Welcome and Introduction

Hello everyone and thank you for joining us today. I’m Becky Gibbs. I’m a partner here at Boyum Barenscheer and I work closely with the construction companies on audit accounting and and advisory matters. We’re excited to have you with us today for the session because this is a topic we know is a top of mind for many construction leaders right now.

I’m pleased to introduce today’s presenter, Nicole Tilman. Nicole is the founder of Shared Objectives and a seasoned HR adviser with deep experience helping construction companies navigate people, compliance, and organizational challenges. She works closely with business owners and leadership teams to build practical, compliant, and people focused solutions that actually work in the real world. Nicole brings a strong understanding of the construction industry and the unique workforce challenges that come with it. And we’re grateful to have her here today to share some insights with us. Nicole, thanks so much for being here and I’ll turn it over to you.

All right. Thank you. Um so I really appreciate that, Becky, and thanks to Boyum and Barenscheer for having me today.

Uh quick note before we dive in. As you may see um on the topic line here uh it says that I’m from shared objectives on the materials and I just want to let you know that uh I’m in the middle of rebranding myself. So you’re going to see some interchange between shared objectives and clear HR floating around.

I just kind of wanted to explain that upfront for you. Um same same framework, same me. Um just a little bit of a refresher of a name.

So a couple of quick housekeeping things that I want you to know is that we are recording today and uh so if you joined late or you want to revisit anything there will be access to another uh there will be access to the session and I really you know webinars are very challenging right because we cannot communicate directly like like we prefer to sometimes but it also gives us access to each other so I want to make this feel as much like a real conversation as possible.

So, with that, I want to remind you, please use the chat if you’ve got any questions. Uh, Becky is going to stay on with us and she’ll interrupt me if she feels like something is uh important at the time. And um then if it’s something that I’ll be covering uh you know in the future, I will just put a pause on it and we’ll cover it at that point.

But this is meant to be useful for you. This is not about me selling myself, but making sure that you walk away with some useful information and getting some of your questions answered. So, please do not hesitate to do that. Um, and remember, if you’re thinking about something, somebody else always is.

Level Setting and Audience Poll

So, I guess with that, we’re going to get into it. First, I kind of want to level set for us. Um, you know, we’re all in a particular spot in our businesses right now. And really, the message that I want to communicate with you today is that wherever you are is the right place to be. Um, I am not somebody who likes to use scare tactics. I really just want to make sure that I’m helping you through where your company is at and where you are at.

So, you know, to get things rolling, get you a little bit familiarized with the chat feature, let’s go ahead and ask you to open up the chat. Let’s kind of level set and get a better understanding about our participants today. So, open up your chat and let me know. Are you uh in the category of A, you’re already kind of navigating a leave request for the FM, excuse me, the Minnesota paid leave, or um are you already prepped but haven’t had a claim yet? Or are you still figuring this out and if it fully applies to you? We’re just here to learn. So, let’s start with the A, B, and C. Uh D, and let’s go from there.

We have an A, we have a B.

Some D’s, more B’s, more it’s all over the board, it’s looking like.

Okay. Well, and that’s kind of what I expected. Um, and so, you know, lots of B’s. Okay. So, that is great to hear. That means that you’ve done some preparations. Um, you haven’t quite stepped in it with your toes yet. You haven’t had um somebody taking some time off. So, this is a great time to kind of just bring some awareness to you.

What Is Minnesota Paid Leave?

Um, let’s go ahead and move on and have a little bit more conversation now about really what is the Minnesota paid leave and you know what’s really actually happening out there.

So, um, so this is a leave that just started January 1st of 2026 as we all know or as most of us probably know if we’re on the session. So, really uh what I want to mention before we dive in too much today is not going to be legal lecture. It’s really kind of just that practical real life uh real world stuff telling you how to apply this uh to your workplaces.

So, um now that we’ve kind of gotten through our poll, we understand where everybody is at. Let’s talk about what the Minnesota paid leave is and just use it in plain language version, right?

So, it’s a paid leave of absence that allows employees and let me clarify that if you think that you might be exempt, you certainly are not. This is uh an unusual regulation where nearly every employer is required to align with the law unless you are a federal government agency or there’s some very nuance small exceptions. So basically if you’re on this, the law is going to be applicable for you.

