Posted on: Sunday, December 12, 2004
Workers need time for care of elderly
By Dan Nakaso
Advertiser Staff Writer
Since 2003, Hawai'i's Family Leave Law requires businesses with 100 or more workers to give up to 10 days of accrued and available sick leave for family leave.
But the law is silent on the growing issue of workers who need only an hour or two each week for elderly care, said attorney David Banks, who specializes in employer/employee relationships.
"The ability of an employee to take two hours here and two hours there to care for an elderly patient is totally up to the discretion of the employer," Banks said.
The task of caring for elderly parents is increasingly placing more stress on Hawai'i's workforce, said James Pietsch, director of the University of Hawaii Elder Law Program.
"I see the tension very often," Pietsch said. "If your office has a meeting that goes past 5 and you have an adult in daycare who has to be picked up, what do you do? Employers need to realize that when we have more middle-aged people in the workplace, they're often caring for older people. Many of the managers, if they knew of these tensions, I think would accommodate people more."
Many workers worry that telling their bosses about their elderly responsibilities will jeopardize their chances for promotions or raises, said Deborah Jackson, who started a consulting and informational referral service called Eldercare Hawaii after her experience dealing with her mother's illness and eventual death.
Jackson quit her job as an administrator for a nonprofit forest lands trust on the Mainland to care for her mother in Hawai'i.
"Caregivers don't self-identify in the workplace," Jackson said. "They're modest but they're also worried about affecting their (status) in the workplace. ... What's that going to do to their promotional opportunities if their jobs require them to travel or put in long hours?"
Before approaching your employer about taking time off to help with an aging family member, experts say to do your homework first.
"Start the dialogue now with your employer and explore your options," said attorney David Banks, who specializes in employer/
employee relationships. "Employers who have a long-term view of business and who are technology-friendly could be convinced to assist you."
What you should know:
• Hawai'i's Family Leave Law requires businesses with 100 or more workers to give up to 10 days of sick leave for family leave. • Under the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993, most employees are entitled to a total of up to 12 work weeks of unpaid leave during any 12-month period. An employee must return to the same position or an an equivalent position. An employee who takes FMLA leave can maintain health coverage. A Times assistant manager recently took three months off to care for an ailing mother, "which creates quite a strain on our business," said Clifford Hayashi, the company's director of human resources. "But it's something that could happen to anybody."
Times, which has 12 stores and 900 employees, offers promotions based on merit, Hayashi said.
"But we recognize that these kind of things are probably going to happen to all of us sooner or later," he said. "We tell them, especially if you're a salaried person, 'Just try the best you can to come in when you can. But you have to take care of what's important in your personal life, too.' "
Companies are increasingly considering switching to "paid time off" programs that could give employees more flexibility and could prevent harming their status at work.
PTOs, as they're called, lump holiday, vacation, sick and personal days together and let employees use the accrued time for any reason.
"It's up to you, the employee, how you use that time off," Banks said, "whether it's minimum increments of half a day here and there or for the Monday morning hangover."
PTOs help administrators track time off better, without having to differentiate between vacation, sick and personal days.
The downside for employees is that PTOs typically result in fewer days off overall.
"The employers find some cost savings because if you have 12 sick days and two weeks of vacation, that's 22 days," Banks said. "With PTOs, employers are not giving 22 days, they're giving 15."
So with fewer days left to use for elderly care, a generation of workers find themselves in the same dilemma as employees — often female — who faced childcare issues beginning in the 1970s, Pietsch said.
"Today childcare issues have become commonplace," Pietsch said. "Nobody argues when somebody says, 'I have to go pick up my kid.' But employees are reluctant to say that they have to pick up mom. ... There needs to be a culture of looking at families and family needs and asking people, 'Is there anything special you need?' Wouldn't that be a radical approach?"
Reach Dan Nakaso at dnakaso@honoluluadvertiser.com or at 525-8085.
The freedom to take a couple of hours off from work now and then to drive an elderly parent to a doctor's appointment or to therapy largely depends on the good will of Hawai'i's bosses.
Hawai'i companies such as Times Super Market know that employees increasingly face the challenge of caring for elderly parents.
Seeking help at work
