Coronavirus (COVID-19) has been in the news non-stop since it first surfaced in 2019. Thousands of people worldwide have been admitted to hospitals and tens of thousands more are on lockdown.  Much is unknown about how COVID-19 spreads. Current knowledge is largely based on what is known about similar coronaviruses. As HR professionals, this latest serious flu-like outbreak raises the looming topic of managing employee illnesses in the workplace. Here are some important things to keep in mind as you work to keep your office healthy.

Actively encourage a culture where employees know if they are sick, they can stay home without fear of losing their jobs. In addition, employees may need to stay home to care for sick family members or children. If possible, encourage employees to work from home if they or a family member feel unwell. Engage with managers and leadership and ensure the message is clear across the board – emphasizing staying home when sick, respiratory etiquette and hand hygiene by all employees.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends employees stay home until they have been fever-free for at least 24 hours, without the use of fever-reducing or other symptom-altering medicines. It is best to have a workplace policy that is consistent with your expectations and public health guidance and that employees are aware of this policy.

In California, employees are entitled to paid sick leave. All California employers must post a notice in a conspicuous workplace location notifying employees of their rights to paid sick leave. This notice should be part of the labor law posters hung in your offices already. At minimum, California law allows employees to use at least 24 hours (or 3 days) of paid sick leave per year.  Because several California cities require their own paid sick leave, it is important to know which law applies to your business.

Many employers offer pooled PTO (Paid Time Off) or an unlimited/flexible paid time off program in lieu of paid sick leave. Be cautious, just because you don’t call your program sick leave does not remove the rights and protections employees are entitled to through state and/or local paid sick leave laws.

Yes, employers have the right to send sick employees home. The CDC recommends that employees who appear to have acute respiratory illness symptoms (i.e. cough, shortness of breath) upon arrival to work or become sick during the day should be separated from other employees and be sent home immediately. Non-exempt employees who report to work and are sent home may be entitled to reporting time pay. Exempt employees who do any work should be paid for the full day.

If an employee is confirmed to have COVID-19 infection, employers should inform fellow employees of their possible exposure to COVID-19 in the workplace but maintain confidentiality as required by the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).

In California, we strongly recommend you do not require a doctor’s note when employees are using paid sick leave or as a requirement to return to work from sick leave. While the law does not specifically prohibit asking for a doctor’s note, it does state that any action which interferes with the employee’s right to leave is unlawful. Because visiting a doctor can be costly and time-intensive for some employees, the common recommendation is to allow employees to take their earned sick leave for up to 24 hours (3 days) without a note. This meets the state sick leave usage entitlement for the year and any additional time off needed can be subject to a doctor’s note. If your employee is experiencing a prolonged medical issue, or they qualify for a leave accommodation under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), do an additional investigation about federal, state, and local leave entitlements before moving forward with any action.

If your business asks employees to travel domestically or internationally consider canceling or postponing trips until more is known about COVID-19 detection and treatment. Use video and voice technology to keep employees connected in the meantime. If an employee must travel to a high-risk area, encourage them to stay home for up to two weeks after travel (the longest known incubation period of similar viruses) and return to the office once they are sure no symptoms have developed.

Human Resources has the duty to plan or assist departments in workforce planning, operations, and other areas. Consider the loss of workforce, any functions closed and the ability to temporarily fill positions to keep the company from financial losses. Decisions and actions may need to be taken quickly; however, careful consideration must be made at every step. Employers are encouraged to develop a disease management preparedness plan to reduce their level of risk and liability and to provide a step-by-step action plan to handle the situation most efficiently and effectively.

Check out the CDC’s guide on tackling flu season in the workplace.

The CDC’s latest guidance for employers on CORVID-19.

Megan Coen – Executive HR Consultant – VP

Disclaimer: Some information contained herein has been abridged from numerous sources and may be protected by various copyright laws. Such information should not be construed as consulting or legal advice. Please contact our office for specific advice and/or referrals.

Coronavirus (COVID-19) has been in the news non-stop since it first surfaced in 2019. Thousands of people worldwide have been admitted to hospitals and tens of thousands more are on lockdown.  Much is unknown about how COVID-19 spreads. Current knowledge is largely based on what is known about similar coronaviruses. As HR professionals, this latest […]

Coronavirus Concerns: Addressing Illnesses in The Workplace

Are men and women being paid the same salaries for doing the same work within your organization? According to Forbes, 92% of employers believe they are paying staff fairly, while only 65% of employees believe the same.

In a highly competitive talent market this difference might keep you up at night. Most guides for identifying and acting on gender pay equity issues assume your company has 500+ employees, plenty of salary data to crunch, and some skill with statistical analysis tools. But the reality is that out of the approximately 6 million businesses operating in the US, 90% have fewer than 20 employees. Small and medium-sized businesses account for 50% of the total employment in the US. Smaller employers face unique challenges when it comes to finding and addressing gender pay issues in the workplace:

Difficulty implementing flexible work schedules

Lack of bandwidth and budget for manager training

Limited ability to collect and analyze salary data

Despite the challenges, attention to pay equity is tremendously important for smaller employers from a business, social responsibility, and compliance standpoint. Promoting equal pay practices improves employee efficiency and productivity, helps attract the best employees, reduces turnover, and increases employee commitment. Here is a three-step approach to tackling gender pay equity for smaller employers.

The Equal Pay Act of 1963 and later Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 together tell us that employers must pay equal wages to men and women who perform jobs that require substantially equal skill, effort, responsibility, and working conditions. An employer cannot deny women equal pay for equal work which broadly includes access to transfers, promotions, pay increases, and benefits.