So what it allows is your employees to take paid time off for qualifying family or medical reasons.

And the benefits, unlike some short-term disability or other types of benefits, are not paid by an insurance company per se. They’re not paid by you. You’re not required to pay it as like the ESST, the earned sick and safe time.

However, the benefits are paid through a state fund. Now, you may have decided to work with an insurance company. Ah, there we go. Uh you may have decided to work with an insurance company in lieu of the state’s funding program. However, for the most part, I’m going to speak to it as if it’s a state funded program.

If you are working with an insurance company to provide the benefits to your employees, they are required to follow the law verbatim. So, there really shouldn’t be a great amount of nuance. It’s really just going to be the application process. So, I want to clarify that to you.

So, um important to note that the employees funding is coming through payroll contributions that you can choose to cover 100% or you can choose to cover a portion of it. You have to pay at least 50% of it. But again, today I’m not going to dive into quite the fine details of the regulation.

Who Qualifies?

So what qualifies is the question and this is a very broad area for employers to kind of wrap their head around because very oftentimes we’ve got very specific laws.

Um you know this person is covered. So the applicable people for the family members is very substantial. It can be your immediate family member. It can be somebody who is just merely somebody who depends upon you like a family member.

And that’s what makes a lot of our employers a little bit nervous about this particular law because of the way that it’s written. I think it leaves people hesitant that they’re going to have employees abuse it.

And certainly, you know, reality check says that you may have some people who abuse it because it’s not just, you know, my mother, my father. It could be my neighbor across the street who relies upon me for their routine care. It could be a cousin across the country who all of a sudden became sick and you need to go to their attention.

Now, that doesn’t mean that the employee will not be required to provide evidence that such a situation is happening to their family member or their close person to them. However, it does leave kind of this wide open space where they would have eligibility for leaves for situations that they otherwise would not have.

The reason why that is important is because that leaves a lot of opportunity for employees to be absent where they weren’t before. That leaves open operational challenges for you as business owners and business leaders.

Now, if I can be gone for somebody being sick that’s my neighbor and all of a sudden I can take a leave of absence for that, now I have a better opportunity to be away from work and now you’re left covering work.

Um I was given the information about the demographics of our attendees today and I understand that the vast majority of you are 20 or under employees. So significant just to have one key person gone or even if they’re not a key person that’s a significant disruption to your workforce, right?

So that’s a very important thing to point out. This is not just something that requires you to allow people to take time off of work. It requires you to hold their position with your company so it puts you at a deficit for your productivity, potentially impacting your clients. It potentially impacts your ability to get your projects done, etc.

Other reasons that we can take that time off would be bonding with a new child. That new child could be birth, adoption, it could be fostering a new child as well.

Uh, you can also take it off for safety situations. Again, we’ve had protections for domestic violence, stalking, and assault in the past. Um, but this does make it a paid opportunity hopefully for those people to get the protections that they need.

And then of course we’ve got family member on active duty which also qualifies for these paid leaves of absences.

Minnesota Paid Leave and FMLA

One thing that I’ve got noted, you’ll see there in the bold black, I try to call out some points and common misconceptions or concerns that I hear.

So, if you are a larger company and you are required to follow FMLA, which is the Family Medical Leave Act, um again, I understand majority of you on this call today are not in that sector, but if you are, it’s important to understand that FMLA and the Minnesota Paid Leave run concurrently.

This does not present the opportunity for your employees to double up or stack leaves of absences. They can take a maximum amount of time off under this regulation and it’s running at the exact same time as FMLA required leave.

So, it’s not you have to give them 12 weeks plus 12 weeks. It’s 12 weeks under both umbrellas.

How Leave Is Taken

Continuous, Scheduled, and Intermittent Leave

So, let’s talk about how the leave is actually taken. Um, this is actually something that surprises some people and employers. I think, for the most part, a lot of us think about a leave of absence. We’re thinking we’re going to be out, we have a surgery, we’re going to be out for 2, four weeks, 12 weeks if you’re having child, etc.

