Does your employer take away your vacation if you go out on disability?

[disneychrista]

Yes, most companies, but mine clings to the old-fashioned method. Separate accounts for sick, personal, vacation, and holidays.

Mine does too. We have banks for sick, vacation, personal and then Comp Time, where we earn time off for OT (which for non-government is not "legal" in California, but for some reason is okay for government ).

 

[Kathryn Merteuil]

I have wondered that myself, I am not sure what the policy is. I know they don't if somebody uses FMLA. That is probably apples-oranges though.

 

[winterwhite]

This is what my company does. I've never heard of a situation where PTO is taken from you in increments like you are referring to. That stinks.

Do you have to use PTO as well to cover the waiting period before disability kicks in?

As an HR person, it sounds to me that they are not accruing PTO for time not worked. Depending on your state, that is allowed as it is earned time and you are not earning.

ETA for more detail. Your company can choose to advance you earned time (as in “they give us all our time off on Jan 1”) but that can be an advance on the accrual or it can be a grant. If you are not accruing, they can deduct, just as they can elect not to pay out accrued time you have not yet earned. This depends on your state laws about grant, payout on separation, and accrual.

in this case it sounds like an advance on accrual and for weeks you are not accruing they are reducing your available balance.

 

[MrsPete]

Either way people see it I’m going to be missing out on 4 hours of vacation for every week I’m off.

You're not adding to your earned benefits while you're out.
This doesn't mean they are taking away previously earned benefits.

Why does it matter what other companies do?

It's nice to know whether your company is average /whether you're being treated like most other employees.

As an HR person, it sounds to me that they are not accruing PTO for time not worked. Depending on your state, that is allowed as it is earned time and you are not earning.

Yes, this.

 

[tinyrip]

I disagree. In the beginning of the year my paycheck said 248 hours. I carried over 40 hours. So 208 hours of this years vacation was showing on my paycheck. Now pto hours are accrued up to a maximum of 40 hours. I know some people call pto and vacation the same thing I see it as being different. A person can retire in January and have all of that years vacation paid to them. Don’t see that being there when I retire thou. Either way people see it I’m going to be missing out on 4 hours of vacation for every week I’m off. So probably 32 hours. I usually sell a couple weeks back anyway. It’s not going to be a big difference just wanted to know what other companies did. This is the first year my employer have done this.

I feel like what is happening here is that the company you work for used to pay out similar to my company does. I have 4 weeks of vacation. its not PTO time. Its based on how many years you've been with the company. When I had to go on LOA that didn't come out of vacation time. I wasn't paid for 2 weeks, then my short term disability kicked in and I was paid back the time i was out. Now is seems like your company is switching over to a more traditional way of dealing with your time off. which is what many people are describing. some have separate pots of sick leave vs vacation time. but more companies are going with a one pot for all time off and if your not working your not going to be making PTO.

 

[1GoldenSun]

I don't know, but I think that if you need to take time of from work just to deal with illness/surgery/whatever, you will still very much need a vacation.

 

[winterwhite]

To answer your original question, yes, employers can and do require you to apply PTO to time not worked while waiting out a disability waiting period. This is at the employer’s discretion, but they do not have to allow you to take unpaid leave and can require you to use “vacation” “PTO” or “sick” time for that absence.

 

[winterwhite]

I don't know, but I think that if you need to take time of from work just to deal with illness/surgery/whatever, you will still very much need a vacation.

As far as the employer is concerned, there is no distinction between time away from work for fun or for illness or whatever.

If you’ve burned through your sick time and need to be absent, the employer can make you take vacation time to cover it. There’s no law that says “vacation” is only for fun things.

 

[prairie_girl]

Our employees are all salaried so yes, hours worked do not matter - it’s calendar days worked that the calculations are based on. We don’t punch a clock or get paid any overtime.

So then are you still accruing vacation while on leave? I think most of us have agreed the OP’s idea of having vacation “taken away” is quite different than simply not continuing to accrue, which is the common situation for most of us. I’ve got a staff member currently on medical leave which began last October. When she returns (Lord willing) in August, she will have whatever was in her bank when she left but will not have added to it over the past 10 months. Her paid sick days (7 per calendar year) will have renewed in January 2021 and will all be there for her use.

