sick children

System · May 2003

this subject probably has been talked about before, but I am going to ask again. Can someone give me some insight on employee's taking time off to care for sick children. This will not fall under the FMLA because the children are sick a couple days here and there or the employee takes off to pick them up from daycare. Most daycare's will not take kids that have a temp. My question is do we need to give these people special treatment. Do we need to excuse there absence more than a single employee. Some of the employee's are single parents or the other partner will not take off work. Or in one case the orther partner is in treatment. One employee has been given an oral warning and tomorrow she wants to talk to me and I believe this is the reason. What are out rights as an employer?
Any help with this would be greatly appreciated.

Spoden in MN.

scottorr · May 2003

Our current policy requires an employee to use their vacation time to care for a sick child. We do not allow employees to use sick time for sick children. Our policy is that sick time is for when the employee is sick. There are no laws that I am aware of that require an employer to give time off for sick children that do not meet FMLA requirements. At my last employer, they allowed employees to use either their accrued sick time or flex time. I believe most employers make allowences of some sort however, they are not required to do so. I hope I was of some help.

LindaS · May 2003

Our attendance policy has a clause in it that allows for absences to pick up a sick child from school and/or daycare without accumulating "points" under the policy. They need to provide a written verification that that is where they were. We don't have ALOT of employees utilizing this clause but it is there if they need it. We also have a flextime policy that the employees can utilize as well. The philosophy at our company is that people have lives outside of the plant and we try to work with that the best we can while also realizing there needs to be guidelines.

I don't know of any federal laws regarding this issue but common sense needs to come into the picture. I don't think "special treatment" is called for but if you make allowances for others with different needs, you should be doing the same for these individuals.

Dutch2 · May 2003

We allow our sick time to be used for anyone in the immediate family,living in the same household and parents of the EE(in-laws included). This has proven very helpful for us. I once worked for a company that allowed sick time for the EE only and we believed this simply caused our EE's to call in sick when in fact it was their kids that were sick. Our employees are given credit for one sick day for each full month worked and can accumulate up to 30 days of sick time. The majority of our team have the full 30 days saved; however, there are a few and you have them too, that as soon as they have one day credit it will be taken.
Good luck,
Dutch2

scottorr · May 2003

Our company does not have a set number of sick days which is why we do not want employees using time to take care of sick children. We fear that this would lead to abuse.

System · May 2003

You shouldn't give special treatment to ee's with children. You should just follow your policies/procedures. FYI, if you follow those policies, and end up terminating ee, and the last absence causing termination was due to child's illness, ee will probably be able to draw unemployment.

We, too, just allow "sick days" for the ee - not family..

pecohr · May 2003

There are some states with state mandated provisions for "Care of a Sick Child" (non-serious health condition). I'm in Oregon and we do have this coverage under OFLA (Oregon Family Leave Act), and you thought only CA was that liberal. I would recommend contacting your local (state) DOL for information on any provisions specific to your area.

Good luck,
Stuart

SandiF · May 2003

>There are some states with state mandated provisions for "Care of a
>Sick Child" (non-serious health condition). I'm in Oregon and we do
>have this coverage under OFLA (Oregon Family Leave Act), and you
>thought only CA was that liberal. I would recommend contacting your
>local (state) DOL for information on any provisions specific to your
>area.
>
>Good luck,
>Stuart

Washington state can beat that! We have always been required to allow employees to use sick leave to care for a sick child under the age of 18. Effective 1/1/03, we now are required to allow employees to use ANY type of accrued leave, their choice, to care for a sick child (no age limit, who has a "health condition that requires treatment or supervision"), a spouse, parents, parent-in-laws, and grandparents with a "serious health or emergency condition."

Definately need to check with your own state's DOL.

Gracie · May 2003

We have sick time employees can use for themselves or to care for their immediate family. When it comes to sick children, we tend to be more understanding since we know that in many instances, our employees do not have extended family around or someone who can take care of their child given last minute notice.

It all depends on your company's policy. Some companies are more family-friendly than others. Whatever policy we have, there will always be some 20% who will try to abuse them no matter what policy we have. We should always derive our policies based on the common good, the 80% who will benefit most from the policy. It is your company's call.

Rockie · May 2003

I don't advocate special treatment for people with children unless you are willing to extend this to employees who have other issues such as sick parents, etc. We have untold issues with employees who want us to solve their child care problems from sick kids to daycare issues. I advise anyone who has small children and is trying to work a full time job to have good, competent backup in case of an emergency situation. I also advise them to save a portion of their PTO so they will not run into a Leave Without Pay situation when they have to care for children and cannot find help.

In a perfect world, an employer would be able to consider these issues, but a company has to be careful when it singles out one segment of the employee population for special treatment. You will have to be prepared to honor a myriad of requests from other employees who feel their issues are just as important as those folks with children.

mbeam · May 2003

We have a PTO policy which would be utilized in this scenario. We too try to be flexible when things come up as know people have lives outside of work.

Eliant · May 2003

In California we have CFRA, in our company we have PTO, allowing ee to use the time to meet their needs. However, being a parent myself, having been in those shoes, I always take the direct approach. First, is this causing the ee to have an attendance problem? is it causing a disrruption in the department? Ask yourself what are your state laws regarding these issues? Then, I would meewith the employee, explain the situation, assist the employee to look for alternatives and provide a copy of the company attendance policy. Document the situation. It has never failed for me, end result; well informed employee, and employee, appreciative of the assistance.

