SAFE leave is becoming more prominent as domestic violence and crimes against women are more widely reported. One in four women and one in nine men experience severe intimate partner violence in their lifetime, according to the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence. Over 47% of women have encountered sexual violence, physical violence, or stalking by an intimate partner during their lifetime as reported by Break the Cycle. More than 16 million people in the U.S. suffer from intimate partner abuse per year. Violence against the person can affect anyone, and the traumatizing effect can impact performance and fellow employees.
“These employees don’t get to choose when they’re experiencing some form of intimate partner violence,” says Deborah Hanus, CEO of Sparrow, an end-to-end leave management platform. “They don’t get to choose when the right moment is to escape, and it’s often an extremely difficult process to leave these relationships.”
SAFE leave, which is short for safe time and sick leave, allows employees to use their accrued sick leave for personal safety concerns, including those stemming from domestic violence, sexual assault, and other serious crimes. SAFE leave gives employees the time they need to seek medical attention for injuries, attend court hearings for protective orders, meet with law enforcement, find a safe house, and access counseling services without having to worry about job protection.
SAFE leave could apply to just employees in the situation, but many have expanded definitions. SAFE leave could cover employees if a family member is the victim of any act or threat of domestic violence, unwanted sexual contact, stalking, or human trafficking. Family could be defined limitedly or broadly and can include not only traditional family members, but extend to domestic partners, siblings, grandchild or grandparent, cousins, uncles, aunts, or any person of such close relationship that would stand in as family.
Although the Michigan Paid Medical Leave and the new ESTA have SAFE leave embedded in it as some other states, the federal Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA) does not include it. 15 states — including California, Arizona and New York — require employers to offer a SAFE option to their workforce. Therefore, SAFE leave is an employer-by-employer decision.
“It is definitely a lesser known leave despite the fact that it impacts a huge number of employees,” Deborah Hanus says. “We recommend it to all of our clients. If you have a company of more than 10 people, within five years statistically you will have someone who could be a user of SAFE leave and those moments matter.”
Further, employers should also ensure that if they have an employee assistance program (EAP) that employees are aware and able to access it for services related to SAFE leave situations or have easily accessible lists of hotlines or other assistance available to employees if they need access to assistance such as the National Domestic Violence Hotline and others. Employers could identify ways to assist employees who otherwise do not have access to legal assistance – a benefit relating to that – if financially able to do so.
HR has an opportunity today to establish new policies and procedures to protect employees. If an employee is the aggressor, HR needs to understand what it can and cannot do. A number of workplace shootings tend to be a disgruntled employee, and anything HR can do to lessen that opportunity is an important one. Employees need to feel safe in their workplace to be productive, and employers have obligations to ensure safety in the workplace.
By Anthony Kaylin, courtesy of SBAM-approved partner, ASE. Source: EBN 10/10/24, Break The Cycle 9/27/24
Click here for more News & Resources.