The Healthy Families & Workplace Act requires Nebraska employers to allow eligible employees to accrue paid sick leave effective October 1, 2025. The Nebraska Department of Labor (“NDOL”) is responsible for implementing and enforcing the Healthy Families & Workplace Act and likely will adopt and promulgate rules and regulations necessary to carry out the terms of the Healthy Families & Workplace Act.
Nebraska Businesses Subject to the Healthy Families & Workplace Act
The Healthy Families & Workplace Act requires all Nebraska private employers, regardless of size, to provide employees with paid sick leave. The Healthy Families & Workplace Act applies to all types of employer entities—corporations, limited liability companies, partnerships, and sole proprietorships. Agricultural employers are not exempt.
An employee is not covered if he or she works less than eighty (80) hours per calendar year or is a railroad employee. Nebraska’s Healthy Families & Workplace Act does not, however, apply to federal/state agencies (including political subdivisions).
Employer Size Determines the Amount of Sick Leave Required
An employer’s size, as measured by its number of employees, determines the amount of paid sick leave an employee can earn during a week. Employees include full-time, part-time, or temporary employees. The Healthy Families & Workplace Act defines an employer with fewer than twenty (20) employees as a “small business.” Small businesses must allow workers to earn up to forty (40) hours of paid sick leave annually. Employers with more than twenty (20) employees must allow employees to earn up to fifty-six (56) hours of paid sick leave per year. An employee can accrue sick leave at a rate of one (1) hour for each thirty (30) hours worked.
An employer may provide all sick pay to an employee that the employee is expected to accrue at the beginning of the year. Employees must be allowed to carry over unused paid sick leave to the following year, but an employer is not required to permit an employee to use more than the employee’s maximum yearly accrual of paid sick time (40 hours or 56 hours, depending on the employer’s size) per year. Alternatively, in lieu of carryover of unused paid sick time, the employer can pay cash to employees for accrued sick leave at the end of the year and then provide the employee with the amount of sick leave (40 or 56 hours) and make it immediately available for the employee’s use beginning in the subsequent year.
If an employee is separated, it does not appear that accrued sick leave must be paid to the employee like vacation or PTO. If, however, the employee is rehired within twelve (12) months of separation, the amount of sick leave the employee accrued prior to separation is reinstated. Exempt employees are presumed to work forty (40) hours per workweek for sick leave accrual unless their typical workweek is less.
If an employer already has a paid leave policy—such as a PTO policy—that provides at least the same amount of time and for the same reasons as set forth in the Healthy Families & Workplace Act, the employer is not required to provide additional sick leave. NOTE: If an employer uses a PTO policy to provide the paid sick leave required under the Healthy Families & Workplace Act, the employer would be required to pay out accrued but unused PTO to employees at the time of separation. In addition, employers who rely on a PTO policy to provide paid sick leave must ensure the PTO policy allows employees to accrue the requisite amounts of paid sick leave and allows employees to carry over unused paid sick leave as required under the Healthy Families & Workplace Act. The employer may not count time used for paid sick leave as an absence that might result in discipline.
When Can Employees Use Sick Leave?
Employees can use paid sick leave for an employee’s mental or physical illness, injury, or health condition; an employee’s need for medical diagnosis, care, or treatment of a mental or physical illness, injury, or health condition; and/or preventative care. Leave is also allowed if the employee needs to isolate because of exposure to a communicable disease, whether or not the employee or family member contracts the disease.
Leave can also be used for the “care of” a family member with a mental or physical illness, injury, or health condition or a family member who needs medical diagnosis, care, or treatment of a mental or physical illness, injury, or health condition, or a family member’s preventative medical care. The Healthy Families & Workplace Act defines “family member” broadly and is not dependent on age or whether an employee is the caretaker of the affected family member.
If the family member is a child, an employee can use paid sick leave to attend a meeting necessary for the child’s mental or physical illness, injury, or health condition at a school or location providing the child with care. An employee can use paid leave if a child’s school or daycare is closed due to a public health emergency such as COVID. Employers may find it difficult to determine when an employee claims he or she must take “care of” a family member. The phrase “takes care of” is not defined. For example, is babysitting a family member or visiting a grandparent with dementia at an assisted living facility considered taking “care of” and thus covered? We do not know yet.
The Healthy Families & Workplace Act seems to suggest that as long as the family member has a physical or mental illness and is receiving medical treatment or care, leave is allowed.
Is There a Required Process?
Employers must provide paid sick leave when an employee makes a verbal request. If possible, the verbal request should include the expected length of the absence. Where an employer requires notice of the need to use paid sick leave, that notice must be pursuant to a written policy that contains reasonable procedures for employees to provide notice. The employer must provide employees with a copy of its written policy and procedures. Unless the employer does so, it cannot deny paid sick time to the employee based on failure to comply with the employer’s policy. Significantly, employees cannot be required to find a replacement worker to cover the hours they miss while using paid sick time.
What Else Do Employers Need to Know?
When an employee starts work or by September 15, 2025, whichever is later, an employer must provide employees with written notice of the following:
- The employee is entitled to paid sick time beginning October 1, 2025.
- The amount of paid sick time, when, and how it is accrued.
- The terms of its use guaranteed under the Healthy Families & Workplace Act.
- Employees will not be subject to retaliation for requesting or using paid sick time.
- An employee has the right to file a lawsuit or complaint if an employer denies paid sick time required by the Healthy Families & Workplace Act or the employee is subjected to retaliation for requesting or using paid sick time.
- Contact information for individuals who can answer questions about rights and responsibilities under the Healthy Families & Workplace Act.
What Happens If an Employer Violates the Healthy Families & Workplace Act?
The Commissioner of Labor can issue a citation to an employer. An administrative penalty of not more than $500 can be assessed for a first violation and not more than $5,000 for a second or subsequent violation. There are procedures to challenge a citation. If the citation is unpaid, the employer will be barred from contracting with the State of Nebraska or any political subdivision until the citation is paid. The names of employers who have received citations will be available to the public on request.
An employee may file a lawsuit for legal and equitable relief in court. If the employee establishes a claim and gets a judgment in his or her favor, the employee will also be entitled to all costs, including reasonable attorney’s fees. An employee has four (4) years after the cause of action accrues to file a lawsuit.
An employer cannot require disclosure of the details of an employee’s or an employee’s family member’s health information as a condition of providing paid sick leave. Any health information possessed by the employer regarding the employee or the employee’s family members, must be maintained in a separate form and in a separate file from other personnel information and be treated as confidential medical records. Any such health information possessed by the employer cannot be disclosed except to the employee or with the express permission of the employee.
How Does An Employer Prepare?
- Draft a paid sick leave policy and procedure or review and revise an existing PTO policy to comply with the new paid sick leave requirements.
- Determine how to handle accrued carryover of sick leave.
- Devise a system to track and report accrued paid sick leave.
- Determine, with the employer’s payroll department or third-party provider, how sick leave information will be provided to employees with their paychecks, particularly those employees with direct deposit.
- Update anti-retaliation provisions in any Employee Handbook or manual to refer to healthy Families 7 Workplaces Act and extend anti-retaliation provisions to requests or use of paid sick leave.
- Draft a written notice to employees containing notice required by the Act.
- Once a poster is published by Nebraska’s DOL, display the poster in a conspicuous location.
- Audit existing recordkeeping practices to ensure there is a procedure for confidentially maintaining an employee’s health information in a separate file from other personnel information, as required under the Act.