Even though most companies offer paid sick time anyway, will HR face new problems if this becomes the law?
Last year, San Fransisco passed an ordinance requiring all employers in the city to offer paid sick leave. No other governments have followed suit, but plenty are trying. The Connecticut Legislature recently debated a paid sick day bill, and a group in Ohio is trying to get a similar measure on the ballot in November.
On the federal level, the Healthy Families Act has been kicked around Congress for a while without being passed.
It’s rare to see an employer that doesn’t offer paid sick days. But that doesn’t mean these bills won’t cause problems if they’re passed. For example:
- PTO conflicts — Employers would no longer be able to offer leave in a singular paid time off (PTO) bank, since they’d have to track sick time separately. Or, they’d have to offer the mandated sick days on top of the existing PTO bank.
- Tracking issues — The bills each have a unique system for figuring out how much time people get (in Connecticut, it’d be one hour of leave for every 40 hours worked). Employers with different accrual methods would have to change.
- Part-timers — Some of the bills cover all employees — including temps and part-timers. Forced leave for those employees would burden a lot of small companies.
Hopefully, the problems will be corrected before the proposals are passed. We’ll keep you posted as the legislatures battle it out.
