Marsh Mclennan Agency’s most recent statutory update covered a broad spectrum of topics, including PWFA and paid statutory leaves across the map. It also provided overviews of various paid sick leave regulations and updates in Washington, Illinois, and New York. For this blog post, we discuss what changed and some resources you may find helpful.

Washington

Let’s start out west, where Washington’s paid sick leave will be expanding, becoming effective January 1, 2025. Reasons for leave will include the closure of an employee’s child’s school or daycare due to an emergency declared by the state or local government. It will also expand the definition of covered relationships, which now includes absences for a child’s spouse and a non-family member who lives with and depends on the employee.

Whenever there are clarifications or updates such as these it is a good time to make sure your paid sick leave policy, notices, and various education materials are up to date. Washington State Department provides some great reference resources on their website to help guide you as well.

Illinois

Next stop, Illinois, where we saw some clarifications of the Illinois Paid Leave for All Workers Act (PLAWA) when the final became effective April 30, 2024. This Illinois law is similar to accrued paid sick leave requirements that we see in many other states, but covers absences for any reason (not limited to employee’s own sickness or caring for a family member, etc.) and carves out employers that are covered by existing city/county ordinances. Like Washington, the Illinois Department of Labor website has some great resources, including employee notices that can be leveraged.

Which leads us to Cook County, which has no major updates or changes, and Chicago. Chicago’s “new” Paid Leave and Paid Sick and Safe Leave ordinance became effective July 1, 2024. It goes beyond many other state/local sick leave regulations by providing a total of 80 hours of paid leave, 40 hours of more traditional sick leave, and 40 hours that can be used for any reason. A few things to keep in mind:

• Ensure your policies adhere to the standard put in place
• Employers should be aware that they must provide notice to all covered employees with their first paychecks and information available in common areas of the workplace.

The Department of Business Affairs and Consumer Protections has a great FAQ available that provides many answers you may be looking for.

New York

Next, we head further east to New York, where the state enacted a first-of-its-kind legislation expanding paid sick leave to provide an additional 20 hours of paid prenatal leave. This paid time off is an amendment to the existing paid sick leave law, but employers must provide pregnant employees with separate and additional 20 hours beginning January 1, 2025.

We will have more information as we hear updated details and guidance from the state, and we will start to watch for other locations that might copy New York’s approach.

Connecticut

Finally, significant changes are coming to Connecticut’s accrued paid sick leave law. Connecticut’s existing law requires only those employers with “service workers” to provide accrued paid sick leave, but recent changes will expand that requirement to nearly every employer in Connecticut by 2027 and will impact any employer with 25 or more employees as soon as January 1, 2025. There are also changes to the accrual rate, which is increasing from one hour accrued per 40 hours worked to one hour accrued per 30, expanded covered uses, record retention, and many other changes.

All employers in Connecticut should take a few steps in advance of these changes:

• Review any existing sick leave policies
• Check HRIS or payroll systems to ensure that accruals are set up for Connecticut employees
• Train managers and human resource teams in Connecticut to recognize the types of requests that would be covered under sick leave

Be sure to check out the statutory update for the full list of updates to accrued paid sick leave from coat-to-coast and everywhere in between, along with federal updates, and state FMLA laws!

How can MMA ADL help?

Marsh McLennan Agency’s Absence, Disability, and Life Specialty Practice helps clients understand, integrate, measure, and manage leaves of absence, time away from work, disability, and life insurance programs. Specializing in absence for over 20 years allows us to help employers meet employee expectations, reduce compliance risk, and manage costs. We are here to be your trusted partner, allowing you to prioritize what truly matters – your people.