Although the law provides for a variety of methods for awarding sick leave, the most straightforward is the accrual method: one hour of paid sick leave for every 30 hours an employee works. Under this legislation, employers must provide almost all workers with a paid-sick-leave program that meets certain minimum standards.

These employers-and their lawyers-eventually came to accept that they must not count legally protected absences, including those covered by FMLA or CFRA intermittent leave and those that accommodate a disability, against an employee’s performance record.Īgainst that backdrop came the new sick-leave law in 2015, which gives California employees the right to accrue and take paid sick leave for a variety of reasons, including a family member’s illness or need for preventive care. California companies became further limited by various state laws such as theĬalifornia Family Rights Act (CFRA) and the “kin care” statute, which allows the use of sick leave to care for a sick child, parent, spouse or partner. In the past, many of them operated under so-called no-fault policies, which regarded the reason for the absences as irrelevant.Īmericans with Disabilities Act in 1990 and the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) in 1993-both of which offered protections for absences related to disabilities or dependent care-employers became somewhat constrained in their ability to reconcile their attendance policies with their performance review practices. HR professionals and managers commonly counsel, discipline and sometimes even terminate employees who miss excessive amounts of work time. The good news is, with a bit of planning, HR professionals in California can work within the constraints of the legislation to craft policies that allow a company to be generous without exposing it to unnecessary risk. Unfortunately, however, making those well-intentioned and seemingly straightforward choices can bring an unintended consequence: the inability to hold employees accountable for the excessive use or perceived abuse of their sick-leave or paid-time-off (PTO) entitlement. Moreover, since a number of companies already provided more leave than the minimum required under the new law, many opted to keep their current policies in place others made only minor revisions. Healthy Workplaces, Healthy Families Act, drew criticism for being draconian and cumbersome, particularly from national employers that prefer a one-size-fits-all approach to leave. The low accrual rate and tight usage limits permitted under the law, formally dubbed the

When California’s ne w sick-leave law went into effect last year, many employers viewed it with a healthy skepticism.

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