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Ohio University To Start New Sick Day Policy
< < Back toMissing work here and there for having a cold is inevitable, but what do you do when you come down with a much more serious illness?
Soon, employees at Ohio University won't have to worry about running out of those essential sick days.
"The idea is to put something in place where if an employee does not have enough accrued sick time and has some sort of catastrophic illness that will cause them to be out for an extended period of time, that there's either a pool or a mechanism in place for other employees to donate sick time to that employee to use," said Chair of Administrative Senate, Josh Bodnar.
The policy will allow long-time employees with ample sick time to put their extra time into a pool so others who need it can use it, or it will be a direct donation from one employee to another.
For Gail Houlette, this policy hits close to home.
"I was diagnosed with breast cancer in February of this year and experienced surgery as part of that, the first surgery was a lumpectomy and later found out that it actually had spread, which required a double mastectomy," said Administrative Associate Gail Houlette.
Gail was forced to use all of her paid sick-time for her fist surgery, leaving her with no paid time left for her second surgery.
She hopes that this new policy will be able to help others that find themselves in a similar situation.
"I really hope to see for others that can benefit that it goes through quickly and so that others can realize the benefits," said Houlette.
"To me, I see it as a win-win– it's a great opportunity to provide something that most public university employers have provided," said Bodnar.
OU's Administrative and Classified Senate members have been working on passing this it for over five years.
Employees say the new policy has been a long time coming.
If all goes as planned, the new policy could be put in place as early as the end of the academic year.