Time Away From Work

Lurie Children’s offers a variety of benefits that allow you time to relax, recover, care for family members, honor personal commitments and take time away due to short- and long-term disability.

Time away from work is critical to your wellbeing and your ability to serve our patients. You accrue PTO hours each pay-period. PTO hours can be used for holidays, vacation, illness and other eligible time off. New employees are eligible to use PTO starting 90 days after hire, holidays right away.

You accrue up to (pro-rated based on FTE status):

Directors and above will participate in an allowed time off program (ATO) instead of paid time off (PTO). ATO hours can be used for holidays, vacations, illnesses, and other eligible time off. Time away from work frequency will be determined by the leader, and new employees are eligible to use ATO starting 90 days after hire, holidays immediately.

Refer to Allowed Time Off for a thorough review.

Paid Sick Leave (PSL) is a benefit which provides paid time off to employees for their own illness or medical care, or for the care or illness of a Family Member, and for other reasons as permitted under applicable law.

Refer to Paid Sick Leave for a thorough review.

If eligible, you may be able to take Family Medical Leave to care for your spouse, child or parent who has a serious health condition. Under FMLA, employees are provided up to 12 weeks of unpaid, job-protected leave for a qualifying medical reason, including your own serious health condition or to care for that of a family member. See below a few reasons for such leave:

• Birth/Placement (Bonding)
• Family Medical
• Employee Medical
• Qualifying Exigency
• Injured Service Member (Military Caregiver)

See Family and Medical Leave for more details.

See Leave of Absence Request Details to review how to request a new leave of absence or report an intermittent FML absence on an approved leave.

Non-FMLA is leave for an employee’s own medical condition and includes:

• Leave for an employee whose FMLA leave has been exhausted; and
• Leave for an employee who is not eligible for FMLA leave (for example, the employee does not have sufficient hours or length of service).

See Personal Leave and Non-FMLA Medical Leave for more details.

In addition to other leaves provided, Lurie Children’s permits leaves of absence to eligible employees who need time off from work duties. This could include to take classes or to pursue other educational activities, for family or personal reasons or other compelling reasons. Personal Leaves are granted at the hospital’s discretion.

See Personal Leave and Non-FMLA Medical Leave for more details.

For many of you, family is an important part of life, and we recognize that sometimes you need time to dedicate to your loved ones. To help support employees who are new parents through birth, adoption, legal guardianship or long-term foster care placement, Lurie Children’s will provide up to 2 weeks of paid Parental Leave.

The purpose of paid parental leave is to support employees while they care for and bond with a newborn or newly adopted or placed child. This paid time may be, but is not required to be taken concurrently with leave available under the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA), as applicable.

See Parental Leave for more details.

To support your service to your country, you may be eligible for an approved leave of absence consistent with the requirements of the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act of 1994 (USERRA).

Military leave is an unpaid leave. Employees on military leave may substitute their accrued paid leave time for unpaid leave.

See Military Leave of Absence for more details.

If you are called to jury duty or subpoenaed to serve as a witness, you can receive the paid time off needed to meet your civic obligations.

See Jury Duty for more details.

In the unfortunate event of the death of a family member, you may receive time off for bereavement, depending on the deceased’s relation to you.

Funeral/Bereavement Time Off

Three days of funeral pay (based on your normally scheduled hours) will be granted to attend the funeral of a spouse, same-sex partner, parent, step-parent, sibling, in-law, grandparent, grandparent in-law and grandchild.

Child Bereavement Leave Policy (CBLA)

The Medical Center provides job protected leave under the CBLA, which allows for employees who have suffered the loss of a child to take up to two weeks (10 days) of unpaid leave.

See Funeral/Bereavement Time Off and Child Bereavement Leave Policy for more details.

Lurie Children’s provides job protected leave under the Victim’s Economic Security and Safety Act (VESSA), which allows for employees who are victims of domestic or sexual violence or who have family or household members who are victims of such violence to take unpaid leave.

See the VESSA policy to learn more.