October is here, and you know what that means, Office Managers!
It’s time for some HR Halloween questions from the HR crypt (and yes, we had to get past our crypt keeper—aka our CEO—to get these to you). Plus, a bonus question about schedule adjustments for voting in the upcoming election!
For those new here, we take time each month to answer questions you submit about situations you encounter in your offices. Be sure to submit any and all questions you have about HR; we love to tackle your daily management challenges with you.
A LIVEcast accompanies each of these blogs, so be sure to watch our HR Solution Center Manager, Grace Godlasky, and AADOM superstar Heather Colicchio discuss these issues in depth and offer some extra guidance around the topics as a whole.
We answer most of your questions during these HR Tuesday segments. However, we will often answer the questions we can’t get to here on the What the Hell Just Happened?! Podcast with CEDR CEO, Paul Edwards. So be sure to subscribe to that if you haven’t already!
Remember that your daily employee interactions likely involve state, federal, or local employment laws that you must consider when trying to find the best human way to solve the core problem. We will combine the two during our answers and help you devise some great solutions.
Here are some of your best submissions this month:
“My hygienist asked to use a vacation day on Halloween so she can set up for a big trunk-or-treating event she’s co-hosting. I denied it as we’re already short-staffed that day. She responded saying she’ll use a sick day instead. We’re in Arizona, so we do have to offer sick days, but can she really schedule a sick day like this? What am I supposed to do here?” “I told my assistant that she could decorate the office for Halloween. I came in today and the place looks like a bloody crime scene! I told her to take things down but now she’s acting like I set her up to get in trouble.” “My hygienist is asking if she can come in late or leave early to vote in this year’s election since she lives (and votes) about 45 minutes from the office. We’re fully booked with patients and she’s our only hygienist. Do we have to give her time off and totally redo the schedule that day?”
Let’s Get to the Answers:
Question: “My hygienist asked to use a vacation day on Halloween so she can set up for a big trunk-or-treating event she’s co-hosting. I denied it as we’re already short-staffed that day. She responded saying she’ll use a sick day instead. We’re in Arizona, so we do have to offer sick days, but can she really schedule a sick day like this? What am I supposed to do here?”
The Legal Side of Things: This is an excellent example of where the intent of a sick leave law can run against how it plays out in real life. As you said, Arizona requires employers to offer a certain number of paid sick days each year, the specific number depending on how big your business is.
The law also prevents you from asking for a doctor’s note for a one-day absence. Employees can use sick days for fairly broad purposes, including mental health, caring for a sick child, and doctor’s appointments. The intent is to allow employees the ability to take necessary time off without fear of retaliation, or of needing to prove the need for their absence in some way.
Most employees use their sick days as the law intended, and it leads to a healthier workforce and an enhanced ability to care for their own and their family’s healthcare needs.
The downside is that an employee can “abuse” the system and say they’re using a sick day when they really want the time off for some other personal reason but either don’t have other paid time off to use or didn’t request vacation time ahead of time. We will say that this is more the exception than the rule, and typically recommend moving past any suspicions of how they’re really using their “sick day.”
But once in a while, they flat-out tell you their plans, like the employee in this instance!
Here’s the thing.
If you insist the time off isn’t approved in advance, and then the employee does call out sick that day, you’re not actually in as good of a position as you would hope for.
The Arizona sick leave law prohibits retaliation for lawful use of a sick day. The employee can easily say that they did, in fact, wake up sick, or they were under heavy stress and needed a mental health day, or any number of other things.
The employee getting into trouble for using the sick day could, unfortunately, land you in trouble with the state if the employee chooses to go that route.
Now for the Human Approach: If you were within your rights to deny the request (meaning this was not state-protected time off such as state-mandated sick leave, jury duty, military leave, or similar), then you would be permitted to discipline or terminate someone for insubordination if they choose not to come to work after their request was denied. Basically, “you can choose not to show up, and I can choose not to continue working with you.”
Regardless of what the law says, rather than playing the likely losing game of “chicken” around whether the employee shows up to work on Halloween, a safer approach is to talk further with the employee about this.
Reiterate the reasons why you don’t want to give them the day off, including your staffing needs, patient schedule, and whether the employee asked with enough notice per your employee handbook. Doing this starts the conversation with showing them there’s nothing personal going on, you are simply trying to make sure you can run the office that day and that you’re being fair to everyone.
Next move on to asking what it is they really need that day. See if they’re able to work the bulk of their shift but leave early to set up for their event, or if having a couple hours off the day before to have more time to prepare would help, or arrive at some other type of compromise.
If you are showing that you care about their situation and are willing to work with them on a solution, they may be willing to do the same.
If, in the end, they insist that you’re not going to see them that day, we recommend planning that they are going to be out. None of this is ideal, but the reality is that you need to make sure your business is in a good position to see patients that day.
