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Sick Leave Use

PrairiePrairie 49 Posts
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Our sick leave policy states that employees may use accumulated days of compensated sick leave to attend to the needs of a member of the employee's immediate family which requires the employee's personal attention. Immediate family includes spouse, children, parents and members of the employee's household living with the employee. At our HR Committee meeting last night - the head of our organization (elected official) suddenly realized that this was part of our sick leave policy, and is requesting that it be stricken from the policy. She maintains that she has never seen this benefit as part of a sick leave policy. Do any of your organizations allow employees to use sick leave to attend to family members? If not, how do you handle time off for employees who need to care for sick children or spouses?
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  • 11 Comments sorted by Votes Date Added
  • LeoLeo 67 Posts
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    Our policy doesn't state that we do, but we do. If not, I would think it would "force" your EE to tell a white lie and say they were sick instead.
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  • Down_the_MiddleDown_the_Middle 771 Posts
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    You'll likely get a 70/30 split on this sort of thing, but............... Most employers I'm familiar with do not provide sick pay for the employee to attend to someone else. Sick pay is generally reserved for the employee's own illness. (Some CBA's might state differently, but that doesn't seem to be your issue.) For those org's that handle it this way it would be customary for the employee to use vac/ETO/PTO or w/o pay. Certainly FMLA may be appropriate if this applies to you and the conditions warrant it. I've seen the use of sick pay for family members in very small org's, but those seem to be the exception vs the rule.
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  • Dutch2Dutch2 1,590 Posts
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    We have a policy very similar to yours. If an ee has an ill family member, they are going to stay home and take care of them, as they should.
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  • FunHRBankerFunHRBanker 562 Posts
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    Our sick leave policy defines and immediate family member as spouse, children, and parents.
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  • NaeNae55NaeNae55 3,243 Posts
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    My hubby works for the state. When the children were home he was able to use his sick leave to care for them when they were sick. When I had surgery last month, he was able to use his sick leave for that. I know of other companies that do the same thing.

    This is why we went to a PTO policy. It covers everything.

    Good luck!

    Nae
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  • dixieddixied 134 Posts
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    Our sick leave policy allows time to be used for self-sickness or to care for spouse, child or parent who is ill. This includes doctor/dentist appointments.
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  • neveradullneveradull 194 Posts
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    In the Evergreen State the Family Care Law entitles employees to us sick leave or other paid time off to care for a child, spouse,parent,parent-in-law or grand parent. Our policy reads: "An employee may use accrued sick leave to care for a spouse, Parent, parent-in-law, grandparent who has a serious health or emergency condition or child with a health condition that requires treatment or supervision".


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  • PrairiePrairie 49 Posts
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    Thank you all for your helpful responses!
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  • atrimbleatrimble 327 Posts
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    Our Sick Leave is for the employee's injury or illness only. We have a classification, "Emergency," that employees can use to take care of ill family members, or they can use Annual Leave. Emergency Leave comes out of the Sick Leave accrual, however. We allow 80 hours of Emergency Leave each rolling 12 month period, after which any situation that would qualify as Emergency (family illness, death, housing burning down, etc.) will be deducted from Annual Leave. We have a twist though: if an employee is absent related to care for a family member and gets it certified for FMLA protection, then the EE doesn't have to burn Emergency Leave - it just comes directly out of Sick Leave.

    By the way, we're a local governmental agency, with about 50 benefits-eligible employees.
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  • LeoLeo 67 Posts
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    Shew!!! Thank goodness I don't have to keep up with all that. My heart goes out to you atrimble!
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  • atrimbleatrimble 327 Posts
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    Fortunately, I don't work in one of those 300+ or 500+ or 12,000+ employee workforces! I can track all this "special" leave on a single spreadsheet, in cooperation with our payroll system. One drawback, though: I have to hear all about it every time any one of my employees' kids get the sniffles.
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