Whether your company offers paid sick leave or not, it's important to know how you should handle it if employees are sick, regardless of if it's from coronavirus, the flu, or another highly contagious illness.
The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) doesn't require employers to provide any kind of paid sick leave. If there's no local law an employer must follow, sick leave is handled based on the terms of workers' contracts.
Your business should have a written policy handbook stating the sick leave policy.
If you don't have a policy handbook, PayPlus has an HR product that can generate one for you with a few clicks.
Per the FLSA, businesses can send anyone who looks visibly sick home from work, as long as it's not done on a discriminatory basis and the same criteria is applied to all employees.
Nonexempt employees don't typically have to be paid for hours they didn't work (unless you're in an area with predictive scheduling laws), so they can be sent home unpaid for the rest of their shifts.
Exempt employees must be paid for a full day's work if they worked for a portion of the day. The hours can be deducted from any leave workers have accrued. Pay can only be docked if an exempt employee does no work at all before being sent home.
In some cases, eligible employees may need to take leave under the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) for serious complications arising from an illness such as coronavirus. Paid sick and personal leave time can be substituted for FMLA leave in certain circumstances.
The Massachusetts Paid Family & Medical Leave (PFML) does not take effect in terms of paying benefits until 2021, so that is not currently an option.
