Washington: Modifying shared leave provisions to authorize shared leave for victims of a hate crime and those whose absence is due to immigration enforcement actions against the employee or the employee's relative.

What's changing

Washington is expanding its shared leave program to cover two new qualifying circumstances. Under existing law, state employees can donate accrued leave to colleagues facing serious medical emergencies or other hardships. The amendment adds two new triggers:

• Hate crime victims: An employee who is a victim of a hate crime may receive donated leave from co-workers to cover time away from work related to that crime — for example, time spent recovering, cooperating with law enforcement, or attending legal proceedings.
• Immigration enforcement impacts: An employee may receive shared leave if their absence is caused by an immigration enforcement action targeting either the employee directly or a relative of the employee.

These changes broaden the humanitarian scope of Washington's shared leave framework, recognizing that some absences stem from circumstances outside a worker's control and unrelated to personal illness.

Who it affects

Here's the important caveat: Washington's statutory shared leave program was built for state government employees. If your staffing or PEO operation places workers exclusively with private-sector clients, this law does not directly apply to you.

That said, there are two situations where this matters:

• Public-sector placements: If you staff workers at Washington state agencies or other public employers that operate under this framework, those workers or the client agency's policies may reference these expanded categories.
• Policy alignment: Some Washington private employers voluntarily model internal leave-sharing or leave-donation programs on the state's structure. If your clients do this — or if you administer a leave-sharing pool for a PEO client — reviewing these new categories is worthwhile for consistency and employee relations purposes.

For most private-sector staffing firms, the direct compliance impact is limited.

What to do

• Audit your client roster: Identify any Washington state agency or public-sector clients. Confirm whether your placed workers participate in or are covered by the state's shared leave program and update relevant onboarding disclosures accordingly.
• Review leave-sharing policies: If you or your PEO clients operate a voluntary leave-donation or leave-sharing program in Washington, check whether the policy language should be updated to reflect these two new qualifying events — particularly for companies that want their programs to parallel state standards.
• Update Washington state addenda or handbooks: If your handbook references Washington leave programs by name, add a brief note about the expanded eligibility categories.
• Flag for immigration-related leave tracking: Given the immigration enforcement trigger, ensure your HR team knows this can be a protected basis for leave in relevant contexts, and that adverse action against an employee for such an absence could create exposure.

Watch for an effective date and any implementing guidance from Washington's Office of Financial Management, which administers the state shared leave program.

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