Waiver of Short Term Disability rights

sheneman

Our company offers both STD and sick leave beenefits. One of our long term employees is goign to be out for a couple of weeks following a surgery. She desires to use her vacation time to cover the time in lieu of STD as this will allow for 100% income versus 66 2/3%.

Is it allowable for an employee to substitute vacation time for this??? let me know...I can see arguments in both directiosn here. Thanks!

Don D

There is no law or regulation, other than company policy, that addresses this. I too would opt to burn my vacation and get 100% pay. Then when the vacation is exhausted, the employee would at that time go on STD if she's still off work. I don't see a downside to this scenario at all. In fact, it will only ensure that the employee is off during the year LESS, since she will have used her vacation time.

sheneman

Thank you so much for your input. I really appreciate the effort. I will take the information to heart.

awilliams

Many companies actually require that STD leave run concurrently with sick or vacation leave. This means the perosn would, essentially, exhaust his sick leave before receiving STD benefits. In addition, many STD policies don't kick in until the person has been off work for a period of time - such as 7-10 days. Employees are generally allowed/required to use their sick or vacation time to during that waiting period.

As Don pointed out, it is in your company's best interest to have the person exhaust their accrued benefits so that once they return from STD they don't have 2 weeks of paid time off built up to use.

Anne Williams
Attorney Editor
M. Lee Smith Publishers, LLC

sheneman

Thanks! Our company STD does not kick in until calendar day 8. This person is looking to be out for about 13 days including weekends.

I agree that it would be in our interest to have her use vacation leave while she is out. Right now, I am leaning on giving her the option of forgoing our STD policy as requested.

In any case, you have given me lots to consider...thanks!

AJ SPHR

Our policy requires employees to apply sick and vacation time during waiting period for STD (10 days) and after that time, they become eligible to receive 66 & 2/3 % pay (like yours). We automatically put them on STD but also allow them to use their remaining sick and vacation time to supplement the unpaid portion. In other words, they would receive 2/3 pay each day from STD (which is non-taxable for state and local in PA) and then receive 1/3 pay each day from their sick or vacation time balance. This way they receive 100% and we're not managing the STD policy on a case-by-case basis. May be something you want to consider.