Considerations for employee sick leave

Sick leave is one of the best benefits a company can provide to their employees. Sick leave is used when a person has an illness and they are unable to perform their job duties and they need time to rest their bodies and heal from the illness. Not all companies are able to provide sick leave because they feel that they cannot afford the costs of it but the problem is not giving sick leave will make a sick employee come to work and infect your entire staff. When your entire staff is sick it can cause productivity to slow way down and this makes it very difficult for the business to survive.

Employee sick leave is an important benefit that you need to offer. It allows your sick employees time to get prepared to come back to work and to be productive again. For many employees having at least 24 hours where they can lay in bed and rest all day can help their immune system to fight off the infection and to get better in a timely manner.

Depending upon the state your business is in, sick leave is mandatory. It is required for certain things like funerals and family obligations but the amount of sick leave you provide for illness is based on the hours the employee works and your state's laws. Some companies will add an additional hour of sick leave each year the employee is with the company, which can allow the employee to build up a week or more worth of sick leave. For most companies the standard is to offer 1 week of sick leave for their fulltime employees. This amount can increase the longer you are in business and you have more money to offer to your employees.

Since the worker will be unable to properly contribute to the company anyhow, it makes sense for them to stay home and get better so the company can keep moving forward. It's better to work short staffed with healthy employees than trying to work with 5 sick employees because you will not provide them with enough sick leave to get better.

Since sick leave is a way to get out of working, a lot of people take advantage of it. They want to use sick leave the same way as their vacation time and many people abuse it. You need to be sure that your employees are using sick leave correctly so that they actually have some saved up if they get sick towards the end of the year and they are all out of hours to take off and get better. Here are some considerations for sick leave that you need to look into:
1. Research the sick leave benefits of other companies in order to see if you are offering comparable benefits. You also need to research the rules and regulations for your state in order to be in compliance.
2. There are some circumstances when an employee will use up all their sick leave and will need an extended leave of absence. They may have a severe health concern that causes them to take months of unpaid sick leave. Since companies are unable to afford offering sick leave for long periods of time you may refer them to the employment insurance program that could provide sick benefits.
3. Provide your employees with particular leaves for maternity and paternity. Typically companies will not pay for maternity or paternity leave but they will provide the employee with the time off so they can spend it with their new baby before they are able to return to work.