A continuous leave of absence is definitely one type of leave. The scheduled leave of absence and the intermittent leave of absence is actually very common in the workplace if you haven’t had the opportunity to experience that.

So, scheduled leave of absences might be a situation where you yourself, you have a family member or again that more expansive acknowledgement of people that are important to you, that you help out. If they’ve got a scheduled appointment, for example, if somebody’s going to chemo every week or they get radiation every other week or two times a week for a couple months, that’s considered a scheduled leave of absence.

Then we also have an intermittent leave of absence. So, that is more common when somebody has an ailment, a chronic ailment, when they do have recurring bouts of an illness that come up. However, it’s not always predictable like a scheduled leave of absence.

Now, all of these do fall under the Minnesota paid leave. So that’s why it’s important conversation to have to understand how it could impact you and your operations.

Maximum Duration

Maximum duration of these leaves of absences is important to understand. Uh you can have up to 12 weeks or an employee can have up to 12 weeks of a leave of absence for medical leave for themselves personally.

They can also have up to 12 weeks of family leave. So if I have a child and I need to recover from that for 8 weeks because that’s what my doctor says and then I want more time for a family leave which would be that bonding time for my child, I don’t necessarily get 12 weeks plus 12 weeks.

I get the eight weeks that my doctor said I need to be off for medical purposes and then I can also have 12 more weeks for that family leave because the combined total benefit for an employee is capped at 20 weeks and that’s in a benefit year.

So, if I’ve got multiple situations under each category that I can cap out at the 20 weeks.

Question: Taking Care of Sick Kids

Nicole, there was one question that came through. Can they take intermittent leave to take care of sick kids?

Um, the way that the leave of absence works for the Minnesota paid leave is that the duration needs to be at least seven days long, a week. So, intermittent leave under the Minnesota paid leave isn’t necessarily intended for that purpose.

Now, if somebody had a child with an illness, like a chronic illness, that would be a situation where you would encourage them to apply for the Minnesota paid leave because they might be, you know, their child might have a bout of their cancer treatment or their IBS or whatever chronic condition that they might have.

What we’ll be talking about in just a couple moments is ESST, the earned sick and safe time, which is also still in place. And that’s typically where you would expect an employee to utilize the ESST time in lieu of intermittent type family paid leave because that’s more applicable for just the my kid is sick or my child is sick with influenza, you know, for three days this week, I need to miss work.

I hope that helps answer the question.

ESST and Minnesota Paid Leave

So, ESST is the earned sick and safe time act that was put into place a few years ago now. And sometimes what I’m hearing from employers is a lot of confusion about well does this replace ESST?

Um is this an addition to it? And you know just the lack of clarity around that.

So ESST, earned sick and safe time, again is not a replacement. Excuse me. Minnesota paid leave is not a replacement for earned sick and safe time.

So the ESST stays in place. If you’re not familiar with the ESST, I would encourage you to do some searching after that. Give me a call if you’ve got some questions.

ESST is a benefit that you pay. Now the Minnesota paid leave is actually a benefit that the state pays. So it’s not coming directly out of your pocket.

ESST is intended to be kind of like a sick bank if you want to think about it like that.

So, this is really where I see the gap when I’ve been working with employers, whether it was last year as we’re prepping to be aligned with the Minnesota paid leave or whether I’m working with them now because they’re trying to play a little bit of catch-up.

Most employers are pretty close to following this regulation, the ESST. They might just be missing a detail or two.

ESST Challenges and Questions

Biggest challenge is payroll software meeting all all the requirements. What if our PTO policy is unlimited?

Two very common questions that come up.

The one about the payroll company, I can just say yes, I recognize that and I’ve worked with I’ve tried to help some of my clients work with their payroll providers. Usually they can figure it out.

With the unlimited PTO, that can be a tricky road. A couple of reasons that is because the regulation actually specifically says that you have to put on everybody’s pay stubs what their ESST approval is.

There are ways that you can work around that. But you do need to put that on their pay stub where you put any other information such as their deductions.

One more. Can we eliminate the carryover per our manual even though they have earned it per the ESST policy?

