Nursing home operators exhaled a big sigh of relief a couple of days ago when they learned they had received their wish regarding the Families First Coronavirus Response Act.
The coveted exemption from the Department of Labor came through on Saturday. There would be no mandate, as for others, that senior care operators with fewer than 500 employees would have to provide up to 12 days of paid leave for employees who need to care for children due to school closures.
Senior care’s thinly stretched workforce would not have extra holes punched in it.
It is very much a victory for operators, but it comes with risks.
Now the really hard work begins: Selling it to staff members. We’re talking the frazzled frontliners who won’t get the same parenting privileges as the butchers, bakers and candlestick makers in the neighborhood. Or sometimes even other colleagues in their own facility. It’s going to put the cliched use of “We’re all like one big family” through quite a stress test.
This isn’t going to be an easy one for managers.
Decisions will have to be made quickly, confirmed one legal source enmeshed in long-term care affairs. The Department of Labor starts enforcing provisions April 17. Tears are going to mix with sweat before then. At least it’s a temporary situation, currently set to expire Dec. 31.
If you’re an operator and you haven’t already, you should be consulting with an employment attorney. Contrary to some popular belief, this is not a hard-and-fast rule in every aspect. Employees are not excluded from coverage. Managers have discretion over what employees can do. And, yes, some things can be decided almost on a case-by-case basis.
Discretion can be another word for “freedom,” and as the song reminds, freedom’s just another word for a lot to lose. Or something like that. When it comes to labor issues, discretion can be extremely challenging.
As a manager, you don’t want to get caught with your can’ts down. If some can stay home with their kids, then maybe all should be able to. Unless you decide that maybe some can and some can’t.
A flimsy policy or callous decision making could divide staff members, or at a minimum put staff at odds with managers. Suffice it to say, good employee relations will be at a premium.
It’s a topsy-turvy time for everyone, but especially for the gut-wrenched facility workers who won’t have the same latitude as others to be at home with their families. Furthermore, how facility management handles this could go a long way toward determining employee retention.
And that’s one word nobody in this business wants to wince over any more than absolutely necessary.
Follow Executive Editor James M. Berklan @JimBerklan.
