Memorandum

 

In June, the University of North Carolina System granted its institutions the discretion to establish special COVID-19 voluntary shared leave programs. Chancellor Woodson has approved the establishment of a special COVID-19 voluntary shared leave program at NC State, beginning August 1, 2020, and ending December 31, 2020.

Purpose of the COVID-19 Voluntary Shared Leave Bank and Qualifying Events

The COVID-19 Voluntary Shared Leave Bank will allow NC State employees to voluntarily donate their leave time to other leave-earning NC State employees who have exhausted their accrued leave (both current and future) due to the following COVID-19-related qualifying events:

• The employee is needed to provide child care due to a child care facility changing its schedule, being closed or being unavailable due to COVID-19.
• The employee is needed to provide elder care due to an elder care facility being closed or being unavailable due to COVID-19.

Please note that COVID-19 shared leave is only available for the reasons listed above.

Eligibility to Receive COVID-19 Voluntary Shared Leave

To be eligible to receive shared leave, you must meet all of the following criteria: 

• You are a leave-earning employee. Leave-earning postdoctoral scholars can also receive shared leave.
• You must have been employed at NC State for 30 calendar days prior to the first day of a qualifying event.
• You must request shared leave due to a qualifying event listed above.
• You have exhausted all of your current and future accrued leave (sick, annual/compensatory, bonus and special bonus).
• You have not undergone disciplinary action or administrative action for attendance-related concerns within the last 12 months.

Note: Temporary employees, student workers and nine-month faculty members who don’t earn leave are not eligible to participate in the COVID-19 shared leave program.

Relationship to Faculty Serious Illness and Disability Leave

Nonleave earning nine-month faculty are covered by sections 300.2.11 and 300.2.11[G] of the UNC policy manual, which provides 60 days of continuation pay that can be used to supplement pay as needed for eldercare and child care needs due to COVID-19-related absences. For more information, review the NC State policy.

Donation Process

• Leave-earning employees may donate sick, annual or regular bonus leave to the COVID-19 voluntary shared leave bank.
• A leave-earning employee cannot donate more leave time than they are allotted to accrue for the remainder of the year in which the donation is to be made.
• Employees wishing to donate hours must complete a donation request form. The form will be available on the UHR COVID-19 resources webpage.
• The leave administration team will validate all donations and, if approved, will remove the donated hours from the donor’s leave accrual bank at the end of the month in which the leave donation was approved.
• When a donation is accepted, the employee will receive a confirmation email.
• Donations will be distributed to recipients on an as needed basis.
• The leave administration team will distribute donations on or about the 15th day of the month following the month in which the donation was received.
• 2017 and 2018 special bonus leave cannot be donated.

Requesting COVID-19 Voluntary Shared Leave 

• Eligible employees will be able to request COVID-19 shared leave by completing a request form that will be available through the University Human Resources COVID-19 resources webpage.
• Eligible employees can request a maximum of 80 hours per month.
• The UHR leave administration team will receive the request form and validate employees’ eligibility to receive shared leave, review the status of employees’ leave banks and distribute leave donations, if available, to recipients.
• While the employee’s COVID-19 shared leave request is being validated, the employee will be instructed to go to WolfTime and enter all leave time taken prior to approval for COVID-19 shared leave as leave without pay until the employee’s eligibility and the availability of donations can be confirmed.
• If a donation is approved, the leave administration team will adjust any leave without pay based on availability of donations.
• A request for COVID-19 shared leave is not guaranteed to be approved.
• All distributions of COVID-19 shared leave are subject to the availability of leave time in the leave bank and the number of requests for shared leave.
• COVID-19 shared leave requests can be submitted at any time. Requests will be processed on a first-come, first-served basis.
• Requests received on or before the 10th day of a month will be included in that month’s distribution process. Requests received after the 10th day of a month will be included in the following month’s distribution process.

Implementation 

The COVID-19 Voluntary Shared Leave Bank will begin accepting shared leave donations on July 27. The form to request shared leave hours will be available Aug. 3. The donation and request forms will be available on the University Human Resources Pandemic website.

Additional Information

If you have general questions regarding the COVID-19 Voluntary Shared Leave, please contact your local college, division or unit HR representative or University Human Resources at ffcra-questions@ncsu.edu.

For more COVID-19 guidelines or resources, visit UHR’s pandemic website.