would cause undue hardship.

Selecting someone for a reduction because they requested protected leave is interference or retaliation, and it is not lawful. That said, the honest answer is that requests and reductions do sometimes coincide, and the analysis then turns on the sequence: when the reduction was planned relative to when you asked. This is the practical reason to keep your own copy of the request and the replies to it, where your employer's policy permits — if the question ever arises, the dated record is the evidence, and company account access is usually cut within hours of a layoff. Keep that to your own employment and leave correspondence: do not forward or remove confidential business information, customer data, proprietary material or anything your policy or agreements prohibit you from taking.