California Paid Sick Leave Act of 2014
Hopefully you are aware that California recently passed a law mandating that all employers offer paid sick leave to employees. AccuPay is here to help.
Entitlement
- An employee who, on or after July 1, 2015, works in California for 30 or more days within a year from the beginning of employment is entitled to paid sick leave.
- Paid sick leave accrues at the rate of one hour per every 30 hours worked, paid at the employee’s regular wage rate. Accrual shall begin on the first day of employment or July 1, 2015, whichever is later.
- Accrued paid sick leave shall carry over to the following year of employment and may be capped at 48 hours or 6 days. However, subject to specified conditions, if an employer has a paid sick leave, paid leave or paid time off policy (PTO) that provides no less than 24 hours or three days of paid leave or paid time off, no accrual or carry over is required if the full amount of leave is received at the beginning of each year in accordance with the policy.
How to Use Sick Time
- An employee may use accrued paid sick days beginning on the 90th day of employment.
- An employer shall provide paid sick days upon the oral or written request of an employee for themselves or a family member for the diagnosis, care or treatment of an existing health condition or preventive care, or specified purposes for an employee who is a victim of domestic violence, sexual assault, or stalking.
- An employer may limit the use of paid sick days to 24 hours or three days in each year of employment.
Retaliation or discrimination against an employee who requests paid sick days or uses paid sick days or both is prohibited. An employee can file a complaint with the Labor Commissioner against an employer who retaliates or discriminates against the employee.
What does the law require me to do?
- Print this notice, and post it in your workplace: The law requires that you print this notice on 8.5” x 11” paper and post it in an area of your workplace where it can be easily viewed by employees.
- Send out an updated Non-Exempt Employee Notice (Labor Code 2810.5 Notice): The law requires you send this notification to all employees hired on or after January 1, 2015.
- Adjust your sick leave policy to satisfy the minimum requirement: You’ll need to either front-load at least twenty-four (24) hours of sick leave at the beginning of each year or track hours worked and provide an accrual policy that grants at least one hour of sick leave for every thirty (30) hours worked.
- With AccuPay’s PTO Tracking, we can help you set up a front-loaded sick leave policy and assign each employee twenty-four (24) hours of sick leave. Alternatively, you can choose to prorate sick leave for all or some of your employees hired on or after 1/01/2015.
- If you already have a sick leave policy in AccuPay, you may need to adjust employee balances to make sure that all of your employees have at least 24 hours of available sick leave as of July 1, 2015, when the requirement became mandatory.
- Please note that if you have an unlimited PTO policy, you will still need to separately track sick leave.
- AccuPay will display each employee’s sick leave balance on the pay stubs and direct deposit advisories. The law requires that you create written statements or include sick leave balances in wage statements at the conclusion of every pay period, but AccuPay has this taken care of for you.
If you need further clarification on this policy, you can find answers to FAQs on the state’s website here. Furthermore, please feel free to reach out to us with any questions.
What to Provide AccuPay
Provide AccuPay with updated employee sick time balances and the corresponding rules. Such rules will be one of these two:
- Front-load sick leave at the beginning of the year for all existing employees. This will re-load at the beginning of every year.
- Accrual. Employees will accrue at least 1 hour of sick leave for every 30 hours they work for you. Let us know how many hours per payroll run.
Remember the 3 days (24 hours) is a minimum. It is up to you to decide how many sick days you would like to award your workforce.
