Employers are increasingly changing their sick-leave policies so employees won't have to tell little white lies to stay home with ill family members.
Several large Chattanooga employers say their policies now allow employees to choose how they use their off time, whether it be for vacation, illness, illness of a family member or mental health day.
"That's huge in this day and age, in this age of double incomes," said Danielle Clark, spokeswoman for the Hamilton County Department of Education. "It's a huge thing for working mothers."
More than 50 percent of working mothers, according to a recent survey of 324 working women sponsored by TempleTouch thermometers, say they have taken unpaid leave to stay home with sick children.
The survey also indicated that one-third of working mothers have pretended to be ill to stay home with a sick child and a similar number have sent their child to school even though the child was sick to avoid using a sick day.
BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee and Unum both offer their employees paid time off, according to spokeswomen for the insurance giants. Paid time off, they said, rolls vacation time and sick time together.
"It allows for our employee to have accountability in balancing the competing demands of their jobs and their personal lives," said Mary Thompson, a spokeswoman for BlueCross. "It's theirs to take for whatever they have going on."
She said the policy is a benefit to employees because of their changing needs, but the TempleTouch survey indicated 40 percent of working moms say they do not consider their workplace family friendly.
M.C. Guenther, a spokeswoman for Unum, said the insurer has offered paid time off for the eight years she has been there and speculated that employers may have begun to make changes regarding leave time following the passage of the national Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993.
The law, according to the Department of Labor, entitles eligible employees of covered employers to take unpaid, job-protected leave for specified family and medical reasons with continuation of group health insurance coverage under the same terms and conditions as if the employee had not taken leave. FMLA allows for up to 12 weeks leave in a 12-month period, but that can be taken intermittently, according to Guenther.
"If you know you're going to be out repeatedly," Guenther said, "it allows you to take that time unpaid. [It] allows parents and family members to have access to the time that they need without losing their job."
Thompson said BlueCross went to paid time off in 2002 to simplify the administrative process of keeping up with employee data and "to provide our employees more flexibility in managing their time, giving them a better way to balance the demands of work and their personal lives."
Clark said the Hamilton County Department of Education contract with most teachers -- who are 10-month employees -- calls for one day off for each month of contractual employment. Since they are 10-month employees, the teachers do not have vacations as part of their benefit package.
The package for 12-month employees includes vacation time, holidays and sick time, she said, but the sick time can be used for other family members.
"I used it when my child was sick," Clark said.
Both BlueCross and Unum also have a bank system in which employees can share paid time off with coworkers who have used up their time but need it while dealing with a catastrophic illness.
"You want to be able to have flexibility within your time-off policies," Thompson said. "You want employees to be as healthy and happy as possible in order to be as productive as possible."