Sunday, November 18, 2018

Does employer owe sick time to part-time employee?


For almost a decade, a reader, "Gretchen," has worked part-time for a community center. She's paid hourly and receives no healthcare insurance or vacation time.

"I don't get paid when I take time off," she writes. "But I do have great flexibility to schedule time off when I need it."

It's a perfect position for Gretchen, she writes, because, after a full-time career where she was on salary and put in long weeks, she had saved enough to be able to decide how much she wants to work in any given week. Rather than retiring, Gretchen continues to work because she finds the work to be engaging and challenging. Plus, she likes the people with whom she works.

One thing Gretchen discovered she does get from her work at the community center is paid sick time. Every several months she accrues an hour of sick time. She's able to carry over up to 40 hours of accrued sick time every year.

"I rarely get sick," Gretchen writes. As a result, her accrued sick time hours pile up.

Now that it's November, Gretchen has realized that if she doesn't use some of the sick time she's accumulated, she's going to lose it once the new year arrives.

"Is it wrong to put in for sick time if I'm not really sick?" she asks, pointing out that her employer doesn't require a physician's note to verify sickness.

It's not unheard of for employees to call in sick to the job to get a day off to tend to other business or simply to take a day off. But lying to an employer about a sickness to get a day off is wrong.

The accrued sick day policy for part-time workers seems like a good benefit for workers at Gretchen's community center. It might seem understandable that employees believe that would be leaving money on the table if they don't take those paid hours off. But the intention of the benefit is to cover when employees are actually sick. It does not seem intended as a pool of money to which employees are entitled for any reason.

If Gretchen wants to broach the subject with her supervisor and ask if she can be reimbursed for a personal day rather than a sick day, that seems a reasonable action. She might also ask if doctor's visits might be considered sick days. But I suspect she knows the answer will be that the policy only applies to those days on which an employee is actually sick.

The right thing is for Gretchen to continue working at her part-time job for as long as she enjoys the work. If she's sick and needs to take time off, she should take advantage of the paid sick time she accrues.

If she calls in sick when she's not, Gretchen not only risks not having the time to use if she truly does get sick, she also risks betraying a trust with her supervisor and the community center. Plus, it's wrong to lie simply because you want something. 

Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Simple Art of Business Etiquette: How to Rise to the Top by Playing Nice, is a senior lecturer in public policy and director of the communications program at Harvard's Kennedy School. He is also the administrator of www.jeffreyseglin.com, a blog focused on ethical issues. 

Do you have ethical questions that you need answered? Send them to rightthing@comcast.net. 

Follow him on Twitter: @jseglin 

(c) 2018 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE CONTENT AGENCY, LLC.


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