Employees must accrue 1 hour of ESST for every 30 hours worked. In any given year, employees must be allowed to accrue up to 48 hours. Employees are allowed to carry over any unused ESST. If an employee carries over unused ESST and begins to accrue their annual 48 hours for that year, once the employee has earned 80 hours (by a combination of rolled over ESST and newly accrued ESST) for that year, the annual ESST accrual of 48 hours a year will pause until the employee uses enough ESST to result in them dropping below an ESST balance of 80 hours. At that point, the Employees annual accrual of 48 ESST hours would then resume.
Example #1: Beth works 26 hours per week at Old Tyme Antiques and has worked there for twenty-eight weeks. Beth accrues 1 hour of ESST for every 30 hours she works. Beth has 24 hours of ESST.
Hours Equation Breakdown: [26 (hours worked per week) x 28 (weeks worked) = 728 hours. 728 hours (total hours worked) divided by 30 (rate of accrual)= 24 (hours of ESST accrued).
Example #2: Charlie is a new employee at Big Burgers, Co. In his first year working as a fry cook, Charlie works 1440 hours by September 1. Charlie never gets sick and never has a reason to use safe time. Therefore, Charlie has officially accrued 48 hours of ESST by September 1. Charlie can no longer accrue any more ESST for that year.
In his second year, Charlie can again accrue ESST. Charlie works even harder in his second year, working 960 hours as a fry cook by May 1. Charlie again never gets sick or has a need to use safe time. Therefore, Charlie accrues an additional 32 hours of ESST. Charlie has now accrued 80 hours of ESST, and even though he continues to work more hours as a fry cook, he can not accrue any more ESST at this time.
On November 1 of his second year, however, Charlie develops a very rare bacterial infection, causing him to miss work for 5 days. Charlie uses 40 hours of his accrued ESST during those 5 days. When Charlie returns to work on November 6, he now only has 40 hours of ESST accrued. Charlie may again start to accrue ESST for the rest of his second year until he accrues 8 additional hours (for a total of 48 hours accrued in his second year).