Colorado Health Emergency Leave with Pay (“Colorado HELP”) Rules

• Unemployment insurance: For information on unemployment insurance claims, eligibility, and requirements, visit the CDLE Division of Unemployment Insurance page.
• Discrimination and accommodation: For information on workplace discrimination (disability, age, pregnancy, etc.) or related accommodations, visit the Colorado Civil Rights Division page, or that of the local office of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
• Workplace safety: For information on workplace safety issues, visit the page of the local office of the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration, and/or you may report violations, and ask about specific requirements, to your local county public health agency.
• Paid sick leave: For the federal paid leave rules applicable to employers with fewer than 500 employees, visit the U.S. Department of Labor page, then contact the local office (866-487-9243 or 720-264-3250) with any remaining questions. For the Colorado HELP Rules covering paid leave for employers of all sizes, read the rest of this page below.

• Temporarily requires employers in certain industries (listed below) to provide up to two weeks of sick leave, at ⅔ pay, to employees with flu-like or other respiratory illness symptoms who are being tested for coronavirus COVID-19 or are under instructions to quarantine or isolate due to a risk of having COVID-19

• Employers and employees in one of the following industries or jobs are covered:
  • Leisure and hospitality
  • Retail stores (as of April 27, 2020; those retail stores that sell groceries were covered as of March 26, 2020)
  • Real estate sales and leasing (as of April 27, 2020)
  • Offices and office work (as of April 27, 2020)
  • Elective medical, dental, and health services (as of April 27, 2020)
  • Personal care services (defined as hair, beauty, spas, massage, tattoos, pet care, or substantially similar services) (as of April 27, 2020)
  • Food and beverage manufacturing (as of April 3, 2020)
  • Food services
  • Child care
  • Education, including transportation, food service, and related work with educational establishments
  • Home health, if working with elderly, disabled, ill, or otherwise high-risk individuals
  • Nursing homes
  • Community living facilities

For descriptions of the covered industries, see below on this page

• Workers are covered regardless of pay rate or method (hourly, weekly, piece rate, etc.); the daily pay during leave is either their established daily rate or, if their pay fluctuates, their average daily pay for the past month.

• Yes, for employees working in that portion of the business. Because the rule covers “any employer engaged in the field of or employing workers in” each listed category, any business with a sub-division or sub-unit engaged in a listed category -- like a business with a cafeteria that qualifies as “food services,” or a factory with a small percentage of its employees engaged in business or support work in an “office” -- must provide paid sick leave under these rules, but only to the employees working in that sub-division or sub-unit.

• Yes, if: a) your employer falls under a covered industry, and b) you are missing scheduled work. Employers need to pay only time, up to two weeks (maximum of 80 hours) of scheduled work, that you are missing while completing the quarantine or isolation due to a risk of having COVID-19.

• No, if an employee has completed a COVID-19 test and received the results before the amended rules covered your industry, that time is not covered under these rules.

• The employer must provide up to two weeks (up to a maximum of 80 hours) of paid sick leave at two-thirds of the employee’s regular rate of pay to employees with flu-like or respiratory illness symptoms who are being tested for coronavirus COVID-19 or who are under instruction from a health care provider or authorized government official to quarantine or isolate due to a risk of having COVID-19. If the employee receives a negative test result before the end of two weeks, the paid leave ends.
• The two weeks are “calendar” days. For example, if an employee falls ill on May 1, 2020 and makes plans to get tested or is told by a health care provider to quarantine or isolate, then the maximum is May 1 to 14, 2020 -- and the employee gets paid only for those days they actually would have worked. If the employee was not going to work during all two weeks, the employee is paid for those days they actually would have worked.

• The employer may not require documentation as a pre-condition to taking paid leave under the HELP rules. The key purpose of the Colorado HELP Rules is to encourage leave-taking by employees who otherwise could spread contagion of an unprecedentedly deadly virus -- while not overwhelming health care providers with documentation requirements during a pandemic requiring their full attention. Accordingly, an employer may ask for the below-listed documentation, but (A) only to the extent consistent with what the federal Family Medical Leave Act permits, and (B) with the additional limitations that the employee (1) is permitted to provide documentation only upon returning from leave, and (2) may submit the below-listed information in their own written statement (which need not be notarized or in any particular form) instead of documentation directly from a health care provider.
• The information the employer may request, subject to the above restrictions:
  • From the health care provider who prescribed a COVID-19 test or instructed an employee to quarantine or isolate: (a) any document(s) sufficient to show the name, contact information, and type of health care provider (family doctor, medical clinic, hospital, etc.), the provider’s prescription for a COVID-19 test, and the date of that prescription, or their instruction to quarantine or isolate, and the date of those instructions; (b) or, if documents showing all of the above are not available to the employee, whatever documents are available plus a written statement from the employee providing the information for whichever of the above items are not available in documents.
  • From the provider of the COVID-19 test: (a) any document(s) sufficient to show the name, contact information, and type of provider (lab, medical clinic, hospital, etc.), that a COVID-19 test was performed, and the date of that test; (b) or, if documents showing all of the above are not available to the employee, whatever documents are available plus a written statement from the employee providing the information for whichever of the above items are not available in documents.

