The missing ingredient in paid leave: Supportive supervision

The U.S. is the only major industrialized country without a federally mandated paid leave policy. And yet, roughly 32% of private-sector workers—about 46 million people—are now eligible for paid leave under state or municipal laws and most U.S. employers offer some paid leave voluntarily. But according to OccHealthSci Professor Leslie Hammer, Ph.D. and colleagues, even where leave is available, uptake often lags behind eligibility. The gap between paid sick and family leave availability and actual use is the problem Professor Hammer and colleagues sought to address in a study published in the Journal of Applied Psychology.

The study was led by Purdue University Professor Ellen Kossek, Ph.D., with researchers from OccHealthSci, OHSU, Kansas State, Ball State, and the MD Anderson Cancer Center.

The study presented in the paper, “Offering paid sick and family leave is not enough: leave supportive supervisor behavior training improves policy use, health and work outcomes, examined whether supervisor training changes how employees use paid sick and family leave. Employees can be entitled to paid leave and still not use it. Prior research shows that employees describe conversations about requesting leave as uncomfortable and associate taking leave with career risk, including negative performance evaluations or job loss.

The team tracked hundreds of employees and managers at two U.S. universities over six months. Managers at one university received training in supporting employee leave use; managers at the other university didn’t receive training until after the study concluded. Both universities already offered paid family and sick leave before the study began.

The training consisted of two self-paced, online modules that provided information on how to support employees’ family and personal life needs and employee use of paid sick and family leave. The training also included goal setting and behavior tracking exercises, and a supplementary organization-wide webinar focused on putting knowledge into practice.

As a part of the study, the research team identified six supervisor behaviors tied to paid leave support. The behaviors include listening and giving emotional support—meaning a supervisor responds to an employee’s need for time off; educating employees and increasing their access to leave, which happens when a supervisor knows the leave policy and can explain it; addressing negative perceptions through psychological safety—meaning supervisors communicate to their employees that they can use leave and will not be reprimanded for doing so; fostering a dual agenda in which supervisors work to accommodate employee time-off without serious disruption to workplace productivity; respecting time off during leave, and role modeling leave use by talking with employees about using paid leave when needed. The research team’s analysis found that the training’s effects operated mainly through role modeling.

According to Professor Hammer, increases in employees’ reports of supervisor role modeling at the three-month mark predicted increases in employees’ overall perception of supervisor leave support and job satisfaction at six months. The other behaviors did not show similar impacts of employee leave use.

The results show that compared with the supervisors who received no training, employees whose supervisors received the training reported feeling a greater sense of supervisor leave support at six months, higher use of paid family leave at three and six months, higher job satisfaction at three months, and higher commitment to the workplace at three and six months.

The research team found that the training's effects on job satisfaction, general health, and sick leave use were larger for employees with childcare responsibilities. And its effect on workers’ commitment to the workplace was larger for women. The effect on job satisfaction, meanwhile, was larger for employees managing both childcare and elder care—so-called "sandwiched" caregivers. Employees managing elder care alone, on the other hand, didn't show a significantly different response to the training compared with those with lower elder care responsibilities.

Professor Hammer noted that the findings suggest that pairing existing leave policies with supervisor training, rather than expanding formal benefits alone, is associated with higher leave use and job satisfaction. For employees, the results indicate that leave use depends partly on supervisor behavior, not just the formal terms of the policy.

Paid leave in the U.S. is expanding largely at the state level. As of 2026, only 18 states and the District of Columbia have laws requiring paid sick leave. Just 13 states offer paid family and medical leave programs.  The U.S. remains the only major industrialized country without a federal paid leave mandate, and that in jurisdictions with state or local mandates, prior research has found gaps between employee eligibility and awareness or use of leave. These findings suggest that a short program of supervisor training could be the mechanism that helps all eligible employees use the resources available to them when the need arises, ultimately resulting in increased engagement at work.

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