Okay, that’s a little bit of a loaded question that I think I need to dive in a little bit deeper with. The regulation does very specifically say how you can or are required to carry over or pay out. So, in this case, I’m going to either refer you to that or schedule some time with me and we can have a little bit of a chat.

Construction Employer Reality Check

So now we’re going to have a reality check. So where the construction employers are getting stuck.

So the reality is we’ve taken some time at this juncture. We’ve already prepared some policies. Hopefully we’ve handed out some notices etc. But really what happens when somebody calls in at 7 a.m. and calls your foreman because this is our reality check.

You might have a foreman. It might be calling you but either way they’re saying I need some time off for this medical thing. So what should happen next?

These are the things that we want to make sure that you and whoever is possibly taking that phone call are prepared for.

The challenges are that sometimes you’ve got multiple supervisors, you’ve got multiple sites, you know, who is your point person? So if these are not conversations that you’ve had already, this is important for you to cover.

This is going to make sure that you are not putting yourself in a risky area, you’re not putting your supervisors in a risky area.

Also seasonal workers, can they qualify for the Minnesota paid leave? The answer is almost always yes.

The seasonal workers if you read the regulation it will have some exemptions for seasonal workers. It is a very specific exemption meant to be for people working in the hospitality industry. So not at all related to the seasonal workers that construction employers have.

Other areas that we’re finding construction companies getting stuck is time tracking in the field.

Subcontractors versus employees is a topic that has been really talked about a lot recently in the news and with government regulations.

I don’t necessarily have time to focus on that, but there is a blurry line with that and the risk is real.

What to Say and What Not to Say

So now we’re talking about these missteps or challenges that we’ve seen. Let’s talk about what we can say and what we can’t say.

So again, who’s your first line of contact? If that’s you, making sure that you understand. If it’s your supervisors, your foreman, give them the words to say.

If somebody’s asking your supervisor and they don’t know the right answer or they’re tentative, just make sure that they connect them with the right person, right?

We want to make sure that they’re getting in what they’re entitled to.

Now what not to say, and this can be difficult especially when we’re in a smaller organization and we feel more like family.

What we need to make sure is that where the line between employer and friend or family doesn’t get crossed.

We don’t want to dive into what somebody’s diagnosis is, what’s wrong with them.

What’s important is that you keep it confidential. We don’t need to go sharing it. It’s that person’s story to share.

Other things that can infer that there would be retaliation or that we don’t want somebody to take a leave of absence like, “Oh gosh, we really can’t afford you being out right now. You know, the deadline’s coming up. We’re supposed to have this project done.”

Typical responses I’ve seen like, “Really? You need that much?” even just the facial expressions that go with it can put the employee in a position where they don’t feel like they can ask for that leave of absence.

And that’s where challenges can come up.

Documentation and Compliance

So, documentation, I do want to talk about that.

I’ve had some situations where I’ve had employers or supervisors maybe step in and say not quite the right thing like well I need documentation from your doctor and really in fact a supervisor shouldn’t be getting their hands on that kind of information because it has private information.

You can ask for confirmation about the required leave, the expectation for the time off, but you can’t necessarily ask for their diagnosis, their treatment details, how serious it is, etc.

With Minnesota paid leave specifically, they do not need to tell you what their diagnosis is or more detail. They need to report to you that they need to leave and when they expect to be out.

So, interference and retaliation, that’s another call out that I have. And that’s that unintentional push back.

The important message again is talking about it with your supervisors and your line leaders or your crewmen and making sure they know what is the appropriate thing to say.

Notice Requirements

Okay, compliance. So compliance is a real part of this.

There is a notice requirement. If you did not notify your employees of the paid leave rights, it is what it is, but let’s move forward. Let’s try to get that out to your employees right away.

There is a prepared standard draft out on the Minnesota website and we will actually send you information after the webinar that will have some of this information on it.

That’s where you’ll find a template. You simply download and give that information to your employees.

So, it is that written notice. You have to provide it to all employees. Even if they’re family members, just document that you gave it to them.

It’s best and actually you are required to have them sign off that they’ve received it.

You are required to provide that notice to an employee at their hire time as well as if they are applying for leave.

You have to also make sure that posting is visible.