• Denial of paid leave, due to excessive documentation requirements or other reasons, may subject an employer to (A) unpaid wage liability, if any worker takes leave for a qualifying reason, yet is denied paid leave, and/or (B) whether or not the worker loses any pay (e.g., some workers denied leave may come to work and therefore receive pay), "a penalty of not less than one hundred dollars for each day such violation, failure, neglect, or refusal continues," with each worker a separate violation, and with the exact amount -- whether the minimum $100 per worker per day, or a higher sum -- determined by the Division based on the facts and circumstances of the violation. See C.R.S. §§ 8-1-101, 8-1-140 (“8-1-140. Violation - penalty. … (2) If any employer, employee, or any other person fails, refuses, or neglects to perform any duty lawfully enjoined within the time prescribed by the director or fails, neglects, or refuses to obey any lawful order made by the director … , for each such violation, such employer, employee, or any other person shall pay a penalty of not less than one hundred dollars for each day such violation, failure, neglect, or refusal continues.”; “8-1-101. Definitions. … (11) ‘Order’ means any decision, rule, regulation, requirement, or standard promulgated by the director.”).
• The Colorado Overtime and Minimum Pay Standards Order (“COMPS Order”) ban on “reprisal, interference, or obstruction” applies to “any … wage claim, right, or rule,” which includes the Colorado HELP Rules. Accordingly, the liability and penalties detailed above may also apply to any reprisal, interference, or obstruction as to Colorado HELP Rule rights.

• Unless they are too ill to communicate, employees must (a) give notice of their absence as soon as possible, (b) give notice of getting a COVID-19 test, or receiving instructions from a healthcare professional to quarantine or isolate within 24 hours of being prescribed the test or instructions, and (c) provide any required documentation (consistent with the above-detailed guidelines as to what documentation can and cannot be required) that the employer requests by the sooner of (i) the end of their illness or (ii) their return to work.

• No. If an employer already provides the paid leave necessary to meet these rules’ requirements, then the employer does not need to provide additional leave. However, if an employer does not already provide enough paid sick leave to comply with these rules, it will have to provide additional paid sick leave to meet the rules’ requirements. And if an employee already exhausted any paid leave allotted by the employer, but then has flu-like symptoms and is being tested for COVID-19 or is under instructions from a health care provider to quarantine or isolate due to a risk of having COVID-19, he or she is entitled to the additional paid sick days these rules provide.

• Always follow the advice of your medical provider, including getting tested for COVID-19, and self-quarantining in the meantime. If you are an employee who is owed paid sick leave under the HELP Rules, file a complaint with the Division for the wages.

• The updated rules take effect April 27, 2020, for 30 days, or longer if the state of emergency declared by the Governor continues.

• With the continuing spread of coronavirus COVID-19, coming to work while ill poses a serious threat to the health and safety of co-workers, others at the business, and the public generally. These rules will temporarily entitle certain employees to paid sick days in order to limit the spread of this disease.

For many decades, it has been “unlawful to employ workers in any occupation within this state under conditions of labor detrimental to their health or morals” (Colorado Revised Statutes (“C.R.S.”) 8-6-104), and Colorado has declared in law that “[t]he welfare of the state of Colorado demands that workers be protected from conditions of labor that have a pernicious effect on their health and morals, and it is therefore declared ... that inadequate wages and unsanitary conditions of labor exert such pernicious effect” (C.R.S. 8-6-101(1)).

In accord with those legislative mandates, the Division has a range of rulemaking and enforcement authority to protect against workplace health and safety threats, including but not limited to: C.R.S. 8-1-111 (authority “to enforce all provisions of law relating” to laws and orders “requiring … places of employment to be safe, and requiring the protection of the life, health, and safety of every employee”); C.R.S. 8-6-106 (authority to “determine … standards of conditions of labor and hours of employment not detrimental to health or morals for workers”); C.R.S 8-6-109(1) (authority to set minimum wage terms upon finding that “conditions of employment ... are detrimental to the health or morals … of workers”).

