University of California’s support of work-life balance includes providing access to paid sick leave and offering sick leave protections for all employees. 

Sick Leave 

• Staff and student employees, including those in less than 50% FTE appointments, accrue sick leave when in sick-leave accruing titles. Accrual is based on hours on pay status. Review the Holiday and Leave Accrual Rates page for more details.
• UC Davis Health employees who accrue PTO accrue Extended Sick Time. EST hours are used when a PTO accruing employee uses more than 24 hours of PTO for eligible sick leave purposes in one instance. The first 24 hours will be applied to PTO-S, and additional time will be considered Extended Sick Time.
• Per diem appointments are granted 8 hours of sick leave each year and can roll over unused sick leave hours to a maximum of 16 sick leave hours in a year. The annual 8 hours are added to the sick leave bank on Jan. 1 of each year. For new Per Diem hires, the paid sick leave will be credited and available for use on the next working day following the employee’s first monthly or quadriweekly pay cycle.

Protected Sick Leave

• Employees can designate up to 6 days per year of their sick leave as protected, prohibiting any form of retaliation or discrimination for its use (see definition on UCnet). Your protected paid sick leave balance is displayed in UCPath.
• Employees are required to notify their supervisor that they are designating the requested sick leave as protected at the time it is requested.
• Employees will enter the designated protected sick leave as “protected” on their timesheet for approval by their supervisor.
  Protected sick leave is only a designation of existing accrued sick leave and not an additional bank of paid sick leave.

Use of Sick Leave

• Employees can use paid sick leave for a broad range of situations refer to UC PPSM 2.210 Absence From Work or your Collective Bargaining Agreement for details on sick leave use. 

Reinstatement of sick leave upon rehire

• Sick leave balances will be reinstated if an employee returns to UC employment within 12 months of separation, unless the balance was converted to UCRP retirement credit.

For more information

Learn more on UCnet including some key FAQs:

• Does an employee have to notify the University before taking paid sick leave?
• What is meant by “protected” paid sick leave?
• Is any unused paid sick leave reinstated if an employee is rehired by UC?