If the bottom of your recent pay stub indicates you have vacation hours to “use or lose” by Dec. 31, you may want to consider donating up to 24 hours of vacation leave to the UNMC Crisis Leave Bank. By donating vacation days to the crisis leave bank, employees have the ability to assist a colleague who must be away from work to battle an illness, take care of an ailing child or parent, or rebound from a devastating house fire.
Requesting crisis leave
“There are occasions when our faculty and staff have misfortunes beyond their control,” said Jane Harris, UNMC Human Resources, director of employee relations. “Crisis leave is about people caring for people. It allows UNMC to be family-friendly and compassionate by providing an employee who qualifies with other options if he or she has exhausted all available, appropriate leave.”
Since 1998, when UNMC implemented the Crisis Leave Sharing Policy, employees who are dealing with an unexpected family or personal crisis have been able to apply for paid crisis leave if they have exhausted all available, appropriate leave, including vacation and sick leave advancement.
When leave is completely exhausted, each crisis leave request is confidentially reviewed on a case-by-case basis. After an advancement of 40 hours of vacation and 40 hours of sick leave (if appropriate to the situation) by the department to the individual, an employee may be awarded paid crisis leave in an amount equal to what he/she accrues in vacation each year, up to a maximum of 24 days/192 hours per rolling calendar year. Times are pro-rated to the FTE percentage for employees who work part-time.
Donations to the crisis leave bank
UNMC employees may donate up to three days/24 hours of vacation leave per calendar year to the crisis leave bank. Donations may be made at anytime during the year, but to allow time for payroll department processing at year-end, they must be received at Employee Relations no later than Dec. 13. The forms, which require the signature of the individual, must be mailed to UNMC Human Resources — Employee Relations at ZIP 5470.
The form for donating vacation has been revised for 2002. It may be obtained from the HR Web site (click on Crisis Leave Donation Form), by e-mail sleslie@UNMC.EDU, or by calling Employee Relations at 402/559-4217.