The Illinois Employee Sick Leave Act went into effect on January 1, 2017 of this year. The law requires those employers who offer sick leave to employees to allow employees to use that sick leave to look after sick or injured family members. The law covers care of a spouse, children, grandchildren, parents, step-parents and grandparents.

The employer may place some additional restrictions on employees taking sick leave to care for family member, specifically by limiting the time to the amount accrued during six months of the year. In other words, if an employee earns 16 hours of sick leave in a given year, the employer can restrict the amount used for family care to eight.

If you have not already done so, please review your company’s paid leave policies to make sure that you are in compliance with the new law.