For Colorado employers, 2020 causes sickening whiplash

In a year beset by cataclysmic changes in business and social life, Colorado employers faced more than just ever-changing guidance and advice on how to keep themselves and their employees safe. They also faced the near-herculean task of staying abreast of constantly changing paid sick leave rules. Many experienced truly sickening whiplash.

HELP rules provide anything but

Starting the year with no Colorado or federal requirements to provide paid sick leave to their employees, many Colorado employers first had to grapple with the Colorado Health Emergency Leave with Pay (HELP) rules, which significantly changed the landscape. Becoming effective on March 11, 2020, just as the COVID-19 pandemic was taking hold, the HELP rules issued by the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment (CDLE) first mandated that employers in discrete industries (leisure and hospitality, food services, child care, education, home health care, nursing homes, and community living facilities) provide up to four days of fully paid sick leave for employees who (1) had flu-like symptoms and (2) were being tested for the coronavirus.

Effective March 26, the CDLE then changed the rules, adding a new category of covered industry (retail establishments selling groceries) while also expanding the scope of employees entitled to leave to include those who (1) had flu-like symptoms and (2) were being tested for COVID-19 or were under instructions from a healthcare provider to quarantine or isolate because of a coronavirus risk.