Further, the State of Disaster Emergency declared on March 10, 2020, by Colorado Governor Jared Polis, as the number of identified coronavirus COVID-19 cases in Colorado and in the United States increased:

(1) announced numerous measures to protect public health and safety, including directing that immediate rulemaking be initiated to provide employees in certain industries with paid sick leave for possible coronavirus cases and testing; and

(2) supported such action pursuant to executive authority statutes, including but not limited to C.R.S. 24-33.5-704(2) (“Under this part 7, the governor may issue executive orders, proclamations, and regulations and amend or rescind them. Executive orders, proclamations, and regulations have the force and effect of law.”); C.R.S. 24-33.5-704.5(1)(e) (“In the event of an emergency epidemic that has been declared a disaster emergency, the [expert emergency epidemic response] committee shall convene as rapidly and as often as necessary to advise the governor, who shall act by executive order, regarding reasonable and appropriate measures to reduce or prevent spread of the disease, agent, or toxin and to protect the public health.”); and C.R.S. 24-33.5-711.5(2) (“The conduct and management of the affairs and property of each hospital, physician, health insurer or managed health care organization, health care provider, public health worker, or emergency medical service provider shall be such that they will reasonably assist and not unreasonably detract from the ability of the state and the public to successfully control emergency epidemics that are declared a disaster emergency. Such persons and entities that in good faith comply completely with board of health rules regarding the emergency epidemic and with executive orders regarding the disaster emergency shall be immune from civil or criminal liability for any action taken to comply with the executive order or rule.”).

Includes the Arts, Entertainment, and Recreation industries, and Accommodation and Food Services. For more information on Food Service, see below.

Arts, Entertainment, and Recreation: Establishments that operate facilities or provide services to meet varied cultural, entertainment, and recreational interests of their patrons. This sector comprises (1) establishments that are involved in producing, promoting, or participating in live performances, events, or exhibits intended for public viewing; (2) establishments that preserve and exhibit objects and sites of historical, cultural, or educational interest; and (3) establishments that operate facilities or provide services that enable patrons to participate in recreational activities or pursue amusement, hobby, and leisure-time interests. Examples:

• Amusement parks
• Museums
• Zoos
• Event Centers
• Spectator Sports
• Golf courses and Country Clubs
• Skiing Facilities
• Fitness and Recreational Sports Centers
• Youth Sports Teams and Clubs

Accommodations, including the following establishments who provide lodging or short-term accommodations:

1. Traveler Accommodation: traditional types of lodging services, such as hotels, motels, and bed-and-breakfast inns.
2. Recreational Accommodation: lodging facilities primarily designed to accommodate outdoor enthusiasts such as travel trailer campsites, recreational vehicle parks, and outdoor adventure retreats.
3. Rooming and Boarding Houses: establishments providing temporary or longer-term accommodations, that for the period of occupancy, may serve as a principal residence. Board (i.e., meals) may be provided but is not essential.

Examples:

• Hotels and Motels
• Casino Hotels
• RV Parks and Recreational Camps
• Rooming and Boarding Houses

Places that prepare meals, snacks, and beverages to customer order for immediate on-premises and off-premises consumption. Included are special food services, such as food service contractors, caterers, and mobile food services; drinking places; and restaurants and other eating places. Food and beverage services at hotels and motels; amusement parks, theaters, casinos, country clubs, and similar recreational facilities; and civic and social organizations are included in this subsector only if these services are provided by a separate establishment primarily engaged in providing food and beverage services. Examples:

• Caterers
• Cafeterias
• Food Trucks
• Bars
• Restaurants
• Coffee Shops
• Carry-out Service Shops that have on-premise baking

Places that retail food and beverage merchandise, either fresh or preserved, from fixed point-of-sale locations. The food or beverages can be packaged, and intended for off-site consumption, but may include prepared food or drinks for immediate consumption on the premises. Covered retail establishments may have groceries as only part of their business, but are covered in their entirety. Examples:

• Grocery Stores
• Supermarkets
• Retail Stores with a Grocery Section
• Beer, Wine, and Liquor Stores
• Specialty Food Stores
• Convenience Marts
• Gas Station Stores that sell food or beverages

Establishments engaged in retailing merchandise and rendering services incidental to the sale of merchandise to the general public for personal or household consumption, or to businesses and institutional clients. Examples:

• Building material and garden supply stores
• Clothing, accessories stores
• Health and personal care stores
• Pharmacies
• Electronics and appliance stores
• Furniture and home furnishing stores
• Motor vehicle and parts stores
• Office supplies, stationary, and gifts stores
• Food and beverage stores
• Grocery stores and retail establishments that sell groceries
• General merchandise stores, including warehouses and supercenters
• Gas stations
• Tobacco stores
• Liquor stores
• Sports, hobby, musical instruments, and bookstores
• Pet and pet supplies stores
• Used merchandise stores, pawn shops
• Manufactured and mobile home dealers

Establishments primarily engaged in selling, renting, or leasing real estate, and establishments providing related services. Examples:

• Real Estate Agencies
• Real Property Management
• Rental and Leasing Services

All work performed in an office environment, rather than in non-office settings such as factories, farms, construction sites, or in non-office sites away from the employer’s physical location. Includes employers that are predominantly located in offices (e.g., law firms) as well as the portion of any employer’s operations performed in an office setting (e.g., within a factory, an office in which business staff and those who answer telephones work).

