Transcript Slide 1

Boosting Your Bottom Line
Earned Sick Days Policies are Good for
Business
2013
www.clasp.org
• What are earned sick days?
• Benefits of earned sick days for businesses
• Business experiences: The Evidence from San
Francisco
Note to advocates: Feel free to
CLASP’s template and logo
• Getting down to Business remove
and insert your own! Pick and choose
elements of the presentation that are
• Get involved
relevant to your work. Don’t forget to
insert your organization’s name and
contact info at the end of the
presentation. For questions or
assistance with your business
outreach strategy, contact Liz BenIshai, [email protected].
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• Earned sick days allow workers to acquire paid
time off for use when they are sick, need to care
for sick family members, or need to see the doctor.
• When workers have earned sick days, they are
able to recover from illness or care for loved ones
without fear of job loss or lost wages.
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• Businesses are increasingly realizing that providing
workers with earned sick days is not only the right thing to
do, but the profitable thing to do.
Note to advocates: If possible, replace with a quote from a local business here. Whenever possible,
do the same throughout the presentation where you see quotes from business owners.
“We’ve experienced since 2007 double digit growth through
some of the worst economic times in this country, and I really
feel that a lot of it is a result of a happy staff, and a happy
staff creates a happy guest, and a happy guest comes back.”
– Sam Mogannam, Owner,
Bi-Rite Market, San Francisco, CA
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• Employers that provide earned sick days see lower levels
of turnover.1
• A recent review of studies on turnover costs found the
typical cost of turnover to be about 21% of an employee’s
annual salary.2 Other reports cite turnover costs ranging up
to 200 percent of employees’ annual salaries.3
1 Cooper
and Monheit. “Does Employment Related Health Insurance Inhibit Job Mobility?” 28-44.
2 Boushey
3 Sasha
and Glynn. There are Significant Business Costs to Replacing Employees.
Corporation. “Compilation of Turnover Cost Studies.”
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If we want to engage our employees and make this a great
place to work…that means we have to worry about their
whole life, about their family, about their health…so this is
really part of having long term employees. I think having
turnover would be far more expensive than having an
employee be sick a few days a year.
– Vincent Siciliano, President and CEO
New Resource Bank, San Francisco, CA
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• Sick workers are unproductive workers.
• One study estimates that the cost to the economy
of lost productivity due to workers’ or their families’
health-related issues amounts to $250 billion
annually. Of this cost, 71 percent – close to $180
billion – was a result of lost productivity at work.
4
“Presenteeism and Paid Sick Days.”; Stewart et. al. “Lost Productive Work Time Costs From Health Conditions in the United States: Results From
the American Productivity Audit.”
4 Levin-Epstein.
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• Coming to work sick puts both customers and
workers’ colleagues at risk – effects that reduce
customer satisfaction, worker productivity, and
harm the public health.
• One study found that during the H1N1 outbreak in
2009, lack of access to workplace policies like
paid sick leave may have fueled an addition 5
million cases of influenza-like illness.
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Kumar et al. “The Impact of Workplace Policies and Other Social Factors on Self-Reported Influenza-Like Illness Incidence During the 2009 H1N1
Pandemic.”
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www.clasp.org
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“The children in our care are the top priority for my
business, so it doesn't make sense to have one of our
employees working while sick. When members of my
staff aren't feeling well, they can't give the children their
full attention. Furthermore, coughs and colds can spread
quickly among children, and I don't want to be
responsible for sickening a child who started the day
healthy.”
– Dewetta Logan, Owner
Smart Beginnings Early Learning Center, West Philadelphia6
6 Logan,
“This boss doesn’t mind sick days.”
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• Workers with earned sick leave are 28 percent less likely that those
without it to be injured on the job.6
• The economic costs of workplace injuries among lower-wage workers
– those who are least likely to have earned sick days – was more
than $39 billion in 2010.7
“It could be a safety factor. We don’t want someone driving a truck
that’s not feeling well, especially if they may be taking some kind of
medication. Even over-the-counter medication can affect your ability to
coordinate yourself, much less drive a truck.”
– David Hedgepath, Owner
Hill Country Transportation Resources, Dallas, TX
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Asfaw et al. “Paid Sick Leave and Nonfatal Occupational Injuries.”
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Leigh. “Numbers and Costs of Occupational Injury and Illness in Low-Wage Occupation.”
www.clasp.org
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• When sick workers lose pay because they must take
unpaid time off work or, worse yet, lose their jobs,
many can’t afford to purchase goods and services in
their communities. As a result, the businesses that
rely on these consumers suffer.
• For families with two working parents earning $10/hr, if
one parent needs to take 1.4 unpaid sick days, the
family exhausts the entire monthly clothing
budget. If s/he needs to take 3.5 unpaid sick days,
the cost is equivalent to the monthly household
grocery budget.
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9
Gould et al. The Need for Paid Sick Days.
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• In 2007, San Francisco became the first city in the
U.S. to pass an earned sick leave law, the Paid
Sick Leave Ordinance (PSLO).
• Implementation not difficult: The majority of San
Francisco employers said that understanding and
administering the ordinance was “not too difficult”
or “not difficult.”
• No effect on profitability: The majority of
employers found the PLSO had no effect on
profitability or improved profitability.
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Drago and Lovell. San Francisco's Paid Sick Leave Ordinance.
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• Employers are supportive: most employers –
two out of three firms - supported the PSLO.
• Employment growth stayed high: following the
introduction of earned sick days, San Francisco
continued to experience stronger job growth than
that of surrounding counties.
11
11
Miller and Towne. San Francisco Employment Growth Remains Stronger with Paid Sick Days Law Than Surrounding Counties.
www.clasp.org
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• Recent polling shows that, across the political
spectrum, the public favors earned sick days laws.
