Sick Leave Insights and Summary

After making you crazy with the subtleties of California’s sick leave law, I thought it was time to summarize things. One of the biggest problems companies face is the abuse of sick leave. Since unused sick leave is not paid out, using that sick time becomes a goal for many employees.

CareerBuilders’ recent survey resulted in unsurprising statistics and some creative excuses. Just in the past year, 28% of employees have used sick days. The statistics show 30% just didn’t feel like going into work, 29% wanted a day to relax, and 11% cited bad weather. Winners of creative excuses include:

  • The employee who accidentally got on a plane.
  • The employee who was sitting in the bathroom and her feet and legs fell asleep. When she stood, up she fell and broke her ankle.
  • The employee who had been at the casino all weekend and still had money left to play with on Monday morning.
  • The employee who woke up in a good mood and didn’t want to ruin it.
  • The employee who had a “lucky night” and didn’t know where he was.
  • The employee who got stuck in the blood pressure machine at the grocery store and couldn’t get out.

When thinking about your sick leave policy for 2015, remember you can always change your policy once we have more information about some of the details. If you do not currently offer any PTO or paid sick leave, you’ll need a paid sick leave policy matching at least the minimum requirements of the new law. PTO may be acceptable coverage for sick leave but just vacation is not.

For now, if you have primarily an exempt (salaried) workforce with few attendance issues, keep your PTO (official Paid Time Off) policy as long as your accrual rate is equal to or more than the required sick leave accrual. If you have primarily a non-exempt (hourly) workforce and/or issues with attendance, you should maintain separate vacation and sick leave policies so you maintain more control over last-minute absences.

Regardless of what you choose to do with your PTO, vacation, or sick policies, you must update your Employee Handbook to comply with the legal requirements of the new law. Let me know what you’ve decided to do!

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