Those medical, dental, or other health employees who work predominantly on elective procedures. Includes establishments that engage predominantly in elective procedures (e.g., cosmetic surgery), even if a portion of their work is non-elective (e.g., emergency surgeries performed by cosmetic surgeons).

Establishments that provide appearance care services, or other personal care to consumers, or establishments that provide pet or animal care such as boarding, grooming, sitting, and training pets, but excluding veterinary care. Examples:

• Hair salons and barber shops
• Hair styling
• Nail salons
• Make-up and cosmetology salons, including permanent make-up
• Spas, day spas, massage therapy establishments
• Tattoo or piercing parlors
• Tanning salons
• Animal grooming services
• Animal shelters
• Pet boarding services, kennels
• Animal grooming services
• Pet training and obedience services

Includes the following:

• Animal food manufacturing
• Grain and oilseed milling (including vegetable oil, flour, rice, malt, breakfast cereal, and other starch)
• Sugar, chocolate, and confectionery product manufacturing
• Fruit, vegetable, and frozen food manufacturing, drying, and preserving,
• Dairy product manufacturing (including milk, butter, cheese, dry/condensed/evaporated dairy products, ice cream, and other frozen dessert)
• Animal slaughtering and processing seafood product processing (including meat processing, and rendering and meat byproduct processing)
• Bakeries and bakery product manufacturing (whether retail or commercial bakeries, and whether frozen or non-frozen, and including bread, tortillas, cakes, pastries, cookies, crackers, and pasta)
• Snack food manufacturing (including nuts and nut butters)
• Coffee, tea, flavoring syrup, and concentrate manufacturing
• Seasoning and dressing manufacturing (including mayonnaise, dressing, sauce, spices, and extracts)
• Perishable prepared food manufacturing
• Beverage manufacturing (including soft drinks, bottled water, and ice)
• Breweries, wineries, and distilleries
• and other food and beverage manufacturing.

Establishments primarily engaged in provided day care of infants or children. These establishments generally care for preschool children, but may care for older children when they are not in school and may also offer pre-kindergarten educational programs Examples:

• Nursery Schools
• Preschool Centers
• Child Day Care Babysitting Services
• Child or Infant Day Care Centers

Establishments that provide teaching, instruction, and/or training in a wide variety of subjects, including schools, colleges, universities, training centers, and private tutoring/lessons businesses. These establishments may be public, private, for-profit, or non-profit. Covered jobs include employees involved in transportation (e.g., school bus or campus bus drivers), food service (e.g., school cafeterias), and other work similarly related to educational establishments. Examples:

• Colleges
• Universities
• Training Centers
• Trade Schools
• Cosmetology and Barber schools
• Lessons, Tutoring, and Exam Preparation
• Fine Arts Schools
• Junior Colleges
• Computer Training
• Apprenticeship Training

Continuing Care Retirement Communities: Establishments providing a range of residential and personal care services with on-site nursing care facilities for: (1) the elderly and other persons who are unable to fully care for themselves; and/or (2) the elderly and other persons who do not desire to live independently. Individuals live in a variety of residential settings with meals, housekeeping, social, leisure, and other services available to assist residents in daily living. Assisted living facilities with on-site nursing care facilities are included in this industry.

Assisted Living Facilities for the Elderly: establishments primarily engaged in providing residential and personal care services (i.e., without on-site nursing care facilities) for: (1) the elderly or other persons who are unable to fully care for themselves and/or (2) the elderly or other persons who do not desire to live independently. The care typically includes room, board, supervision, and assistance in daily living, such as housekeeping services. Examples:

• Assisted living facilities without on-site nursing care facilities
• Rest homes without nursing care
• Assisted living facilities for the elderly without nursing care

Establishments providing inpatient nursing and rehabilitative services, generally for an extended duration to individuals requiring nursing care, with a permanent core staff providing nursing and similar continuous personal care services. Examples:

• Convalescent homes or convalescent hospitals (except psychiatric)
• Nursing homes
• Assisted living facilities for the elderly with nursing care
• Rest homes with nursing care
• Inpatient care hospices

Establishments providing skilled medical, nursing, and other health-related services in the home, along with a range of the following: personal care services; homemaker and companion services; physical therapy; medical social services; medications; medical equipment and supplies; counseling; 24-hour home care; occupation and vocational therapy; dietary and nutritional services; speech therapy; audiology; and high-tech care, such as intravenous therapy. Examples:

• Home health care agencies
• Visiting nurse associations
• Home infusion therapy services
• In-home hospice care services