Input sought from PAT staff about Family Friendly proposal

The PAT Council is seeking input from PAT staff across campus regarding the cost implications of the Family Friendly proposal.

The Family Friendly proposal seeks to improve paid time-off benefits to better support employees in meeting a variety of family-related needs. Extensive discussions have taken place in the last year about changes in workforce needs, the prevalence of family friendly time-off policies at comparator institutions and the new faculty contract that provided a new paid parental leave provision.

The current proposal calls for PAT staff to be allowed to use 10 days of accrued sick leave per year for illness of an immediate family members and medical needs including medical appointments for an immediate family members, prenatal and postnatal care of a spouse or significant other, caring for a new baby or adoptive/foster child after placement, and extended bereavement time, with supervisor notification, upon the death of an immediate family member.

An immediate family member is defined as a spouse, parent, legal dependent or persons living within the staff member’s household for a significant period of time.

Because of differences in benefits, a separate Family Friendly proposal is being developed for operating staff. The information in this article pertains only to PAT staff.

Creating this new option creates a cost to the employer, as do all benefits. As a result council representatives have been contacting and surveying members of their district about the two options anticipated to be voted on in late February.

Option One
Limits the maximum accumulation of annual leave to 35 days per year, instead of the current 36 days. The annual payout at the time of leave from the university would remain at a maximum of 30 days. This will only affect those who have reached their maximum annual accrual.

Option Two
Affects the current separate category of bereavement time by merging it with sick time for PAT staff. When using bereavement leave, time will be deducted from your accrued sick time days. The number of days allowed per family relationship will remain the same as current policy. Therefore, the use of sick days will be for (3) separate purposes: your personal sick usage; 10 days annually for family friendly time; and days needed for bereavement. Currently, the use of bereavement time is not charged against either sick of vacation time.

PAT staff are asked to contact their district representatives no later than noon, Friday, Feb. 18. Input will be used by the council as part of its preferred cost recommendation that will be presented to the Personnel Policy Committee (SPPC) Feb. 24.

A list of district representatives is available at http://www.unh.edu/pat-council/pat-council-members.html.

A list of council districts is available at http://www.unh.edu/pat-council/districts.html.