When an employee submits an intermittent medical or caregiver leave, Cocoon empowers you to easily review those submissions in Cocoon and automates any associated communications between you and the employee. Because intermittent leaves typically happen during unique, personal situations for employees, we believe only internal People teams have the necessary context and should ultimately control these decisions—with Cocoon here to guide you and your employees through each step of the process.
Employee submission
First, when an employee plans an intermittent medical or caregiver leave, Cocoon will automatically determine their eligibility under FMLA, applicable state laws, and your policies.
Next, if they meet eligibility criteria, we will prompt employees to submit a serious health condition (SHC) form to support their request. If an employee does not upload the required documents by the 15-day deadline, Cocoon will automatically take the next steps to keep the leave process moving. This may include following up with the employee or, if necessary, denying the leave request.
Reviewing the leave submission
When an employee uploads their serious health condition form (SHC), certified by their medical provider, into Cocoon, Workspace Admins will get the following email with the subject, “[Action Required]: {Employee} turned in their documents in support of their leave of absence”.
Workspace Admins will also see this task in the Admin dashboard.
You will have 5 days to take an action on the leave in Cocoon: approve, deny, or send a deficiency notice.
💡What is a deficiency notice? If an employee's SHC is incomplete or insufficient, you can send the employee written notice (i.e. deficiency notice) explaining what additional information or detail is required to inform your decision.
If Cocoon doesn’t see any action being taken after two days, you’ll get another email with the subject, “[Action Required]: 3 days to review and act on {Employee}’s leave of absence” to remind you to take action.
When you click View documents you’ll be taken to the employee’s leave details (screenshot below), where you can download the SHC and review the leave request.
As a Workspace Admin, you’ll need to confirm whether the SHC supports the leave the employee requests. After comparing the leave request with what’s in the medical certification you may decide:
You have enough to approve the full leave
You have enough to approve part the leave, but need more info on other parts
You don’t have enough to approve the leave at all and need more information
Identifying Serious Health Condition Duration
Follow the steps outlined below to determine the duration that the leave form is valid based on the information provided in the SHC form. This process ensures consistency and accuracy in validating leave forms and managing recertification timelines.
Does the SHC form specify a period during which the employee will be unable to work or require leave?
Example: 40 days or a specific end date.If yes: Enter the dates as they appear on the SHC form. The system will use this date to determine if recertification is needed in the event of a leave extension.
If no, does the SHC form state that the medical condition or need for leave is indefinite or lifetime?
If yes: Select the corresponding box. The form will be tracked with a 12-month duration as a default, and this date will act as the operative end date.
If you are unsure of the duration, please reach out to Cocoon Support for further assistance with the SHC form.
Approving a leave fully
To fully approve the leave, follow the steps below:
Select all rows of the leave request
Click “Action”
Click “Review leave”
Put any relevant information from the health certification to document what the employee is anticipated to need. E.g., planned medical treatment dates (appointments) and any expected duration, incapacity (illness) estimated frequency and duration, or reduce work schedule expectations
Click “Next”
Keep the radio button selected on “Approve leave”
Click “Next”
Double check that the dates requested are what you want to approve, and then confirm your action.
See here or click below for a walkthrough of the experience
Approve a leave partially and send a deficiency notice
If the SHC only supports part of the leave request (e.g. the front half of the requested dates), on Step 8 above, update the date range to what you are ready to approve, and then confirm your approval.
Cocoon will then automatically ask you to give instructions to the employee to address the deficiency in their support for the remaining time. With that information, Cocoon will email the employee and give them 7 days to upload new proof to address the deficiency. The dates you approve will be marked “Approved” and the remaining dates will stay “Pending”.
Employees will get an email with the subject, “[Action required] Provide an updated serious health condition form.”
Keep the whole leave pending and send a deficiency notice
If the SHC doesn’t support any part of the leave, on Step 6 approve you can select “Send deficiency notice” and skip any approving.
If you end up learning that even after providing support, there is no serious health condition or there’s no longer need to go on leave, you may select all the rows, click “Action”, and “Deny leave”.