Make sure you document this entire situation. The documentation can help if this becomes a common occurrence, so you can show the pattern, and once they exhaust their protected time off, you will be in a lower risk position to address excessive absences.
Question: “I told my assistant that she could decorate the office for Halloween. I came in today and the place looks like a bloody crime scene! I told her to take things down but now she’s acting like I set her up to get in trouble.”
The Legal Side of Things: We’re picturing crime scene tape and red decals of hand prints on your windows—great decor for a Halloween party or event (for those who enjoy that sort of thing). It is not so great for a dental practice where your patients may already be nervous about their appointment, and you have health and safety standards to meet, including keeping the place clean of blood!
There are too many problems to even get into here around this type of decor being in your practice, which is probably stating the obvious. We’ll just say that as with any holiday decorations, you need to be very mindful of the fact that not everyone celebrates the same holidays. And, holiday observances can vary quite a bit (are you a slasher film guru, a pumpkin spice latte lover, or a candy connoisseur?).
As far as decorating goes, the best HR practice is to stay on the safe side and keep things minimal and neutral. Think small pumpkins or other “fall” decorations as opposed to witches, demons, and the like. Gruesome or extremely graphic decorations can make many people very uncomfortable.
Holiday-themed decor or requests to wear costumes may be uncomfortable for those who practice a religion that doesn’t allow celebrating Halloween.
Now for the Human Approach: Your assistant was probably really excited about decorating and is extremely proud of the creativity and effort that went into turning your dental office into what looks like a hazard zone. Remember that they aren’t the manager, so they aren’t automatically thinking of the same concerns you are in everything they do at the office.
Tell them that you really appreciate their creativity and the amount of time that went into things. Maybe offer to have some photos or videos taken for social media or to share among your team. That way the employee doesn’t feel like their time was totally put to waste.
Be sure to explain some reasons why the decorations aren’t appropriate and need to come down.
Remind her that not all of your patients are going to be comfortable with that atmosphere, and that needs to be the primary consideration. Don’t put any blame on the employee or express it like she did something wrong.
This is the time to own that you should’ve given some parameters around what type of decorations would be acceptable for the office. You can even tell her that trying to celebrate holidays and other events in the workplace is always difficult, and mistakes are easy to make.
See if she is interested in giving it another try, with your input along the way. If not, tell her not to worry about it and you’ll either arrange for something else or forgo a big decorating effort. Make sure she knows she isn’t in trouble, as (presumably) she wasn’t doing something nefarious on purpose, and at the end of the day you appreciate what she was trying to do.
Oh, and be sure she didn’t pay out of pocket for any of those decorations!
Question: “My hygienist is asking if she can come in late or leave early to vote in this year’s election since she lives (and votes) about 45 minutes from the office. We’re fully booked with patients and she’s our only hygienist. Do we have to give her time off and totally redo the schedule that day?”
The Legal Side of Things: Federal law doesn’t require employers to close for election day, or to provide any time off to vote. However, many states do have voting rights laws that require employers to grant time off to vote.
Your first step when getting a request like this is to check whether you have a state law that protects time off to vote. Or, even if you don’t have a law on this topic, if you have committed to any type of time off in your written policies.
Most of the time the voting laws require employees to arrange for time off prior to election day, which allows you to make scheduling changes if needed. The laws may limit the amount of time that can be taken, and the ability to take time off at all may hinge on how much polling time is available before and after the employee’s work shift.
The details of these laws can vary quite a bit from state to state, so if you are relying on your employee handbook policy this is a time to be very sure it was made based on your actual location.
Now for the Human Approach: Individuals making a plan to vote is a good thing. Of course, so is being able to keep your patients’ appointments.
Let’s start with heading off what may be some immediate frustration.
The hiring market for hygienists has been difficult over the past few years, leaving many managers fearful of losing a good hygienist but also frustrated with some hygienists seemingly taking advantage of the situation.
Here, your employee has no control over when election day is or how far away her polling station is. She’s doing the right thing by trying to make arrangements for this in advance. Even if it isn’t the first time you’ve had to redo the schedule due to this one employee’s availability, it’s a good idea to put that aside for this instance.
Tell the hygienist that you want to allow her the time she needs to vote, but you’re going to need her help in rearranging the patient schedule to make that work. Having her participate in the challenges of reworking the schedule may help avoid her potentially asking for more time off than is strictly necessary.
Ask her for a specific request about what time she wants to have off that day. If you do have a state law that requires you give time off to vote, you are able to keep her limited to what that law actually requires. Most states have polling hours that go into the evening, and they will allow you to vote as long as you are in line before the polls close.
Remember, CEDR is here for AADOM members to tackle any and all HR issues that may arise within your practice. Being an Office Manager is tough enough without having to manage all your employee issues alone. Reach out to us today, and let’s build a better workplace together.
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