Paternal Leave and/or Adoption Leave Policies

sambu

[font size="1" color="#FF0000"]LAST EDITED ON 03-13-02 AT 12:11PM (CST)[/font][p][font size="1" color="#FF0000"]LAST EDITED ON 03-13-02 AT 08:25 AM (CST)[/font]

I'm trying to get a consensus of what the majority of employers offer to their employees in terms of a request for paternal leave or to care for an adopted child, upon the child's arrival home. Our organization offers monthly accruals of both sick and vacation leave to all permanent employees. Specifically, does your organization require the employee to take sick leave, vacation leave or do you have a discretionary policy allowing the employee to choose which type of leave he/she prefers to take in this situation? (I realize that this is a covered FMLA event). Thanks for any help you can provide.

Margaret Morford

Don't forget that this would qualify for FMLA if your company is large enough and the employee has been with you long enough. Most of my clients say sick time is for sickness, not for bonding purposes, so they use only vacation time and personal time. Some companies do have an additional adoption benefit that allows additional time off with pay before the use of vacation is required.

Margaret Morford
theHRedge
615-371-8200
[email]mmorford@mleesmith.com[/email]
[url]http://www.thehredge.net[/url]

TD

I just visited this site, so although I don't know if you still need help with this issue, here's what we do. We offer 5 paid days of Paternity Leave, which goes towards the 12 weeks of FMLA available to eligible employees. Same goes for men who are new fathers to adopted children as well. After the 5 days of Paternity/Adoption paid time, employees must use accrued vacation time before going on unpaid FMLA time.

AnneLa

In this case, since no one is truly "sick", we would allow employees to use any accrued vacation time or personal time that they might have. We require employees reserve "sick" time for sickness that affects either themselves or an immediate family member.