As of Jan. 1, California employers must provide five days or 40 hours of paid sick leave to employees.
and business necessity. If excessive sick time is being requested by an employee, attendance issues can have a huge impact on that employer. In that case, employers need to know if an employee is dealing with medical conditions and thus fall into special protected categories. These include the Family Medical Leave Act, California Family Rights Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act—and these may all come into play.” Less mental health stigma Mental health also features prominently in today’s work culture, with more younger workers commonly referring to some days off as “mental health” days. “Around 2019, mental health in general and mental health in the workplace was already becoming a more prevalent topic,” says Lichty. “Then with COVID and several other traumatic events of the past few years—political unrest, fires, violence and so forth—mental health was launched to the forefront of our society and workplace topics.” Not only did mental health become a much more common reason for sick pay or PTO from a medical perspective, but also from a general well-being perspective, says Lichty. “Education around mental health has helped HR professionals and the workforce in general to dismantle the stigma. Most employers and employees now understand the severity and prevalence of mental health issues. Also, whether it’s a truly medically diagnosed mental health matter, or just a matter of well-being, it has been studied and proven that taking ‘mental health’ days improves employees’ overall health and therefore productivity and happiness in the workplace.” Krug says, “Thankfully, we are all becoming more aware of the need for self-care in all its forms. Employers can actively work to make their workplaces more healthy. Employers of choice are going above and beyond to make their workplaces positive and enjoyable places to be, and to accept that employees have wellness issues outside of work, too. Each one of us is dealing with our own challenges in both our mental and physical health, and that of our families. A couple of extra sick days to ease the burden is nice, but I encourage my client companies to look at it as only a start.”
At his company, Seppi hasn’t heard a request for a mental health day too frequently, but he believes vacation time is always good for mental and physical health. “It’s also beneficial from a business operation standpoint, because when a worker is gone it can point out opportunities to have others in the company rise up and fill in. And you want to make sure you aren’t relying too heavily on a single person. Sometimes we see this leading to managerial changes, and that’s good for the growth of a company.” The wine industry manager says their company generally doesn’t refer to days off as mental health days. “But I leave it up to my employees how they want to apply their time. By law you can’t ask for any proof of illness, and we highly encourage our workers to use their sick time for medical appointments during working hours.” When ghassemieh initially entered the workforce, she says a person might have been laughed out of the room if they asked for a “mental health” day. “Now, a younger generation of workers is less impacted by the stigma of having mental health needs, because we talk about it more. There is more parity between mental health and physical health now. I worked at one time when as an HR manager I could ask people why they were home sick. But you can’t do that anymore. You have to take it at face value and have more tolerance, because the legal landscape is different now.” Update employee handbooks She says it’s important that employers stay on top of communicating employment law changes to their workers. “So many times companies are behind on updating their employee handbooks. There’s so much to take into consideration now that they need to regularly revisit their policies. Updating the handbook should be an annual exercise,” says ghassemieh. She says it comes down to employers to maintain solid hiring practices and ensure they bring employees into a positive work culture where they can be engaged and committed to “showing up and doing the work.”
32 NorthBaybiz
February 2024
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