Donated leave

jia · August 2008

Our company is contemplating a donated leave policy for employees who may have exhausted their sick / vacation leave due to various serious reasons such as fighting a life-threatening illness, a debilitating illness, catastrophe, etc.

Our employees have a certain amount of sick leave available to them based on years of service but it is not a monthly accrued sick leave policy as some companies have. Any sick leave used by the employee will come off a sick leave allotment provided to them by the Company. After a designated amount of time without using any sick leave the employee will be back to the full allotment of sick leave. Because of our sick leave policy set up the way it is in that the employee does not "accrue" so much per month we are not considering this as time an employee can donate. If we implemented a leave donation program it would be only the vacation or personal time that an employee could donate. We do not allow carryover of vacation from year to year either so there is not an option for an employee to bank vacation hours.

We are looking into the possibility of donated leave at the request of some employees. It came about as we had an employee and family who were in a terrible accident - three of the family members were killed. The employee and one family member survived but our employee needed a lot of time off due to several surgeries and recuperation time. Our Company does offer a long term disability plan but the waiting period is 26 weeks and in many cases an employee does not have that much paid sick and/or vacation time coming to them.

I can think of some positives for this type of program but on the other hand I can certainly see negatives for doing this. If any of you have experience with this type of policy and are willing to share your thoughts (for or against) I would very much appreciate hearing from you. Thank you!

stilldazed · August 2008

I've had no personal experience, but long before I arrived in my present position, my company tried it and abandoned it. The lingering assessment is that it was a nightmare, but I'm not sure why. We occassionally have employees ask that it be reconsidered, but so far the prevailing response is an emphatic NO. I'm just not really sure why because I know that some employers are successful with similar programs. I actually wonder if the success/failure has something to do with the way the hours/dollars are managed in accounting--costing in and costing out. I'd like to hear from other forumites on this one.

Susan in La · August 2008

I work for the state, and we have a policy that allows employees to donate leave to a crisis pool, and those who need it apply and provide medical justification. Because we can roll our leave over, some employees have 2,000 or more hours and can afford to donate several hundred hours to the pool. State agencies have the option of converted the donated leave and used leave to dollar amounts, or to just use hour for hour despite differences in pay between the donor and recipient. The main feature is that you can't donate to an individual, just to the pool. It is administered out of our administrative headquarters in another city. The practice is that if one of our employees requests crisis leave and there is not enough in the pool, I will get a call to see if I can implement a "donation drive" among our employees. Those who know their friend is requesting leave donate and in effect do donate leave to an individual.

davids · August 2008

Both my former and current employer had donated leave programs. At my former employer, the leave was coverted based on the donor's hourly rate to the recipient's hourly rate. The employer could also subtract hours equal in value to the cost of continued health insurance (once FMLA was exhausted). It was an administrative nightmare.

At my current employer, the donations are straight hour for hour, no conversions. It runs fairly smoothly. The recipient must have exhausted all of his/her leave before donations can be received. And, it is for more of a catastrophic illness, not an employee who calls in sick a day here or a day there. Any donated hours not used are returned to the donor.

We have several unions and, by collective bargaining agreement, donations can only be made within the bargaining unit. If you have unions, you will definitely want to bring them into the loop before you implement a donted leave program.

System · August 2008

We are a small businees but have had two employees lose their spouses in the last year due to extended illness and another has a spouse that is currently battling terminal cancer.

I have had to get together with management and fudge documents so they could all still get paid for the days they have missed. I had broached the time bank idea but there were so many questions. Any other pros and cons??

sonny · August 2008

I'd watch that fudging documents

We are a municipality and have a policy and union contracts as well. People can donate sick or vacation time in 4 hours increments. It is hour for hour as David noted, to do it otherwise is a night mare but that also causes some folks not to donate.
My biggest complaint is it can be some what of a popularity or who knows who contest. We have had equally deserving employees but b/c one is well known from a large dept he got a TON of hours while another from a small dept. got almost nothing. That is why I like a pool concept, at least in larger companies.

System · August 2008

Did I put that in writing??? Oh no....
Smacking head and saying "stupid, stupid, stupid".

NaeNae55 · August 2008

One of the most important things to consider is the tax consequences. If not done properly, donated time becomes taxable to the employee who donated it. This may have been where your company ran into problems before.

Here is a link explaining what you must do to avoid tax consequences:

[url]http://www.wnj.com/tax_consequences_eb_medical_leave/[/url]

Good luck!

Nae

BettyBoop FL · August 2008

We have a written policy on donated Sick leave for extaordinary circumstances pertaining to an employee eg. critical illness or hospilization. Once employee exhausts his/her paid sick & vacation pool then we send around a request form to other employees who have sufficient time to donate. The donating employee must have at least 10 sick days left for themselves after the donation ( our sick time rolls over year to year). I convert the donated time to the rate of pay receiving employee earns ( not day for day). The donation is strictly voluntary but most times sufficient time is donated to fellow employees in need as this is not needed very frequently.
It is a very nice thing & our employees are very grateful as it eases their financial burden at a time they need it most, so it is worth the extra effort for me.

jia · August 2008

Thank you all very much for your responses and information - this is a wonderful resource to have!

Donated leave

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