Do You Have This In My Size?
June 26th, 2009The Healthy Families Act (HFA) has been introduced in the both the House and Senate and would require employers with 15 employees or more to provide seven days of paid sick leave per year.
One concern over the bill centers around the possibility for employee abuse.
Because employees don’t need a doctor’s certificate (unless they are out for three consecutive days) the obvious conclusion is that some employees will abuse the system using their mandated sick leave as extra vacation time.
Similar concerns focus on the bill’s intermittent leave stipulation which reportedly allows employees to take sick leave in the smallest increment available under the employer’s payroll system (six minutes?) without notice. In theory, that means workers could repeatedly duck out of work situations where coverage is critical, and claim illness without repercussion.
So a big issue is that it opens the door for employee abuse. And while we’d love to be all Pollyanna and suggest that abuse is so miniscule an issue as to be irrelevant, we’re not that naïve. Yet, let’s admit most sick leave plans leave the door open for dishonesty.
The response, of course, is paid time off programs which lump sick leave and vacation time together. You get sick a lot – too bad – no vacation for you this year. Not sure that’s ideal either, but it gets us around the abuse.
The kicker, though, is that the HFA appears to require a stand alone sick leave policy and locks-in existing leave programs. So what does that do to companies offering PTO? One reading suggests companies would be forced to add on an additional seven days.
So theoretically, in a preemptive move to protect itself – “Jane’s” employer could convert her three weeks of PTO (nice, since Jane is rarely sick) to two weeks PTO and one week sick leave. Bummer for honest Jane.
Still, we’re fans of paid sick leave requirements. As Kris Dunn over at the HR Capitalist writes,
Employers of choice already do this since they have to compete for talent. Organizations with mostly entry level jobs - food service, poultry processing plants, etc., probably don’t offer that type of leave. You show, you get paid, you don’t - tough - regardless of the circumstances. That’s harsh and worthy of trying to come up with a better way. (bold added)
So yeah, something needs to be done. But we’re not just coming down on the side of business when we say the HFA doesn’t appear to be the solution. We’re saying “no” for the sake of employees too.
Workplaces need the flexibility to create leave and benefit programs that work for their industry and culture. Opponents are calling this a “one-size-fits-all” government mandate. If these interpretations are correct, let’s just point out that one-size-fits-all usually means “fits poorly for most.”
Posted by Jaime