THE Commonwealth Ports Authority board of directors on Monday approved a policy that grants employees a day off each quarter.
The goal is to help address mental distress that poses long-term consequences for CPA “by harming employees’ mental state, productivity, and overall job satisfaction.”
CPA Chairwoman Kimberlyn King-Hinds said the board “recognizes that mental health is [a] critical component [of] the overall well-being of our employees.”
“We want to be proactive and create a workplace culture that empowers our employees to practice self-care before they get burnt out or suffer from further mental stress. Mental health struggles negatively impact the workplace; it decreases productivity and performance, leads to poor communication with coworkers, and leads to other stress-related illnesses,” King-Hinds added.
“We hope that our employees will take advantage of this new leave policy, which gives them a day off per quarter, to practice self-care before they begin to get to the point where they feel completely burnt out,” she said.
The new policy states that “employees shall accrue eight hours of self-care leave on the first date of each quarter or upon the date the employee first becomes eligible to receive employee benefits.”
Any self-care leave accrued “shall expire at the end of the last day of the quarter that the self-care leave was accrued.”
Self-care leave quarters will be from Jan. 1 to March 31; April 1 to June 30; July 1 to Sept. 30; and Oct. 1 to Dec. 31.
The CPA board encourages employees to use self-care leave for the purpose of promoting their mental health wellness.
The self-care leave must be approved by the employee’s supervisor or manager while the executive director approves the self-care leave for managers and staff attorneys.
Denial of self-care leave must be for a good reason and may be a basis of an employee grievance. The right to use self-care leave is contingent upon management’s requirements.
Kimberlyn King-Hinds
