Employers who had operated under a PTO model of time off are having to revise their policies to reflect the new state mandate regarding sick leave.
Now with a new five-day sick leave law that rolled out Jan. 1 [see sidebar], employers such as Seppi are adapting to the ins and outs of being in compliance. “This new sick leave law applies to all of our employees, regardless of whether they are full-time or part-time,” Seppi says. Another small employer in the wine industry, who asked not to be identified, says the new five-day sick leave law will have a big impact on their business, which employs approximately 10 workers, a mix of full-timers and part-timers. “It’s a difficult topic to wrap your head around, from a business standpoint,” the manager says. “We used a PTO model in 2023, but that has changed for 2024. We now offer a sick ‘bank’ and a vacation bank for our full-time employees.” It’s a touchy subject, they add. “In the wine industry I don’t know if this is the typical way to go, but for our company it’s the most beneficial financially. When we explained the new sick leave law to our workers they were fine with it. There were no serious issues, other than the challenge of explaining it to those whose second language is English.” COVID versus a cold Human resources specialists interviewed for this article tend to agree that the COVID pandemic significantly altered the way employers and employees view sick days. “It used to be that, with some people, if they had a cold they came to work anyway, but COVID changed all that,” says Tracy Emmerich, senior human resources consultant for Leap Solutions Group, a business-management consulting company based in Santa Rosa. “You don’t know what virus you really have and you don’t want to make the whole office sick. Now, with so much remote and hybrid work, people under the weather with a simple cold can work from home. Employers don’t want sick people at work, but if they don’t get paid sick days, they may come in anyway.” Emmerich says implementing the new five-day sick leave
law depends on many factors, and it also has to do with a company’s culture. “Three days of sick leave wasn’t enough. If the expectation is that an employee should be at work every day, a lot of people would feel guilty if they called in sick. But post-COVID, your coworkers don’t want you there. Sick leave was to give part-time temporary employees sick days, and that’s where this started way back when. If they worked at least 30 days, they were entitled to sick days.” Leap Solutions partner Chuck McPherson says he’s not against employees of his clients receiving the additional sick leave time, but for smaller employers it can create hardships. “Everybody knows that doing business in California is tough, and a new law like this is tough on small businesses. In today’s employment environment workers are taking whatever perks they can get. We tend to see with our client companies that employees don’t bank their earned days off, they actually use them. And that can be a good thing—they go rest and relax.” Small employers challenged Most employers admit that they don’t want employees coming to work sick, explains Lisa Lichty, CEO of Star Staffing in Santa Rosa. “So if a little more sick pay will help keep sick employees home to rest, that’s great. But there are many mixed feelings about this new sick leave law. Employers are concerned about the increased cost and also about employees who might abuse the sick pay.” Golbou ghassemieh, operations manager and senior consultant with Santa Rosa-based Personnel Perspective, says she doesn’t hear about older employees in their client companies “working through” their illness in the office. “It’s not a badge of honor to report to work sick,” says ghassemieh, who spells her name all lowercase. “We all went through the pandemic and everyone’s mindset has changed since then. It’s true that the older generation of workers came up in their careers at a time
30 NorthBaybiz
February 2024
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