March 24, 2020
I doubt anyone rang in the new decade, thinking a pandemic was going to sweep the world over. Especially not one that would reach every continent, kill thousands, cause a global economic crisis, and force teams to go remote or even downsize.
I think I speak for all of us when I say that I was not prepared for this.
But no matter how unexpected this is or how unprepared I was, as Head of People Ops, I have a responsibility to keep my team safe and supported. I am sure all of you small business owners and HR leaders feel similarly. But as we take all the protective measures we can, I worry we are not communicating our response efforts effectively, and therefore, letting our people down.
So, I wanted to break down how we are communicating Trainual's new COVID-19 response policies, and what they include, in hopes that this might make responding internally a little easier.
If you’ve been following headlines from Washington, you know the federal government passed legislation to help individuals impacted by the current crisis. Most notable is the Families First Coronavirus Response Act, which goes into effect on April 1, and remains in effect through the end of 2020.
I spent most of this past weekend reviewing the policy language and notes from our legal team. I wanted to make sure I understood all the new legislation inside and out before drafting any new response policies.
As of today, Trainual has officially implemented the following two policies to abide by the Family First COVID-19 Response Act.
Admittedly, I have never managed sick leave, FMLA, or short term disability through a pandemic. But I can assure you that rolling out these new policies in a cold email to the team is NOT the move.
People are scared for their jobs, not being able to pay their bills, family members getting sick, or even passing away. And misinformation only adds to these anxieties, so I skipped the guessing game and went straight to our HR consultant at Justworks and our legal team before writing anything down. Then, we rolled out our new policies using these 3 steps:
Yesterday, our CEO Chris presented a State of the Union, outlining our strategy for the business and our team amid the pandemic and economic crisis. He had high-level bullets from the new policies and verbally rolled them out, ending with a company-wide call for questions.
Our team-wide all-hands meeting yesterday.
Right after we finished up the State of the Union, we launched the Trainual subject that we built over the weekend (and they are now available as templates here). We asked all our team members to take 15 minutes to walk through the policies at their own speed, and virtually acknowledge when they had done it.
? TIP: The easiest way to roll out your COVID-19 policies is with Trainual - try free for 7 days!
Once the policy was sent out, I slacked the entire team, inviting anyone who wanted clarification, additional information, or just needed to talk to schedule a 15-minute call with me.
Before we dive into our new policies, I want to stress that I am not an attorney, a tax professional, or even your HR lady. And this should not be taken as official advice.
I am sharing what we are doing here at Trainual in the hope that it helps you understand the implications for your team and for your business. AGAIN, I’m not an expert. I was just woefully unimpressed with the resources online and was so grateful for our legal teams help to decode the implications for a business under 50 employees.
Okay, here are our written policies:
To provide additional support to employees and their families, we have launched a secondary sick leave policy.
This policy offers an additional 80 hours (10 days) of paid sick leave (“emergency sick leave”) to every employee affected by COVID-19. These 80 hours are in addition to the PTO (20 days) and sick leave (5 days) already provided to every Trainual employee.
*Assuming you don’t get an approved waiver*
With proper documentation, employees are eligible for up to 10 additional weeks off (14 day elimination period either paid or unpaid, and 10 weeks of FMLA leave). This even applies to employers who are not usually required to provide FMLA!
At Trainual, we will provide paid COVID-19 FMLA leave due to school or childcare closing at 66% pay based on an employee’s regular pay grade after 14 calendar days of FMLA leave has occurred.
Since our team can work remotely with ease, we happily partner with working parents that have children out of school. This might mean accomodating a (sometimes unconventional) work schedule that is more conducive to an employee’s success.
More details:
We have all had to adapt quickly to the new requirements and to implement new policies seemingly overnight. Now more than ever, our top priority must be helping our teams understand the implications of these policies on their employment, their families, and their safety. Our fingers are crossed, hoping that we never have to use them. But if we do, we are doing our best to make sure we, and all our fellow business leaders, are prepared.
