Ask HN: are there laws around employees knowing if/why a coworker has time off? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: are there laws around employees knowing if/why a coworker has time off?

4 pointsmatthuggins4 comments

If an employee takes a vacation (in the U.S.), their coworkers generally are aware or have access to the information that someone is out for such a reason. That's generally the case for sick days too. If an employer keeps a calendar for other employees to see history around days off (sick time, vacation, or any other reason), is this allowable? Or are there HIPAA concerns around this?

I'm not quite sure what search term to use to find info regarding the topic, and whether there are federal or state laws around this.

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Try "employee health privacy". Regardless of legality, I don't know why an employer would even want to have a common/shared calendar that includes a history of sick days off. Of course, a manager would maintain that or have access to a system that maintains that, but I don't know why everyone else in the workgroup needs access to a history - even an unofficial one - of someone else's sick days off. I'm sure some will keep unofficial track, especially if the co-worker's absence impacts them - or they perceive that it does - but for the manager to purposely do that. . .I don't see the point.

I'm sure some will keep unofficial track, especially if the co-worker's absence impacts them - or they perceive that it does

Funny you mention that...I had a coworker who used to write funny emails to the team when he was sick. While searching my inbox to show one to my wife, I saw that there were 22 of them in a 2 year period (we only officially got 3 sick days per year). After that, I kept an unofficial tally.

It appears that there are no laws at all in the US about vacation or sick day privacy, but your state may have some. A search for vacation privacy law and similar terms yielded the articles below. There appears to be some evidence that employees have no right to ask you what specifically you are doing on your PTO days, but I didn't find any evidence that prohibited employers from disclosing that you took a sick or vacation day to other employees. HIPAA might apply if for example you provided a doctor's note to HR that explained that you were getting a particular procedure done, and they put that info on the shared calendar. If that is a concern, you should just not share specifics. Just say "I'm requesting a sick day" or "I'm requesting a vacation day" and refuse to elaborate.

http://money.usnews.com/money/blogs/outside-voices-careers/2...

http://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/monitoring-employees-...

[IANAL]

The bigger can of worms for employers in regard to employee health status is ADA. It often encourages sophisticated employers to avoid the concept of sick days altogether and just lump everything into one type of leave.

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