February 21 Tip of the Week
“Paid Time Off”
The COVID 19 pandemic brought forward many issues in the workplace, from the need to allow for remote working to the need for paid time off. How these issues will continue to play out in the workplace remains to be seen, as the rules, regulations, and approaches to COVID seemingly change on a daily basis. From masking requirements to mandatory vaccination requirements to paid time off requirements, employers and human resources professionals are continually challenged by the need to keep up with these changes and to implement them in the workplace.
The approach to paid time off under COVID is consistent, however, to the trend in many states to include mandatory sick leave benefits for employees and to extend the requirements for such leave to situations where an employee is needed to take care of a family member. The federal Family and Medical Leave Act was one of the first legal requirements imposed on employers to provide job protected leave for employees who needed to take time off from work to care for themselves or a family member due to a serious health condition. The federal law did not require that leave to be paid, but it did require employers to continue an employee’s benefits while on leave.
Many states have expanded on the basic requirements of the Family and Medical Leave Act and have imposed their own state family and medical leave requirements. In states that require employers to provide a minimum amount of paid sick leave to employees, the reasons for taking such leave have been expanded to include leave to care for a family member with a serious health condition. Care could include staying home with the family member who is ill and needs to be monitored or comforted; it can also include accompanying that family member to a medical appointment or a medical treatment.
Significantly, even states with no requirement for paid sick leave have implemented their own mini family and medical leave laws. In these states, those laws require that employers, who provide paid time off to employees as a sick leave, must allow that leave to be used to care for a family member with a serious health condition.
To add to the complexity of these various laws, some states have included COVID related reasons into their laws regarding sick leave. This means that, even though the state has not expanded their standalone COVID leave laws, they have amended their existing sick leave laws to include COVID related reasons as qualifying reasons for sick leave under employer policies.
What does this mean for human resources professionals? With the laws changing as quickly as they are, it is important to have a reliable source of current information. Employers who operate in only one state are better positioned to keep abreast of the changing sick leave laws, while employers who have employees in multiple states will need to be more vigilant in ensuring they are up to date on the laws in every state in which they operate.
MyHRCounsel can assist you with any questions that you have regarding sick leave laws and other labor laws in all 50 states. Our labor and employment attorneys will serve as your eyes and ears to make sure that you are in compliance with the latest requirements and can assist you with any specific questions or issues that you experience.