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Making Time for Time Off: The Dos and Don'ts of Vacation and Sick Leave
CEDR
It’s summertime again, and you know what that means -- everyone in your office will be requesting the same days off for the next three months!
OK, so that may be a bit of an exaggeration. But, the fact remains that summer vacation is a staple for many Americans, especially those of us who have school-aged children to entertain during the extended break. And, when your practice is bustling with parents hoping to get their kids in for treatment during the break at the same time that your employees are trying to take time off, it’s a potential recipe for disaster.
When working with dentists and office managers to craft time-off policies that work for their practices, we find that there’s a lot of confusion (and a general lack of understanding of the nuance) surrounding time off policies and how to actually apply them fairly and legally.
To that end, we thought we’d offer a general overview of the different categories of time off, some of the most common issues we see with each type, as well as some guidance on how to handle time-off in the real world.
Paid Time Off: Vacation
There is currently no federal law in existence stating that you MUST offer your employees paid vacation (a state law was recently passed in Maine related to paid time off, but it doesn’t take effect until 2021).
For this reason, employers are generally not required to offer employees paid vacation and doing so is generally up to the discretion of each employer. If paid vacation is offered, some states consider it an earned benefit called “deferred compensation,” and you may be required by your state to pay those days out if they are unused at the end of a year or at the time of employee separation. Still, paid vacation offerings can be relatively flexible, and the
way you offer them at your practice is largely up to you.
If your office does offer paid vacation, it’s important that you outline the process for using that time off clearly in writing, and that you collect signatures from your employees stating that they have read and understood those time off policies.
Things you’ll want to consider with regard to your paid time off policy include:
1. How much time will each employee get?
List that time as the total number of hours rather than days, in case employees ever need to take partial days off. Also, make the increment at which that time can be used clear (one hour at a time? Full days only?).
2. How will employees earn that time?
Will you front load all time off when someone is hired? Will it be loaded after an initial getting acquainted period? Will it accrue at a particular rate? Will days off be reloaded at the start of a calendar year or when the employee hits the one-year mark for employment?
3. How much time off can be taken at once?
Can employees take all of their earned time off consecutively, or does it need to be broken up? Will there be limits on time off at specific times of the year?
4. How far in advance do employees need to request personal time off?
This is a pretty standard ask, but it’s important to consider how your office schedules its patients. If you schedule patients several months in advance, perhaps employees should be required to give equal notice for vacation time.
5. When can employees take time off?
Are there any days which are ineligible for taking vacation, such as during your busiest times of the year? Or is there a time when you might encourage employees to use their time, such as when your office is closed due to doctor absence?
6. What about unused time off?
Will you allow unused vacation days to roll over year after year, or will they expire? Will you pay them out if they expire or will they simply be lost if not used? What about when an employee separates from the company? Does your state have laws about unused time off? If so, you’ll need to adhere to them.
Paid Time Off: Sick Time
Currently, 16 states (plus Washington, D.C.) have some form of mandated sick leave law on the books. If your state is not included in that list then your business is currently not required to provide sick leave to its employees. Still, even if providing sick time is not required of you by law, a handful of states have laws regarding optional sick time offered to employees. If your business is in one of those states then state and possibly even local laws will provide strict rules that you must follow with regard to issuing that sick time.
State and local sick leave laws can get very specific, and they may cover how sick time must be accrued or provided, how and when it must be paid out, if and when that time expires, when you are allowed to ask for proof that an employee was actually sick, reasons that sick time may be used (and it’s not always just for infectious or contagious maladies), minimum increments for sick time offerings (which can be as little as one hour at a time), asking for advanced notice, and even a presumption of retaliation for a certain period of time after a sick day was used (meaning that any disciplinary action within that time frame will be automatically viewed as retaliation for using sick time).
An important consideration about sick time:
When a dentist or office manager learns that they are required to provide a certain amount of sick time to their employees, if that office is already offering at least the mandated number of hours as paid time off, they often assume that they are already in the clear.
Unfortunately, that’s simply not true. Offering the correct amount of time off is only part of the compliance equation. Following state laws about how to correctly handle and document that time is the other piece required to ensure your office is in compliance.
Further, by “bundling” all of the time off your business offers under a single heading, you’re effectively making vacation days indistinguishable from mandated sick leave. From an enforcement perspective, this will mean treating ALL OF THAT TIME OFF as sick time, thereby subjecting it to the same legal standards applied to sick time.
If you are required to offer sick time, it’s best to distinguish that time from vacation or personal time so that you can preserve the legal flexibility of the vacation time for your business.
Unpaid Time Off:
Though offices commonly neglect to stipulate requirements for taking unpaid time off, it’s often not until an employee seems to be abusing a practice’s lack of an unpaid time off policy that employers consider putting guidelines in place for unpaid days off.
Much like with vacation time, it’s a good idea to layout procedures and guidelines for requesting unpaid time off, including how far in advance requests should be made, black out days on which unpaid days off are not allowed, the number of consecutive days off that can be taken, etc.
An employee who takes frequent time off, especially without providing advance notice for their absence, is effectively unloading the burden of their workload onto the rest of your team.
Fail to provide policies for taking unpaid time off (or any other time off, for that matter) and you might just find out the hard way how that leniency can come back to bite you and the rest of your team in unexpected ways.
Want to see where your office stands on HR Compliance? Schedule a FREE HR CONSULTATION with one of our resident experts!
Check out CEDR's free online Guide to Employee Classification and Wage Compliance and Guide to Employee Handbooks for more advice and insights on time off and other important policies.
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