Ensuring Online Signature Lawfulness for Sick Leave Policy in Australia

How to eSign a document: online signature lawfulness for Sick Leave Policy in Australia

[Music] you know as we reach the summer as cases are rising it looks like you want to be kind of refreshed on the particulars of these issues and there are some some updated guidance and some changes as we move into the summer first step you want to figure out with any of this is which of these covet 19 sick leave laws apply to you uh you're only any any business entity's only going to be covered by one of them so the family first coronavirus response act is a federal one it applies to employers with under 500 employees [Music] and but it covers all such employees and it has six qualifying reasons which we'll get into and it it's set to last through the rest of of the calendar year if you don't qualify into the ffcra you may qualify under the california supplemental sick leave which was an executive order from governor newsom it is for employers with 500 or more employees but it doesn't apply to all employees it only applies to food service workers which will will clarify uh it has three qualifying reasons and it is set to stay in effect for as long as the california stay-at-home order is in effect and then there are some localities have local sick leave which may apply if you don't aren't covered by any of the others specifically the city of los angeles has a supplemental sick leave order which applies to employers that have over 500 employees in los angeles or over 2 000 nationally so large employers um but we'll focus on the the federal and the and the state which i think applies to most most people on the webinar so starting with the ffcra it has two components the first component is an emergency paid sick leave which eligible available to all employees of a covered employer it applies for 80 hours of paid leave for your full-time workers part-time workers you they get a whatever their number of hours would be over a two-week period if they have a variable schedule then you kind of have to do a little bit of math over the previous six months but that's how much you can get under under the paid sick leave how can an employee use it there's there's six reasons um one if they're subject to a quarantine or isolation order related to cobit 19 um two if they're advised by a health care provider to self-quarantine due to cover 19 concerns three if they're experiencing symptoms of cova-19 and they're seeking a medical diagnosis i think the interplay of that is while they're waiting to get diagnosed for cover 19 they would apply under this reason number three and then if they you know test positive they would potentially move into reason number one or two additionally number four is if they're caring for a person who's subject to number one or number two they can they can get leave under that reason number five is if they're caring for a son or daughter whose school or place or care has closed due to covet 19 and then six is the kind of a catch-all for additional conditions which i haven't seen any specified so i don't know if there's any conditions that qualify but those are the reasons and it's critical that the employee has to be unable to work or telework because of one of these six reasons to qualify for this paid sick leave now mike before this second pause here we had in california when this law first came out there was a lot of confusion if these orders that you know that certain industries had to shut down for example restaurants couldn't offer dining and eating and if the restaurant closed would that trigger the ffcra and yeah in that analysis it's a great question no it wouldn't it's it's specific to the employee so if the business is is forced to close because of some order that doesn't uh qualify the employees to take leap we get a lot of questions as well as the you know if i'm forced to close because of the governor newsom orders it do my employees qualify for this leave under the federal leave no potentially under the state leave but i think it's pretty clear to the federal leave no it doesn't have to be in that there's the employee their employer has work available for the employee but the employee is unable to work because of one of these reasons yeah great question good uh so if they do qualify for one of those six reasons how much should they get paid if it's one of the first three reasons uh it's their regular rate of pay uh with a cap of five hundred eleven dollars a day a total cap of fifty one hundred dollars if it's one if it's reasons four or five or six then it's two-thirds of their regular rate of pay with the daily cap of two hundred dollars and a total cap of two thousand dollars sorry i'm posting some stuff on the chat here too so i'm a little behind on the slides um important uh record keeping what information do you need from your employees when they request this ffcra leave critical understand you need to record this information whenever they request it regardless of whether you grant it or if you deny the leave for whatever reason you still need to collect this information you need to record the name of the employee the dates that the leave is requested the reason for the leave and the you know certification from the employee that they're unable to work because of one of these reasons we'll add a big caveat under the ffcra you can get tax credit to reimburse for these payments so talk to your accountant there may be and probably is additional information that you would need to fill out the forms to apply for these credits but we're speak focusing specifically on what information do you need to get from the employee additionally if the reason is that they are staying home because of an order or they're caring for an individual who has a quarantine or isolation order you'll need to get the name of the government entity that issued the order and preferably probably would recommend get a copy of the order as well for your records if they're staying home because they've been advised by a medical professional to self-quarantine or they're caring for someone who's been advised to self-quarantine you'd also want to get the name of the health care provider and again check with your accountant there may be additional tax documents that you need but that's what you need for the employment side uh so as you know this passed in well in the spring when there was still school going on we had some question well what's going to happen when the schools would normally get out and we've gotten a little bit more clarity from the government they've indicated that you know summer schools and camps and related kind of organizations and activities do qualify as places of care now most of them were you know never opened in the first place because because of the coronavirus but uh it's been clarified that those can still qualify for employees if their child had was actually or planned to enroll before the camp closed and so they'll need to provide evidence that they had planned to it that they had enrolled or that they had planned to enroll uh you know to substantiate that this was actually something that was going to happen that could include an application or a deposit or any kind of evidence that you know if they had if their child had used it in the last two years something to substantiate that this was going to be a source of their child care and it's now unavailable uh as we discussed you know if the employee is furloughed due to lack of work for example if the the business closes that doesn't qualify as the employee for fscra leaves and critically if the workplace is forced to close if you have an employee who's already on leave that kind of extinguishes the the leave so the lead the employee can get paid for a lead that they used before the closure but as of the closure the employee is no longer for ffcr i leave even if they're currently already on it we sometimes have questions well i've i've had employees who have been teleworking for for weeks or months now and then all of a sudden they come up and say now they need they need this lead because they have a child care issue is there any kind of that if you haven't used it before you're ineligible for uh the government said no they remain eligible to use the leave at any time it doesn't matter that they were teleworking fine beforehand they don't have to show any kind of change circumstances as long as they can show that they they're eligible for a reason that would qualify for the leave they can use the leaves there's no limitation then there's also the you know as we mentioned if you have 500 or more employees you may have qualification under the state's supplemental paid sick leave it doesn't apply to all employees though it applies only to food service workers which are work employees who are covered under one of these four wage orders 3 8 13 or 14 which are agricultural related or if the higher anti operates a food facility or the worker delivers food from a food facility in that case they would get full-time employees would get 80 hours of paid leave and then part-time employees would get the regular number of hours of leave over a two-week period again if they have a variable schedule there's a little more math involved now the different the reasons that you can use this california sick leave is if the workers subject to a state federal state or local quarantine or isolation order so again the number one reason from the fcra or if the health care with the workers advised by a health care provider to self-quarantine which mirrors issue number two what's different here is the third reason is if the worker is prohibited from working by the employer due to health concerns related to the potential transmission of cobit 19 that can also be a qualifying reason it's one you don't see in the sscra it potentially applies and arguably applies to situations where if you have a restaurant that you had to close because there was a you know positive case the other workers are i can properly think classified as being prohibited from working and so they may qualify for leave during the time that the restaurant is closed also if you send an employee home because they you know they maybe they don't pass a screening or you have some other concern copa 19 related that can qualify under that third reason which is different from what you would see under the ffcri [Music] you