Administrative leave has a bad rep. It’s usually applied during internal investigations or when there’s a pending disciplinary action that needs to be sorted out, so it’s not surprising why both employees and employers dread it so much.
However, administrative leave is not as terrible as it seems – let us show you why!
Read this guide to find out everything you need to know about administrative leave and learn how to handle it correctly + make sure to download our free templates to kick-start your policy writing process.
What Is Administrative Leave?
Administrative leave (aka excused absence) relieves an employee from their job duties due to disciplinary actions (e.g., because of pending investigations into misconduct or other serious allegations).
Its main purpose is to help companies keep things fair and transparent when handling some unpleasant workplace issues. However, excusing an employee from their duties can be tricky, to say the least.
Legal Nuances
Administrative Leave Act
Administrative leave is a common thing among government agencies. In fact, it was so common over the past years that it resulted in a substantial financial loss.
Now, the Administrative Leave Act aims to regulate the use of administrative leave among federal agencies (so that it’s not used as a costly measure to isolate and punish whistleblowers).
- It reduced the duration of involuntary administrative leave to 10 days a year.
- It divided administrative leave in two categories: investigative leave, allowing an agency to investigate the problem in which an employee is involved (for up to 70 days) + notice leave gives an employee some time to wait for a proposed termination or other disciplinary action (without any time limits).
Is administrative leave in the private sector legal?
Traditionally, administrative leave is not regarded as an “adverse employment action,” i.e., it doesn’t imply any discrimination and unfair treatment of employees per se.
However, such perception has underwent a slight change just recently – according to the US Supreme Court’s ruling, administrative leave can be regarded as a discrimination in case it leaves an employee “worse off.”
This term is rather vague and is open to interpretation, which puts additional pressure on any employer who considers placing an employee on administrative leave. You need to be extra careful abiding by the rules and make sure to treat a suspended employee fairly. Otherwise, you risk to bear legal consequences and financial liabilities.
How do you reduce legal risks?
One of the best ways to avoid accusations of discrimination is to include administrative leave in your PTO policy and describe all the associated procedures in depth.
The logic is simple:
If you decide to excuse an employee from their duties out of a sudden, without any previous precedents or relevant rules communicated to your team, your staff members may start to question and condemn your decision. Yet if the policy is well-developed and shared with the team in advance, everyone will understand what’s going on and use the written criteria to measure your actions against.
Let’s see how to craft an administrative leave policy step by step:
Main Topics to Cover in Your Administrative Leave Policy
1. How long does administrative leave last?
The duration of administrative leave usually depends on the circumstances:
- It could last for just a few days if provoked by a minor matter.
- Yet in more complicated cases, it could stretch into weeks or even months.
Of course, it’s in your best interests as an employer to resolve all workplace issues as quickly as possible to minimize any potential disruptions. Yet keep in mind, that it may take a while to review each unique case thoroughly and come up with an adequate solution to your problem.
- Describe in your policy how the duration of administrative leave will be defined in each case.
- Indicate whether it could be prolonged or shortened.
- List the factors that could affect leave duration.
2. When should you place an employee on administrative leave? (Performance-based reasons + adverse workplace behaviors)
Here are some of the major instances when companies implement administrative leave – you can list them in your PTO policy as well:
Protect an employee involved in misconduct
Imagine you’re facing allegations of professional misconduct at work. Such a spotlight is daunting, to say the least, and the judgmental looks from colleagues can be hard to bear.
Here, administrative leave helps you to protect an involved employee from an uncomfortable situation and potential harassment from colleagues. It provides much-needed space and time to assess the situation from every angle without any pressure and keep the workplace atmosphere conflict-free.
Facilitate an ongoing investigation
Consider a more complex scenario where both your company and law enforcement have to scrutinize either financial misconduct, employee harassment, or any other serious allegations.
Placing an accused employee on administrative leave in such a case is the best way to ensure they won’t affect or obstruct the investigation in any possible way. It helps the investigators to get to the heart of the matter without interference and stay objective.
Safeguard sensitive information
Let’s suppose one of your employees is holding key information about your company’s impending criminal court case. Leaking such information poses a tangible threat to your reputation and financial health.
So, you can apply administrative leave as a means to protect that critical information and ensure all the sensitive details remain confidential during the entire period of intense scrutiny.
Address persistent policy violations
Now imagine that one of your employees constantly ignores your organizational policies and standards (e.g., constantly comes late to work or neglects some vital job duties every day). In this case, you can offer them administrative leave as a chance to reassess their behaviors and overall fit within the organization.
However, using administrative leave this way makes sense only in when hiring a new employee will definitely cost you more than hoping for improvement without firing a misbehaving team member.
3. When should you place an employee on administrative leave? (A few positive reasons)
The reasons behind administrative leave don’t have to be secluded to negative workplace experiences alone. You can grant administrative leave in these more positive and universal instances as well:
- Volunteering activities.
- Participation in an Employee Assistance Program.
- Severe weather conditions.
- Participation in relief efforts after emergency situations.
- Blood donation, etc.
The U.S. Office of Personnel Management regards the above examples as the appropriate use of administrative leave, yet you can treat them as disparate leave types with their own unique request procedures and eligibility criteria.
By managing them separately, you can better discern why employees go absent and use this detailed knowledge to inform your decisions on resource and workplace management.
Use actiPLANS to create multiple custom leave types, track them with ease, and get detailed insight into your staff absences over months and years.