• Most American’s (69%) believe that earned sick
days are a “very important” standard for
government to set to protect workers’ rights.
• Support for sick days crosses party lines.
Majorities of both Democrats and Republicans agree
on importance of earned sick days standards. Support
is also strong across other demographic categories,
including race and gender. 12
12
Smith and Kim. “Paid Sick Days: Attitudes and Experiences.”
www.clasp.org
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• Earned sick days laws have been passed in San
Francisco, the District of Columbia, Seattle, Long Beach,
and Connecticut.
• In 2012, campaigns for earned sick days or legislation
existed in Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Illinois,
Iowa, Maine, Massachusetts, Miami, Michigan, Minnesota,
New Jersey, New York City, New York, North Carolina,
Orange County (FL), Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Portland
(OR), Vermont, Washington, and Wisconsin. 13
• Your city or state may be next!
13
National Partnership for Women and Families. “State and Local Action on Paid Sick Days.”
www.clasp.org
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• Once you decided to implement an earned sick
days policy and/or an earned sick days law passes
in your area, you will need to consider:
 What to put in to a written policy
 Methods of accrual
 Methods of tracking accrual
 Education and outreach – let your employees know
what your policies are
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• Both anecdotal evidence from business owners and studies of workers
with earned sick days suggest that few workers abuse this benefit.
• In San Francisco, 25 percent of employees did not use any sick
time. The median worker used three days per year. Nationally,
covered workers use on average between 2.2 and 3.1 days per
year.14
• In the District of Columbia:
“What we found is that [over] the last two years that we’ve had the sick
leave policy here…only about eight percent of employees use
it…which is a very insignificant amount really. And, they don’t abuse
it… The fact of the matter is, the overwhelming majority of people
do not abuse it.”
– Andy Shallal, Owner
Busboys and Poets Restaurants, Washington, DC
14 Drago
and Lovell. San Francisco's Paid Sick Leave Ordinance.
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• Business voices are crucial to shaping and
passing earned sick days legislation.
• By getting involved, you can participate in decision
making processes about:
 Quantity of sick days/rates of accrual,
 Record keeping requirements,
 Who coverage extends to…and more.
• Help explain the business benefits of earned sick
days to fellow business people.
www.clasp.org
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Asfaw, Abay, Regina Pana-Cryan, and Roger Rosa. "Paid Sick Leave and Nonfatal Occupational Injuries." American Journal of Public Health, 102, no. 9 (2012):
59-64.
Boushey, Heather and Sarah Jane Glynn. There are Significant Business Costs to Replacing Employees. Center for American Progress, 2012,
http://www.americanprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/CostofTurnover.pdf
Cooper, Philip F. and Alan C. Monheit. “Does Employment Related Health Insurance Inhibit Job Mobility?” Inquiry, 30, no. 4 (1993): 400-416.
Drago, Bob and Vicki Lovell. San Francisco's Paid Sick Leave Ordinance. Institute for Women’s Policy Research, 2011.
http://www.iwpr.org/publications/pubs/San-Fran-PSD/at_download/file
Gould, Elise, Kai Fillion, and Andrew Green. The need for paid sick days: The lack of a federal policy further erodes family economic security. Economic Policy
Institute, 2011, http://w3.epi-data.org/temp2011/BriefingPaper319-2.pdf
Kumar, Supriya, et al. "The Impact of Workplace Policies and Other Social Factors on Self-Reported Influenza-Like Illness Incidence During the 2009 H1N1
Pandemic." Journal Information, 102, no. 1 (2012). http://www.cdc.gov/phpr/documents/science/AJPH_2011_300307v1.pdf
Leigh, J. Paul. “Numbers and Costs of Occupational Injury and Illness in Low-Wage Occupations.” Center for Poverty Research and Center for Health Care
Policy and Research, University of California Davis, 2012, http://defendingscience.org/sites/default/files/Leigh_Low-wage_Workforce.pdf.
Levin-Epstein, Jodie. Presenteeism and Paid Sick Days. Center for Law and Social Policy, 2005, http://www.clasp.org/admin/site/publications/files/0212.pdf
Logan, Dewetta. “This boss doesn’t mind sick days.” The Philadelphia Inquirer. March 24, 2011. http://articles.philly.com/2011-03-24/news/29181903_1_sickdays-sick-children-child-care-providers
Meyer, Christine Siegwarth et al. “Work-Family Benefits: Which Ones Maximize Profits?” Journal of Managerial Issues, 13, no. 1 (2001): 28-44.
Miller, Kevin and Sarah Towne. San Francisco Employment Growth Remains Stronger with Paid Sick Days Law Than Surrounding Counties. Institute for
Women’s Policy Research, 2011. http://www.iwpr.org/publications/pubs/san-francisco-employment-growth-remains-stronger-with-paid-sick-days-law-thansurrounding-counties/at_download/file
National Partnership for Women and Families. ““State and Local Action on Paid Sick Days.” 2012.
http://www.nationalpartnership.org/site/DocServer/PSD_Tracking_Doc_Nov_2011_Final.pdf?docID=1922
Sasha Corporation. “Compilation of Turnover Cost Studies.” http://www.sashacorp.com/turnframe.html
Smith, Tom W., and Jibum Kim. "Paid Sick Days: Attitudes and Experiences." NORC/University of Chicago (2010).
Stewart, Walter F., et al. "Lost productive work time costs from health conditions in the United States: results from the American Productivity Audit." Journal of
Occupational and Environmental Medicine, 45, no. 12 (2003): 1234-1246.
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<<Insert your organization’s contact information
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