MEND Employee Sick Leave Policy

In order to minimize the economic hardships that may result from short-term illness or injury, MEND provides sick leave benefits. Upon hire, employees will be granted 10 days of sick leave. Employees must, however, satisfy a continuous 90-day employment period before he or she can actually take any sick leave. Only once this requirement is satisfied will an employee be eligible to use sick leave accrued.
Employees will receive 10 days of sick leave on January 1 of each calendar year. The sick leave granted can be used immediately (assuming the 90-day employment period has been met) and will be replenished as of January 1 of every calendar year. Employees may carry over up to 72 hours of accrued, unused paid sick leave from one year to the next.

• Sick leave is available in the case of:
• actual illness or injury of an employee; or
• actual illness or injury of a “family member,” which is defined to include children, parents, spouse or registered domestic partner, grandparents, grandchildren, siblings, or any individual related by blood or affinity whose close association with the employee is the equivalent of a family relationship; or for the employee or family member (as defined above) to see a healthcare provider for diagnosis or preventative care; or\

if the employee has been the victim of a crime or domestic violence and the employee needs to take time off in order to attend judicial proceedings, receive medical treatment or other professional assistance relating to the crime.

Employees will be paid sick leave at their rate of pay (i.e., hourly rate of pay) at the time the sick leave is taken and not inclusive of gratuities or other discretionary amounts. Employees will only be paid for the number of hours regularly scheduled to work, or, if there is no set schedule, the number of hours the employee is reasonably anticipated to work, not inclusive of overtime.
The maximum amount of paid sick leave that can be used in any calendar year is 159.5 hours. If no sick time is available (and if employee does not have vacation/paid time off available), the time off shall be unpaid. Non-exempt employees may use sick leave in increments of no less than two (2) hours. Exempt employees, may use sick and vacation leave in one hour increments. Due to the nature of our business, you must provide as much advance notice of the sick leave as is practicable under the circumstances. If you fail to provide advance notice when you otherwise could have you may be precluded from using paid sick leave. MEND reserves the right to request documentation related to the need for sick leave in accordance with applicable state or federal law. This also may occur when the circumstances surrounding the request for sick leave are suspect. Relevant examples may include, where sick leave is requested in the period after an employee has provided notice of resignation from MEND, after or before a long holiday weekend, or where the employee demonstrates a pattern and practice of using sick leave to extend a weekend into a three-day weekend.
An employee will not be paid for unused sick leave, and no sick leave benefits are paid upon termination. Paid sick leave is not considered as time worked in the computation of overtime.
An employee with the need to use accrued paid sick leave must notify by calling his/her supervisor within the first hour of the employee’s work schedule.