Employers need to train their workers and stay abreast of changes to Connecticut’s new Paid Family Vacation Act to avoid pitfalls that could lead to costly fines, recruiting firm Mercer warned at an event on Wednesday.
More than 300 people signed up for a Mercer webcast on the new vacation program, which required employers to begin withholding employee contributions on January 1. The deduction was set at 0.5% of the first $ 142,800 of wages, with most workers eligible, including part-time and seasonal workers.
According to Andrea Barton Reeves, CEO of the Connecticut Paid Family and Medical Leave Insurance Authority, despite pandemic public relations disruptions, the state could anticipate employee deductions for the new program could exceed $ 400 million over the next 12 months. Employees can take advantage of the benefits from January 1, 2022.
Although employees pay for the new program through their dues, employers are responsible for managing it and should consider third-party vendors as the task becomes more complex, said Rich Fuerstenberg, senior partner at Mercer.
“There is a lot of movement and flow,” said Fürstenberg. “It’s a good time to see what’s out there and how vendors can help.”
Complexities include provisions under the new program that expand the definition of “family member” to include those who are related by blood or “affinity that corresponds to a family relationship,” said Jill Birmingham, senior associate at Mercer in Hartford.
Connecticut has expanded the “family” further than any other state with a similar program, which means employees can apply for permission to care for a sibling, best friend, or even close neighbor. According to current interpretations of the law, after 12 weeks of leave to care for a sibling, an employee could need an additional 12 weeks under the provisions of federal leave to care for a spouse in the same year.
The state has also made it easier for workers to qualify for both medical and family leave and expanded the definition of qualifying conditions beyond disability, including domestic violence, temporary leave, and care leave. Occupational safety has also been strengthened for employees who apply for leave.
Final guidelines on these provisions have yet to be provided, added Birmingham. Therefore, employers need to keep abreast of government regulations to ensure they are complying with the law.
If employers decide to develop their own private plan to cover family and medical leave, they must also respect the rules that require workers to vote on approving the plan. A majority of all Connecticut-based employees must agree to the plan in order to move forward, not just employees responding to a request for a vote, Furstenberg said.
Connecticut private plans must cover both family vacations and medical vacations, unlike rules in neighboring states like Massachusetts that allow plans to only take one type of vacation, Birmingham said.
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