Effective March 21st, 2022, COVID Sick Leave is now a time-off pay code in EMPowerSF Time & Attendance. Between December 21st - March 18, 2022, employees may have used a number of approaches to document time off related to COVID. These approaches were meant to accommodate employee needs during the months of the surge. NOTE: It is the employee’s responsibility to inform the timekeeper/manager about their intent to use COVID Sick Leave for any previous date/retroactive time.
- If you have all the records of retroactive COVID Sick Time, you can amend the timesheet on the employees behalf by cancelling previous time off requests that now need to be replaced with COVID Sick Leave.
- If you DON'T have a centralized record of retroactive COVID Sick Time, you must collect this information first to ensure a less cumbersome amendment process. Here is a template you can send to employees.
Once you have a record of changes to make, you can follow the steps below to amend the timesheets.
Option 1 - MORE COMMON: Employee submitted time off in the past that is grayed out
If upon going back to the employee's timesheet, you saw their pay code grayed out for Sick Leave (or any other leave bank like Vacation or Floating Holiday), you will not be able to delete it through the Edit Employee Time process because they had submitted this as a time off request. In this case, you have to go back to the original request in the Review Time Off screen. For example, an employee intended to use COVID sick leave on the following dates:
| 2/2/2022 |
| 2/3/2022 |
| 2/4/2022 |
| 2/7/2022 |
| 2/8/2022 |
- Go to Review Time Off and find the request submitted by the employee (that you have previously approved).
- Click All Requests.
- We used the Filter function to search by Employee ID # and found the below requests that match the intended COVID Sick Leave days:
- Click on the request. The details of the time off will appear. Cancel the request. This will delete the entry in the timesheet.
- Finally, go back to the timesheet and enter the COVID Sick Leave amendment.
What would happen if you don't delete the original request?
The previous time off and the new COVID Sick Leave hours will stack, and will double the hours for the employee.
Option 2: Timekeeper or Manager entered time off on employee's behalf
Simply swap out and enter the COVID Sick Leave pay code directly into the employee's timesheet.
COVID Sick Leave is a supplemental district-paid sick leave for staff who are unable to work and telework for qualified COVID-19 related reasons. This wage type pays at the regular hourly rate, or count towards scheduled hours for salaried employees and contract hours for annualized employees. It can only be used against regular scheduled hours (not weekends or holidays.)
The additional COVID Sick Leave accrual amounts to 10 days, with a day defined as an employee’s standard daily hours, and the allotment occurring in hours. For example, 10 x a teacher’s standard daily hours (7.00) = 70 hours. This occurs independently on each assignment an employee may have, and hours can not be shared amongst assignments.
Reminder: Employees can use COVID Sick Leave for the days they used their personal days or went unpaid for the following reasons:
- cared for a family member who is subject to a COVID-19 quarantine or isolation period as determined by health guidelines or as advised by a healthcare provider
- cared for a child whose school or place of care is closed or unavailable due to COVID-19 on the premises
- was subject to a quarantine or isolation period as determined by public health guidelines or as advised by a healthcare provider, for reasons that may include having received a positive COVID-19 test, experiencing COVID-19 symptoms and seeking a medical diagnosis or awaiting the results of a COVID-19 test, or being a close contact of someone who has tested positive for COVID-19