Gender stereotypes and biases – conscious or unconscious – influence managers and HR people alike. Women are generally perceived as thoughtful, caring, and willing to compromise while men are perceived as ambitious, assertive, and self-reliant. These biases can lead to women receiving fewer promotion opportunities, being passed over for training, and not being given central roles on large projects. Unintentional gender bias can disrupt pay equity throughout the employee life cycle especially during:

Recruiting and Hiring – Research shows that men and women take different approaches during salary negotiation. Negotiation is often viewed as assertive masculine behavior. Women are reluctant to attempt salary negotiations because of anticipated backlash from the company. Women who express masculine behaviors are often viewed negatively, assertiveness can be seen as aggressive or demanding. Also, companies which gather prior candidate pay and adjust starting offers up and down based on that information can be inadvertently continuing gender pay gaps job after job. Even the composition of the hiring team can unconsciously impact the number of men or women your business hires. If an interview team is comprised exclusively of male interviewers, they may be more likely to find common ground with male candidates.

Work Schedules – Women are disproportionately expected to handle childcare and household matters compared to their male counterparts. This means women are more likely to need part-time arrangements, telecommuting options, flexible working hours, and request leaves of absence for themselves or to care of family members. Employees seeking these kinds of arrangements are sometimes viewed as less ambitious than other employees, are given less responsibility at work, and are considered less often for promotion into senior management. Financially, women returning from leaves of absence, maternitybeing the most common leave in the US, often experience lags in their salary growth because of absence during annual performance and merit cycles.

Opportunities for Advancement – Women make up only 29% of senior level management in the US and only 2% of CEOs. There are fewer women than men in the leadership pipeline, receiving mentorship from existing leaders, or being offered career development plans.

You don’t need a compensation analyst on staff to analyze pay gaps. Use this simplified approach:

Use simple compensation management software to download a report including name, gender, and base annual salary for all your employees.

Arrange employees in groups by similar role. Title might not be enough if your organization doesn’t have standardized titles. Look for employees who perform similar work and group those together.

Compare the salary of employees in the same, or similar jobs and identify any instances where employees are paid differently and are also different genders.

Expect to find differences in how people in the same role are paid, don’t panic or pretend those differences don’t exist. A pay difference doesn’t necessarily mean there is a gender pay issue. Focus on figuring out why the differences exist, identify patterns, investigate the largest gaps first.

Did the male employee negotiate more firmly than the female employee during recruiting?

Is your company missing job descriptions or a formal recruiting process and leaned heavily on the candidate’s prior pay information rather than established salary ranges for the position?

Are performance ratings for male and female employees in the same role similar, yet are they paid differently?

Are female employees regularly being rated lower than male employees by certain managers, or across your organization?

Are female employees being paid at their pre-leave salary when returning from work, even though they are achieving the same performance results as male colleagues in similar roles?

Are male employees asking for pay increases more regularly than female employees?

Are male employees being formally or informally mentored with greater frequency than female employees?

Creating an action plan within your organization can correct and prevent gender pay equity issues. The best approach to building your business case is to collect and list gender pay differences that cannot be explained, and those that can be explained but are not justified because of the influence of some factor from step two. Discuss this list with appropriate managers and senior leadership to determine how the gaps you’ve identified can be corrected in line with the budget and overall business strategy.

The most proactive things you can do to ensure gender pay equity going forward are:

Create a written policy and guidelines about bias-free recruiting.  Ensure interviewing teams are diverse. Avoid basing starting pay decisions on a candidate’s prior salary (if known), and instead on the value of that job within your organization.

Talk to managers about fairness and consistency in the performance review process. Make pay decisions based on skill and contribution.

Create and follow a consistent, transparent process for promotions, transfers, and pay increases.

Are men and women being paid the same salaries for doing the same work within your organization? According to Forbes, 92% of employers believe they are paying staff fairly, while only 65% of employees believe the same. In a highly competitive talent market this difference might keep you up at night. Most guides for identifying and acting […]

Guide to Gender Pay Equity for Smaller Companies

We all know the reason for work – we work to get paid, so why is the conversation of salary so awkward and taboo?

“Pay is a deeply personal issue for everyone. Dissatisfaction with pay can make a huge impact on employee engagement and how likely they are to stay at your company.”

Employees can easily search for salary information online or ask friends working at your competitors about their pay and benefits. With so much (mis)information swirling around, you’re going to need a plan for the next time an employee asks to talk about their salary. This is how to talk about pay at work.

Check out my guest post titled How to Talk About Pay at Work, featured on Zenefits blog today!


Megan Coen
Vice President – SharedHR, HR Technology Consulting
megan.coen@theabdteam.com

We all know the reason for work – we work to get paid, so why is the conversation of salary so awkward and taboo? “Pay is a deeply personal issue for everyone. Dissatisfaction with pay can make a huge impact on employee engagement and how likely they are to stay at your company.” Employees can […]

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Coronavirus Concerns: Addressing Illnesses in The Workplace

Guide to Gender Pay Equity for Smaller Companies

How to Talk About Pay at Work

Newfront for Businesses

Newfront for Employee Benefits

Newfront for Private Clients

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Articles from Megan Coen

.css-13o7eu2{display:block;}Coronavirus Concerns: Addressing Illnesses in The Workplace

Guide to Gender Pay Equity for Smaller Companies

How to Talk About Pay at Work

Newfront for Businesses

Newfront for Employee Benefits

Newfront for Private Clients

Blog ‍

Connect ‍
with ‍
us. ‍

Coronavirus Concerns: Addressing Illnesses in The Workplace