Eliant

Pork · May 2003

I am very surprised at the number of HRs on this post that do not or have not ask for the consideration of this situation as a FMLA considration. If there is medical authority involved with the sickness then he/she just might be willing to certify the heaslth of the child requires parental care and if the employee then satisfys the "gatekeeping" aspects of 1250 hours over the last year and 365 days in employment, then this employee would be entitled to the provisions of the FMLA on a scheduled intermitant basis.

In our company there would be "no pay due" and the sick and vacation time for the two week waiting period would be taken, but the employee would have the opportunity to nurse the child at home for the next 12 week equalivant or 70 days off without pay. If the employee wants to use all of her vacation time available during the FMLA period, we would also allow that opportunity to our employee who is in need.

May all of you fall into the employee's shoes and see how tight the shoe fits!!!

Just Ole Pork

ritaanz · May 2003

Mr. Ole Pork: If the employee misses 1 or 2 days from work to take care of a sick child, that does not fall under FMLA. Looking at it that way, I'm afraid would be opening Pandora's box. You have just given each and every employee with children 60 intermittenant days off.

Around here we wear sandals and sneakers.

scottorr · May 2003

The question specifically states that this is not FMLA qualified.

Pork · May 2003

You should read it again; it is not that specific, as to whether the employee is a one year and 1250 hours employee with physician certification of the child's illness. Otherwise, the poster's company policy for PTO will come into play.

Ole Pork struck again! Pork

scottorr · May 2003

Are you trying to say that every employee that has worked their 1250 hours during the last 12 months and that has a child has the right to 60 random days off per year so long as there is a medical provider certification (don't forget the law does not say physician certification). Mr. Pork you seem to have forgotten that the key to FMLA is pre-certification, this question is directed at random days not an existing on going illness. FMLA does not start until the employer has approved and sent out their approval letter. As stated in the original question: "This will not fall under the FMLA because the children are sick a couple days here and there or the employee takes off to pick them up from daycare."

JudyRoy · May 2003

We allow employees to take sick leave when their spouse/children are sick. We find that if we don't, they usually call in sick themselves. Most of our employees use every bit of sick leave they have, but we do have a policy that if you don't use it you can sell it back at the end of the year and get paid for it. We don't have many take advantage of the sell-back.

Don D · May 2003

I took the original poster at her word and left FMLA out of the equation. She has apparently already run that rabbit. Sounds like to me she is talking about the occasional runny nose or fever and picking up younguns at daycare. That doesn't smell like FMLA to me. Most company's don't have sick leave for non-exempts, opting instead for things like attendance points systems, allowing several no-fault absences throughout the year. I also assumed the writer had no sick leave policy for these employees.

Rather than invite athlete's foot by walking in people's shoes, I'm more interested in following the law, enforcing company policy and doing so consistently to protect the company. If that means terminating employees who miss an inordinate number of non-protected days in a period of time, so be it.

In a perfect world (like Paul['s in Oregon) where there is no need for rules and all employees respect each other and the employer and none would create issues, maybe we wouldn't need to deal with these sorts of things. But in the real world we do, and often employees are terminated in the process.

System · May 2003

We allow employees to use up to 16 hours accrued sick leave per pay period (pay period is two weeks)to care for an ill family member (living in same household). If more time is needed, they must use vacation. This has worked well for us.

ecatlett · May 2003

I am currently at a company that has a policy of 15 days PTO for vacation and sick time which includes taking care of sick children. I am acutally shocked at how many of your organizations don't allow for sick days to cover parents who have sick children. Granted, I have always worked in a "white collar" organization so maybe that is why so many of you fear that employees may take advantage of this policy. But personally speaking, I can't believe the lack of flexibility for this topic. Wow! I thought in 2003 we were moving forward on the issues of working parents - this has really opened my eyes.

njjel · May 2003

Our employees may use any type of accrued time they have in their bank to care for a sick child or any other family member for that matter! As stated above, just be certain that a particular illness does NOT qualify for FMLA or as in NJ employers, NJ Family Leave.

Rockie · May 2003

>I am currently at a company that has a policy of 15 days PTO for
>vacation and sick time which includes taking care of sick children. I
>am acutally shocked at how many of your organizations don't allow for
>sick days to cover parents who have sick children. Granted, I have
>always worked in a "white collar" organization so maybe that is why so
>many of you fear that employees may take advantage of this policy.
>But personally speaking, I can't believe the lack of flexibility for
>this topic. Wow! I thought in 2003 we were moving forward on the
>issues of working parents - this has really opened my eyes.

Does your policy also allow for taking care of other relatives other than children who might be sick, i.e., elderly parents, etc.

Personally, I have seen all kinds of sick leave plans and have yet to find one that is not rife with abuse. And I have worked in law, banking and healthcare organizations. The abuse I've seen was not just for care of children but mostly because people did not want to use their vacation time for "days off", they simply "called in sick". We remedied that by combining the sick and vacation into a very generous PTO plan which employees are encouraged to manage responsibly. If they choose to abuse it, then they go into a LWOP situation which will affect their performance.

sick children

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