No, it is not being added to. That would be the dream though lol

 

[babydoll65]

Many companies have different policies in place when it comes to a medical leave. I live in a state that has TDI (temporary disability insurance) that is removed from my pay every pay period (mandatory) and covers up to 80% of your gross pay and is not subject to federal or state income taxes. I was out last year for an emergency surgery that had me out of work for five weeks. Since there is a one week waiting period I had to use two day of my ESL (extended sick leave bank) and three days of pto. After that there is really no need to use my pto once my TDI kicks in. I get seven weeks of vacation time each year and receive my pto bi-weekly so I really can't be denied my vacation time only because I can only have 200 hours in my pto bank. Any pto accrued beyond the 200 hour cap goes into my ESL bank which (unless your going out on a medical leave constantly) is somewhat useless in a state with TDI. At 1 point our company allowed us to sell our vacation time but starting this year, we're not allowed to anymore and was told that we have to take our vacation time no matter what. Now if I had come back from my medical leave with very little PTO to begin with, any vacation time I had coming up would probably be denied or taken away. I guess the good thing is I have top seniority (32years), have only been out on medical leave two times and I never call out sick (knock on wood )

 

[Luv Bunnies]

I recall that when I took maternity leave, I had to use my accrued time off before disability kicked in. When I came back to work, I essentially had no time off available and had to start accruing it from scratch. Having to work the day after Christmas that year really stunk!

 

[MrsCobraBubbles]

I've never been out on disability, but when my ex-husband was, they used up the rest of his vacation time before he could make a claim on the company disability.

 

[GreatLakes]

If you get your full dump of PTO at the first of the year it is possible it is being taken away as part of a proration policy. At a former employer we also got all of our PTO for the entire year on our first check but we could only "keep" the full allotment if we stayed the whole year.

If we got a dump of 200 hours on our first check and left 6 months into the year they pulled back 100 hours. If we took 150 hours they docked the 50 from our check. If we only too 10 hours we got payed out 40 and they took back 50. It was a way to keep people from resigning in January and getting paid our for the entire year of PTO.

It could be that the portion of the PTO "earned" while on disability was taken back. In my scenario if I was on disability for a month they would take back 1/12 of the 200 hours (16.667) since I didn't actually work and earn it. Just a guess.

 

[soccerdad72]

My employer gives you the option - you can go onto STD after 5 days, but that's at 60% of your pay, or you can use accumulated sick time and vacation time to be paid at full salary. I had one staff person go out on disability twice in a year and a half (knee replacement and, unfortunately, a staph infection later on from the knee surgery) and the first time out, he had used nearly all of his sick time, so the next time out, he used up the rest of his sick time and, eventually, his vacation as well.

 

[lanejudy]

its not earned on hours worked. I could work over 100 hours in a week means nothing more in vacation than if I would work 20 hours.

Just as @winterwhite posts...

Your company can choose to advance you earned time (as in “they give us all our time off on Jan 1”) but that can be an advance on the accrual or it can be a grant.

Yes, my PTO time is available to me in January but technically accrues over the first 10 months of the year. If I were to leave the company prior to that 10 month point, I would not be eligible to take payment for "unused" PTO; and if I had used it all, they could conceivably claw some back (but I'm not sure that happens much). We aren't allowed to carry any forward year-to-year.

It's nice to know whether your company is average /whether you're being treated like most other employees.

Eh. There are so many different employer policies on such things that I don't know how anyone can determine "average." After reading up on a lot of this stuff, I consider myself to be well above-average just because my employer offers health benefits and any paid time-off. Unfortunately way too many folks in this country deal with much less from their employers.

 

[sam_gordon]

I looked it up today. For my company, you need to use five days PTO before short term disability (I want to call it STD, but that doesn't look right. ) can kick in.

 

[Cindy's Mom]

mine doesn't take away - but we don't earn time while we're out on disability. We don't get a lump sum of benefit hours at the beginning of years, we early our time each month. If we do happen to take a month of vacation (ha) - we will also earn for that same month, but not for disability.

 

[dez1978]

Yes. Our vacation isn’t deposited as an annual “lump”, it is accrued daily and only accrues during days actually worked. It’s not taken away, per se, the accrual clock just stops ticking. Our workplace does continue to consider you employed for seniority purposes during leaves though.

I work for a state gov entity and thats what happens for us. IF you are out any extended time, you do not accrue sick or vacation time during that period. You do maintain your seniority, but it doesn't count towards retirement. Like if my retirement eligible date is May 2030 and I take off 4 months FMLA or LWOP for whatever reason, then my retirement date would then be Sept 2030

 

[Keli]

I don't think they are really 'taking away' vacation time, they aren't letting you accrue more while you aren't working. I think that is pretty typical, I know all my employers have done that. When someone is on leave of absence or fmla, or just taking a week or more sick time they don't accrue additional vacation time while off.
My employer now also requires everyone to use all their paid time off, sick, then vacation time before using unpaid time off for fmla. They do no provide short term disability but it is available to us and I've opted to pay for it. If I went out sick I would have to sign up for fmla and use my PTO even if I am drawing short term disability. I wish they would only make us use the number of ours it would take to bring our pay to 100% but they don't do it that way. So people drawing short term disability will actually have an increase in pay for few weeks until all their PTO is used up. Then they only draw the short term disability which is 60% of our pay.