How does your Company Offer Day's Off?

[Beth]

Our company has given employees their days off in the form of Vacation and Sick days since we opened our doors nearly 14 years ago.

As new employees come in, many of them have expressed their experiences at their prior employer's, where they had those days offered in different manners.

I'd be interested in hearing how "your employer" compensates for days off. I've been here since we opened, and I'm not really that familiar with how others do this - so please check my "other box" and tell me of other scenarios I haven't thought of.

I'm tempted just to switch all of our days to "comp days," or "Paid time off" days - but it would make for a scheduling nightmare in our type of business - for people to be able to take off "one day here," "two days, there," etc. We're relatively small in number, and just don't have the staff to constantly cover those types of absences - where we can plan in advance for those "1-week-long vacations."

Thanks for your input!!

 

[Steve H.]

Vacation days and personal days.

15 days vacation and 2 personal days to start (more for longer tenure or higher level positions). Personal days are essentially vacation days except they can't be used back-to-back or at the beginning or end of vacation days. They're designed simply for those days when you need a long weekend or a day off for personal reasons.

Sick time is not accumulated or tracked -- if you're sick, you stay home. Granted, if you took advantage of this and happened to be "sick" a lot, the company would probably have a few questions for you, but that's rare, I'd imagine.

 

[mom2boys]

I am self-employed. One thing I really miss about my old job is days off. At least if I took a day off, it was "my" day or for a specific purpose.

 

[tater bug]

We earn a certain number of vacation hours per month, depending on how long we have been here (anywhere from 11-15 hours a month). The sick leave never changes from month to month, 9 hours. Any unused leave from year to year can be carried over and there is no limit to how much you can bank. When you leave employment, though, there is a limit on how much they will pay you for.

We also earn comp time, up to 200 hours a year and can carry 80 of those hours over to the next year. In addition to the comp time we have what is called contributed time. This time can be used only in the pay period it was earned.

On paper it looks like we would be able to take alot of time off during the year, but it is difficult to schedule time off because we we work 12-14 hour days usually 6 days a week.

 

[RUDisney]

As I start to write this, I hope it doesn't get too confusing.

We offer to non-officer-level employees 2 weeks of vacation time and 5 "excused absense" days. Of these, they have to take 5 contiguous days at one time and then they can break up the rest into individual days or clusters of days. The excused absense days are to be used for the employee's sick time, his or her child's illness, or for snow days. We don't offer "personal" days, but with your boss's approval, you can take them. Does that make sense? No, it doesn't, but they are only compensated for 5-days during the year and these days are frowned upon being taken.

For officer level employees, we offer 3 weeks of vacation time and unlimited excused absenses. They are unlimited because they are hardly used. If a VP gets sick, it is assumed to be bad if s/he has to take time off for it. If it wasn't bad, it is assumed that we'd be in. The same 5-days continuously applies.

Senior officers get 4-weeks of vacation time, that they hardly use all of and unlimited excused absenses.... hardly used. 5 continuous days must be taken once during the year.

 

[kinlaw6450]

I get 3 weeks of vacation, 1 week of sick, 2 days of personal and 2 floaters we can use anytime. I also get 9 paid holidays.

It's all based on hours per pay period but this is what it works out to in the end.

 

[Beth]

Thanks very much to all of your for your replies.

I truly expected to see more people doing the "all comp days" type thing. Glad to see we're not alone...

RUDisney - Do you by chance work for a Bank? That's "our" business - and I know, due to regulatory "suggestions" (wink wink) - we're asked to take a certain number of days consecutively - so as to allow for any improper activity to have time to be brought to light while someone is gone...

 

[Snow White]

We get 10 hours of sick leave accrued per month, and 6.67 hours of annual leave per month. You can't use any of the annual leave until you've worked 6 months tho. We also get all the legal holidays off.

 

[addicted_to_WDW]

I work for the government, and we have annual leave (104, 160, or 208 hours per year, depending on length of service) and sick leave (104 hours per year). We are permitted to carry 240 hours of annual leave over from year to year, and can accumulate unlimited sick leave.

Annual leave can be used for any purpose and can be used in 15 minute increments.

 

[binny]

Dh has it really great he has 2 weeks base then he can "buy" up to 2 more weeks right now ( it goes up with every 5 years of service) out of the "beneflex" dollars they give him ( one months salary which can also be used to buy down the deductible for insurance, put money into savings, etc) he also has ( I think) 11 paid holidays ( all 3 day holidays and Easter are actually 4 day weekends) plus I think 8 personal days to be used for whatever he chooses. If he needs more time,( because of illness) his boss is really willing to work with him.

 

[disneyjunkie]

We get 30 vacation days, 12 sick days, 3 personal days, and 10 paid holidays each year.

We are can only have 60 vacation days banked, anything over 60 gets converted to sick days.

This is for the classroom staff; both full time and part time. It doesn't matter how long you've worked there, we all get the same amount of time off.

 

[raidermatt]

Our company policy is 24 PTO days for exempt staff, 19 for non-exempt. The time is tracked as either "planned" or "un-planned", but all comes out of the same bucket.

The positive is that it rewards those who don't call-in sick. They can use their entire alottment for vacation time and other days-off.

The drawback is that if someone does really get sick, they are faced with losing vacation time if they don't come in. Consequently, sometimes people will come in when they probably shouldn't. (on the plus side, the company does offer free flu shots!)

There is no requirement to take time-off in blocks of any kind. The scheduling is allowed at the discretion of the manager.

Time off for upper levels of management is not officially tracked.

 

[MeanLaureen]

My company gives me 4 weeks vacation, one personal day and 30 sick days a year. None of the paid time off can be rolled over to the next year, it's a use it or lose it type of thing.

 

[Grog]

we get Paid Time Off were I work and I love it. For example, this year I called in sick once, took a couple of days to stretch a long weekend, and the rest is mine to use as I want (I currently get 240 hours a year and work 4-10s, so it's six weeks PTO). I can cash in twice a year, and I'm going to do a buy back in February which will pay for my April DLR trip

 

[Towncrier]

We just recently switched to the Paid Time Off concept. Before the switch, I had 15 days of vacation time and 6 sick days to use each year. I never used any of my sick days (unlike a few of my co-workers who managed to be ill precisely 6 days a year), so I like the new system just fine.

We were just discussing this at work last week and I discovered that my friends that previously had 20 vacation days only get 5 additional days of PTO for their sick days.

 

[Lucky4me]

DH gets 5 weeks vacation to be used pretty much whenever he wants.

Sick time is frowned upon and not a benefit. You do get paid for it up to a certain amount of time, (6 months I believe) but you better have a Drs. note after two days.

I would like it if they offered compensation like the USPS does. You get X amount of sick time a year and can 'save' it up. Whatever you have left at retirement, you get paid for.

Vacation works the same way but is separate from sick time.

 

[DebbieB]

I've worked for an insurance company for 25 years (I started as a child ). I get 20 vacation days and buy another 5 (the cost is spread over 24 pays). We get 2 "floating holidays", which took the place of President's Day and Good Friday. We get 3 family care days, which are to be used to care for a sick family member. We get personal days for funerals (3 days for immediate family, 1 for other family), jury duty, civic duty. We have short term disability at full pay for 13 weeks (6 consecutive days or more requires them to get in touch with your doctor), 60% thereafter for as long as you are disabled.

 

[helenabear]

I get 20 days of TOP for whenever and however I want/need to use it. It's pretty simple for me to keep track of

 

[coqui]

I get vacation time and sick time is on the honor system

We get unlimited sick time as long as you don't abuse it.

 

[browneyes]

We have Holiday Leave, Annual Leave and Sick Leave.