4. Does administrative leave mean fired?
According to an HR expert and CHRO, Kris Dunn, an employee put on administrative leave is unlikely to come back from it:
“…for every day you are out, your career expertise and power, as well as your ability to return to your job, decreases in a dramatic way. That stinks. It’s like a game of Fortnite where you have a power level for an individual. You’re getting whacked hard every day you are out, and the players in the game all see your power level after a week of being out and determine it’s only a matter of time before you’re out of the game. This perception makes it hard for you to survive and come back off of paid administrative leave.”
However, administrative leave doesn’t automatically result in employee dismissal (or an inevitable damage to one’s reputation) – it only depends on a unique situation you’re in.
So, how to approach this matter best?
Step 1: state in your PTO policy why administrative leave is necessary:
It gives employers time to investigate, evaluate, and make well-informed decisions in those situations when the presence of an employee could influence ongoing inquiries or create uncomfortable vibes in the workplace.
Step 2: Make sure to explain the purposes of administrative leave in your policy clearly and transparently so that your team members see it as a standard procedure rather than an early goodbye.
Of course, when an employee’s fault is proven and the damage can’t be fixed, dismissal is very likely:
- Clearly state when that’s possible.
- Explain which criteria you will use to justify one’s dismissal and what will happen once they receive a dismissal note.
5. Is administrative leave paid?
The answer is “yes” for the US government agencies. As for private companies, it’s not set in stone.
In most cases, employers choose to pay for administrative leave (especially if it’s initiated by them because of workplace investigations or during an employee’s transitional period).
When deciding how to approach this matter in your company, consider the following factors:
- The reasons behind administrative leave.
- The overall duration of leave.
- Whether employees should use up their earned PTO balance for administrative leave or not.
- The potential effects of unpaid / paid administrative leave on team morale and workplace culture.
- The direct and indirect costs of employee absence during administrative leave.
Set out clear payment guidelines in your PTO policy and stick to them consistently.
6. Other things to address in your administrative leave policy
- Should employees remain available for ongoing meetings with investigators throughout the leave period or can they travel around?
- Can an employee be reassigned to alternative duties instead of taking administrative leave?
- How will their employee benefits be affected by administrative leave?
- What will happen when they return to work after leave? What reintegration procedures will you implement?
- Can an employee take administrative leave voluntarily? How can they do that?
- What will you do to handle administrative leave with respect to the involved employee? How will you ensure their privacy and confidentiality?
- Are there any specific laws and regulations on administrative leave in your region? How do they affect your policy?
Free Administrative Leave Templates
We made a free administrative leave policy template that you can use as a blueprint for writing your own documentation. Plus, our administrative leave notice template will help you inform your employees about this intricate issue politely and ethically.
Fill the below form to download these templates for free, edit them in line with your needs, and use them to your advantage.
Administrative Leave: Step-By-Step Implementation Example
Context
Alex works as an engineer in a large tech enterprise.
He has been placed on administrative leave after a co-worker reported that Alex had shared confidential information about their new developing product with a competitor, and the management decided to carry out a formal investigation.
Process
Step 1:
The HR department officially notified Alex that he was placed on administrative leave. They arranged a private meeting – a senior HR representative thoroughly explained the overall situation and the reasons why leave is necessary.
During this conversation, Alex was informed that administrative leave is not a disciplinary action but rather a neutral measure to make the investigation unbiased. The HR representative gave Alex printed documentation with all the relevant terms: the expected duration of administrative leave, how it will be paid, how the investigation will be carried out, etc.
Lastly, they asked Alex to sign a confidentiality agreement.
Step 2:
While Alex was on leave, the company’s investigation team (consisting of an HR representative, a team manager, and a legal advisor) conducted a thorough probe into the allegations:
- They reviewed Alex’s digital communications.
- Analyzed data access logs.
- Interviewed each involved person and potential witness within the company to piece together a comprehensive picture of the incident.
Even though the investigators did everything possible to examine the issue as swiftly as possible, the process lasted for a month. During this period, Alex was regularly briefed on the ongoing progress.
Step 3:
Once the investigation was over, the findings were reviewed by a senior panel.
They found no definite evidence to support the allegations. Thus, Alex was cleared of any wrongdoing and promptly welcomed back to work with all the appropriate support to help him reintegrate into his role.
Step 4:
The HR representatives had a meeting with the employee who accused Alex of confidentiality breach. They tried to figure out his true motives and gave him a warning note.
Then, they included a section about false accusations regarding any type of misconduct in their organizational policy. They stated why such accusations are harmful to the workplace and employees and described all disciplinary actions that could follow such accusations.
The new policy rules were shared with the entire team via email.
Take Administrative Leave Under Control with actiPLANS
Administrative leave is a tricky issue to handle, but actiPLANS takes the pain out of the equation, making the process effortless and transparent (or not), depending on your preferences.
actiPLANS allows for a flexible approach to leave management:
- Create as many bespoke leave types as you wish and name them however you want.
- Balance transparency to an ideal degree by indicating which employees can track their colleagues’ absences on a visual timeline.
In sum, you can display the specifics of administrative leave to everyone on your team or keep it need-to-know only to maintain just the right level of openness. This way, actiPLANS lets you handle administrative leave in a way that feels perfectly right and safe and gather accurate staff absence data along the way.
Sign up for a free 30-day trial to check out how actiPLANS can help your business with resource management.
