“We have separate vacation and sick leave policies. Does California’s new sick leave law affect us?”
My HR Survival Tip
Yes, California’s new sick leave law can definitely have an effect on your vacation policy. As I mentioned previously, sick leave will be protected, which means you can’t count any of the employee’s sick leave toward attendance issues.
The major problem area is what happens if your employee has used all available sick time and now needs more time. In the past, you might have allowed the employee to use their vacation time balance. However, the safest solution may be to force employees to use unpaid time off in this situation.
Let me explain by giving you a short history lesson. Sam is an employee with a great attendance record. He is rarely sick and, therefore, you’ve allowed him to use his accrued sick time for other things. A court decision changed that by saying, if we are allowing sick time to be used for more than illness-related time off, then it looks a lot like vacation time and must be accrued and paid out the same as vacation.
The new sick leave law is flipping that. If you allow employees to use vacation time for illness-related time off, then it looks a lot like sick leave and it could all be protected time off.
Is your point in having separate vacation and sick leave policies to ensure the protection is limited, the amount of sick leave is limited, and you can ultimately use attendance as a performance issue? Then you need a vacation policy that clearly states it cannot be used for sick leave. Plus a sick leave policy that clearly states, once the accrued time has been used, additional time off will be unpaid (and unprotected).
It feels a little harsh, doesn’t it? However, this may be necessary to protect your company from last minute absences you can’t control. Everyone has to decide how this can work best for you and your employees. Since sick leave accruals don’t start until 7/1/2015, you have time to consider your options but you may want to make a decision by January 1st so you’ll have the required notifications in place then.
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