While the California and Massachusetts laws are very similar, there are some notable differences regarding sick leave accrual, use, carryover, and recordkeeping. Neither state requires payout of accrued but unused sick time upon separation of employment.

Employers that already provide employees with paid time off, paid vacation, or other paid leave benefits may be able to use these pre-existing plans to satisfy their obligations under the paid sick time laws, provided certain criteria are met.

Before July 1, employers with employees in California or Massachusetts should review their paid leave policies and ensure they are prepared to comply with the new laws. Moreover, each state’s paid sick leave law requires that employers give their employees notice of these new laws, either through on-site postings or individual notices. The California Division of Labor Standards Enforcement and the Massachusetts Attorney General’s Office have provided template notices for this purpose.

While FMLA-eligible employees (both male and female) may already be entitled to up to 12-weeks of bonding leave following the birth or adoption of a child, the Massachusetts leave law will permit such employees to take an additional eight weeks of parental leave if they have already exhausted their FMLA entitlement for reasons other than parental leave. Moreover, while the FMLA applies to employers with 50 or more employees, the Massachusetts parental leave law applies to employers with six or more employees.

Massachusetts employers—or those with employees in the Commonwealth—should take this opportunity to review their leave policies and ensure their leave administrators are aware of these new leave rights available to new dads.

The new law expands the scope of Massachusetts’s existing maternity leave statute to afford parental leave on a gender-neutral basis. Where both parents work for the same employer, the law affords only eight weeks of leave between the two of them.

While the federal Family and Medical Leave Act already affords up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave following the birth or adoption of a child, the FMLA applies only to businesses with more than 50 employees. The Massachusetts parental leave law applies to employers with six or more employees, so will extend leave rights to male employees of much smaller businesses. The state law also eliminates the one-year-of-service requirement to be entitled to leave under the FMLA. Instead, parental leave must be available to employees who have worked for at least 3 consecutive months as a full-time employee.

The Massachusetts law also provides that if employers agree to extend parental leave beyond the eight weeks under the statute, that extended leave must be treated as job-protected leave. One limited exception to this rule applies where the employer informs the employee in writing and prior to the commencement of any extended leave that taking longer than eight weeks of leave may result in denial of reinstatement rights.

The new Massachusetts law takes effect on April 7, 2015. President Obama recently announced that paid parental leave would be provided to federal employees, and it is likely that other states may soon follow suit with gender-neutral parental leave policies.