Sick leave, sick days and personal days are forms of a benefits that many employers wrap into their compensation package. But, many companies don’t have a written or updated policy which can lead to abuse or even accusations of discrimination.
"I can't come in to work today, Jake is sick and I need to take him to the Doctor"
A sick day is fairly self-explanatory and can be used for everything from a common cold to a more serious illness that could require hospitalization or even surgery. Personal days can cover things like the illness of a child, doctors visits, appointments for car or home repairs, etc. Most companies also allow vacation time for employees in addition to their set amount of sick leave and personal days.
Customarily, companies allocate only a certain number of days for sick leave and personal time. For example, in a calendar year an employee could have five sick days and three personal days. If the employee fails to use them all in the given amount of time, the company must decide whether to have these days as “use them or lose them” or allow employees to roll them over (add or bank them to the number of sick days for the following year). A company could also reward the employee for not taking all available sick and personal days by offering to cash them out as a bonus or offer other perks or additional vacation days.
But, this all goes back to having a sensible WRITTEN policy to follow and abide by. Plus, many companies aren’t even aware of what they MUST give (by law) and what is voluntary.
The one law that many have heard and know about is FMLA – The Family Medical Leave Act. This law, signed in 1993, was to help hold the jobs and benefits of employees for up to 12 weeks for the reasons of; personal illness, birth of a child, adoption of a child, illness of a child, spouse or parent, or if the employee, their child, spouse or parent are in the military under “covered active duty”. This law only applies for employers with 50 or more employees in 20 consecutive weeks in the prior calendar year. You can read more about FMLA at the U.S. Department of Labor website at http://www.dol.gov/whd/regs/compliance/whdfs28.htm.
But, so many businesses are under 50 employees, so are your “required” to have a sick leave policy? Well, no, but many business put together a mini-medical leave policy that uses the same guidelines as FMLA with a shorter “protection” time. The main idea, though, is to make sure that if you do decide to have a sick leave policy is to have it WRITTEN and EQUITABLY AWARDED.
I guess I can’t drive it home enough, having it in writing is your best defense against abuse or misinterpretation. When PANTHEOS works with our clients in the creation and administration of their Employee Guidebook, sick leave and PTO is one section that gets a little more consideration (along with vacation and holidays). Also, we couldn’t even begin to count how many calls we take from employees and managers requesting FMLA packets when the company they work for only has 17 employees and doesn’t even offer a mini-med leave program.
This blog could go on and on about other factors with sick leave, sick days and PTO like: abuse, reporting, tracking, etc. Guess that can be a blog for another time! Right now, I feel the sniffles coming on….
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Author: Charmaine Hollaway, Director or Operations for PANTHEOS
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The PANTHEOS Group is a full service professional employer organization (PEO) providing human resources, payroll, benefits, risk and safety administration and workers compensation in the Chicagoland area and surrounding states. Tier pricing allows clients to choose the services they need making PANTHEOS a preferred choice for start-ups and small to medium businesses. Contact the PANTHEOS Business Development team at (877) 693-9700 to find out more about PANTHEOS and our service offerings.
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