COVID-19 Dilemma: Should We Offer Sick Leave or Full Pay for Ill Employees?

During this COVID-19 situation in my company, one incident happened. One of our employees came to the office and, due to illness, he went home. Now, as per state government guidelines, what should we do? Can we consider it as paid leave, e.g., sick leave, or do we have to pay for a full day without deducting any leave?

You can ask the employee to avail all his full quota of leave for his absence from duty so that his salary can be paid until the exhaustion of his leave.

You can consider paying for a full day present without deducting any leave. This is a good thought, but it would create a precedent. You can handle this in another way by providing financial assistance. Currently, this is an isolated case, but there may be more cases due to the pandemic situation.

New Regulations on COVID-19 Workplace Infections

The new regulations provided by the state government require you to pay full salary and not to terminate any person who has contracted COVID-19 on account of their workplace. However, this is applicable only in certain specified employments, so please refer to the "Breaking The Chain" notifications of April 5, 4, and 9. Also, note that this applies only to those who got infected at the workplace and not to those who were infected at home.

Handling Other Cases

In all other cases, you may proceed in the normal method of using sick leave. It may be better to pay the person despite not having sick leave to encourage them not to come to work when they are unwell (and possibly infect others). However, this decision is entirely up to the company management.