Additional Considerations

So, this awareness is really what I’m trying to reinforce with everybody.

When I have conversations with my clients, here’s some other things that we’re finding.

Timekeeping. So, I’ve mentioned it a couple times, making sure that your timekeeping is consistent and that your field-based people are reporting time routinely and in the same fashion to make your life easier.

This has also been a point at which I’ve been discovering some exemption and non-exempt miscategorization.

Just because somebody is a supervisor and you pay them a salary, that does not automatically mean that they’re exempt from the Fair Labor Standards Act, which requires overtime.

The contractor versus employee, that’s probably been on your mind or you’ve heard it a few times if you’ve been in business for a little while.

And then I think the biggest thing is just having undocumented policies.

There are some areas where you’re going to want to document policies, not because we’re trying to tie your hands or make you too formal of an organization, but because it’s going to help you mitigate risk and help you be compliant.

Readiness Checklist

So today, I’m going to ask you just to take a moment or two.

You do not need a full HR department, especially if you’re this size company as the majority of you are.

But what you do need to understand is whether or not you can answer these questions.

So, do you know the difference between intermittent continuous leave and do your foreman supervisors? If not, it’s a good starting point.

Have you distributed that required leave notice I just talked about? If you have not, that’s a good starting point for you.

Do your employees know that the benefit is paid by the state and not by you? And what that means for them?

Do they know what to say and what not to say?

If they’re not certain, that’s okay. Just make sure they’re pointing their employees or their crewmen to the right person.

And the other thing that’s really important, especially for this regulation and any auditability, if you ever get challenged for any purpose, not just this Minnesota paid leave, but if somebody asks you for your time and pay records tomorrow, could you produce them and feel okay about them?

And if you’re saying no, not sure, that’s where your starting point is with some of this.

The important thing is just not to avoid it.

Closing Remarks and Q&A

Bottom line here, again, I’m trying to reiterate that this is not just a policy issue. This is something that really impacts your operations in a number of different ways.

You need to make sure that you’re compliant. You need to make sure your employees are happy and also getting their rightfully deserved leave of absences when it’s appropriate.

It’s not just impacting your people, it’s impacting the opportunity for you to get your projects done on time.

I really encourage you if you don’t have redundancies built in for some of your positions, this is a great time to think about that.

Clarity and consistency, that writing a few things down doesn’t need to be super formal. It just needs to be written and it needs to be followed.

You don’t have to figure this out on your own. You’ve got great resources.

There’s a lot of great free resources out there. I would just really encourage you to try to make sure that you’re using a credible resource.

AI, artificial intelligence is great, but I have caught it myself very many times referring to outdated language. So it is not always the best source, but it can be a source to get you started.

And then I, of course, you know, I do this for a living, but I am always happy to take some questions.

You’ll see on the next slide that I’ll provide my contact information if you’re interested. I’m always happy to try to answer a couple questions if I can.

Two more questions. How often do you report to the state? Quarterly or monthly?

Um the state gets information quarterly and it is reported at the exact same time or in the exact same filing as your unemployment filing.

Okay, that probably answers the second one of explain the quarterly payroll submission process.

Yes, so that is the one thing that the state did do easy. Not that they made everything challenging, but they were thoughtful with that.

I do want to mention that if you are an owner operator and you are not, if you are paying yourself W2 wages, but you are not eligible or reporting for unemployment, that does not mean you’re exempt from the Minnesota paid leave or the Minnesota paid leave premiums, the deductions from each paycheck.

If you are one of those people, you can grab some time with me. You can look it up online. But exempt from unemployment does not mean exempt from Minnesota paid leave.

Otherwise, it’s just the same as your unemployment report that you send over. It’s going to be done at the same time.

With that, Becky, any final words? I apologize. I went just a hair over.

No, but I do thank you for your time.

Yep. No more questions. So, thank you Nicole for sharing your insights with us today and thank you to all of you for joining us. We will be sharing this webinar so it should be up and available on our website within the next 48 hours and we appreciate the time you’ve taken with us today.

And if you have any additional questions, don’t hesitate to reach out to us at Boyum or Nicole. She’s got her QR code up there for you.

So, thanks again and everyone have a great day.