Working parents are struggling to manage their work and family responsibilities every day. The school nurse or day care provider calls because a child has a high temperature and must be picked up. An elderly parent has a health emergency and must be taken to the doctor. While most workplaces offer sick days, nearly half do not allow them to be used for the care of other family members.

What are these workers to do? Lie to the boss and risk losing their job? Ignore the crisis and put their loved one at risk? These are untenable choices. No one should have to choose between their sick family members and their paycheck. Such choices often lead to job loss or worsening health for children and elders. And the businesses that put their employees in such a bind are losing out as well.

The work force has changed, and the workplace must change as well. The need for flexible sick leave is acute. Ninety-five percent of fathers and 72 percent of mothers with children under 18 are in the work force. The number of individuals 75 and older is expected to double in the next two decades, and two out of three Americans are predicted to be the primary caregiver of an elderly relative by 2008. On top of that, the average workweek is getting longer, putting even more pressure on the time available to care for families.

The need for sick leave flexibility is particularly severe for working women, who carry most of the burden for family care-giving. The problem strikes low-wage mothers hardest because they tend to have less access to flexible sick leave and suffer most from the threat of or actual job loss. There are many families whose lives are disrupted, economically and otherwise, by their employer’s failure to offer them even the most minimal flexibility in their sick leave benefit.

But this is not just an issue for low-income families. Maine has a critical shortage of highly skilled workers, which is forcing businesses to rethink their recruitment and retention strategies. Workers value family friendly policies more than almost every other workplace benefit. The flexible use of sick leave is one basic benefit that workers are increasingly demanding.

Best practice employers already provide flexible use of sick time because they understand the benefits of doing so. In fact, 54 percent of employers responding to the 2004 Department of Labor Fringe Benefit survey report that they already offer this benefit to full-time workers. But our system of voluntary flexible leave is failing to reach thousands of caregivers whose families depend on them.

Flexible leave for family care is good for the business bottom line. When employees are supported to take care of family health needs, they are less stressed, more loyal to the company and more productive. Businesses thereby benefit from decreased worker turnover and a more productive work force. According to a 2001 study published in the Journal of Managerial issues, offering workers the option of taking time off when a family member is sick affects profits positively.

In a 1998 Watson Wyatt survey of 614 companies, flexibility was ranked by half of the companies as their most effective retention tool, better than above-market salaries, stock options or training. Conversely, the cost of replacing a lost worker is conservatively estimated to be $1,000 on average for large employers and even more for a small employer. For example, the Saratoga Institute found that it costs 150 to 200 percent of a salaried person’s yearly earnings to replace him or her.

These costs are incurred through both voluntary departures, when an employee faced with an impossible choice must leave her job, or through termination. There is also the public cost: That is, when workers are fired and must therefore access public assistance.

The Maine Legislature is considering a bill to allow workers to use their already accrued sick leave benefit when they need it to care for sick children or adult family members. It does not create an additional benefit. Instead, it simply codifies this best practice of allowing flexible use of sick leave for family care. Adding such flexibility would be a positive step forward for in Maine’s efforts to attract skilled workers and to support Maine’s current work force.

Lisa Pohlmann is the associate director of the Maine Center for Economic Policy.