March 24, 2020
I doubt anyone rang in the new decade, thinking a pandemic was going to sweep the world over. Especially not one that would reach every continent, kill thousands, cause a global economic crisis, and force teams to go remote or even downsize.
I think I speak for all of us when I say that I was not prepared for this.
But no matter how unexpected this is or how unprepared I was, as Head of People Ops, I have a responsibility to keep my team safe and supported. I am sure all of you small business owners and HR leaders feel similarly. But as we take all the protective measures we can, I worry we are not communicating our response efforts effectively, and therefore, letting our people down.
So, I wanted to break down how we are communicating Trainual's new COVID-19 response policies, and what they include, in hopes that this might make responding internally a little easier.
If you’ve been following headlines from Washington, you know the federal government passed legislation to help individuals impacted by the current crisis. Most notable is the Families First Coronavirus Response Act, which goes into effect on April 1, and remains in effect through the end of 2020.
I spent most of this past weekend reviewing the policy language and notes from our legal team. I wanted to make sure I understood all the new legislation inside and out before drafting any new response policies.
As of today, Trainual has officially implemented the following two policies to abide by the Family First COVID-19 Response Act.
Admittedly, I have never managed sick leave, FMLA, or short term disability through a pandemic. But I can assure you that rolling out these new policies in a cold email to the team is NOT the move.
People are scared for their jobs, not being able to pay their bills, family members getting sick, or even passing away. And misinformation only adds to these anxieties, so I skipped the guessing game and went straight to our HR consultant at Justworks and our legal team before writing anything down. Then, we rolled out our new policies using these 3 steps:
Yesterday, our CEO Chris presented a State of the Union, outlining our strategy for the business and our team amid the pandemic and economic crisis. He had high-level bullets from the new policies and verbally rolled them out, ending with a company-wide call for questions.
Our team-wide all-hands meeting yesterday.
Right after we finished up the State of the Union, we launched the Trainual subject that we built over the weekend (and they are now available as templates here). We asked all our team members to take 15 minutes to walk through the policies at their own speed, and virtually acknowledge when they had done it.
? TIP: The easiest way to roll out your COVID-19 policies is with Trainual - try free for 7 days!
Once the policy was sent out, I slacked the entire team, inviting anyone who wanted clarification, additional information, or just needed to talk to schedule a 15-minute call with me.
Before we dive into our new policies, I want to stress that I am not an attorney, a tax professional, or even your HR lady. And this should not be taken as official advice.
I am sharing what we are doing here at Trainual in the hope that it helps you understand the implications for your team and for your business. AGAIN, I’m not an expert. I was just woefully unimpressed with the resources online and was so grateful for our legal teams help to decode the implications for a business under 50 employees.
Okay, here are our written policies:
To provide additional support to employees and their families, we have launched a secondary sick leave policy.
This policy offers an additional 80 hours (10 days) of paid sick leave (“emergency sick leave”) to every employee affected by COVID-19. These 80 hours are in addition to the PTO (20 days) and sick leave (5 days) already provided to every Trainual employee.
*Assuming you don’t get an approved waiver*
With proper documentation, employees are eligible for up to 10 additional weeks off (14 day elimination period either paid or unpaid, and 10 weeks of FMLA leave). This even applies to employers who are not usually required to provide FMLA!
At Trainual, we will provide paid COVID-19 FMLA leave due to school or childcare closing at 66% pay based on an employee’s regular pay grade after 14 calendar days of FMLA leave has occurred.
Since our team can work remotely with ease, we happily partner with working parents that have children out of school. This might mean accomodating a (sometimes unconventional) work schedule that is more conducive to an employee’s success.
More details:
We have all had to adapt quickly to the new requirements and to implement new policies seemingly overnight. Now more than ever, our top priority must be helping our teams understand the implications of these policies on their employment, their families, and their safety. Our fingers are crossed, hoping that we never have to use them. But if we do, we are doing our best to make sure we, and all our fellow business leaders, are prepared.
March 24, 2020
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