12 | HR Connection
Changing the Leopard’s Spots COVID 19’s Impact on Employee Policies
An overview of the Emergency Family and Medical Leave Expansion Act (EFMLEA) and the Emergency Paid Sick Leave Act (EPSLA)
the newest version of the FFCRA: the American Rescue Plan Act eading into the new school (ARPA). These programs were an year, many districts have incentive to many employees to employment questions in report symptoms or close contact, the age of COVID-19. As we learn but now if an employee misses what the new normal is, there are work to quarantine, to recover many areas where issues remain from COVID-19, or to care for a unsettled. This article attempts to family member with COVID-19, answer some of the most common it will be on their own time. Much questions and to alert personnel like the flu, strep throat, mono, or administrators about possible any other highly contagious and pitfalls going forward. troubling condition, anyone ill from COVID-19 will have to use their One of the biggest changes between leave to recuperate. Parents will last school year and the 2021have to use their leave to stay home 2022 school year is the December with sick kids. Leave now that 31, 2020 lapse of the Families the federal programs have lapsed First Coronavirus Response Act returns to pre-COVID-19 practices, (FFCRA). There is no longer the with the usual suspects (local leave, paid leave unless yours is one of the sick leave, FMLA, etc.) applying few school districts participating in
Heather Rutland, Shareholder
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to any request for employee time off. What about the employee running a fever who claims it’s just allergies? The same rules that allow you to send a feverish employee home due to suspected flu apply for COVID-19. Similarly, the ADA permits requiring a doctor’s clearance (or negative COVID-19 test) before allowing the employee to return to work. If your district is not participating in ARPA, which expires without additional board action on September 30, 2021, be sure to make that very clear to returning employees. Understanding leave was hard enough before COVID-19; many employees will have heard about employers participating in ARPA or remember
