PTO Poll (see OP for the question)

What are your options for PTO

  • PTO time Use it or Lose it each year

    Votes: 20 23.8%
  • PTO time anything unused gets rolled over to the next year

    Votes: 16 19.0%
  • PTO time anything unused gets paid out at the end of the year

    Votes: 2 2.4%
  • PTO time limited amount can be rolled over to the next year

    Votes: 44 52.4%
  • PTO time limited amount gets paid out at the end of the year.

    Votes: 1 1.2%
  • Sick time Use it or Lose it each year

    Votes: 19 22.6%
  • Sick time anything unused gets rolled over to the next year

    Votes: 20 23.8%
  • Sick time anything unused gets paid out at the end of the year

    Votes: 1 1.2%
  • Sick time limited amount can be rolled over to the next year

    Votes: 8 9.5%
  • Sick time limited amount gets paid out at the end of the year.

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    84
My vacation gets rolled into next year and I have no sick days.
 
My husband used to get 6 weeks vacation that didn’t carry over (and he never took it all), unlimited sick, now he gets unlimited everything (and probably takes 2 weeks, it’s unusual for him not to check in for more than a day.
 
We have unlimited PTO and no separate sick time. We also have holidays, including 2 floaters.

We do not accrue PTO, nor is any paid on at any time, so it is more of a use it or lose it, I guess?
Sounds the same as me.

I haven't figured out the reason for the 2 floaters. We have unlimited PTO, why call out two floating holidays in particular? I don't have to report anything to a time card, it never gets recorded as PTO or a floating holiday.

I try to somewhat match the old system before we had unlimited, because I know that it is not really unlimited despite the name. I shoot to take 25 days a year since under the old system I would have 20 days of PTO and 5 sick days.
 

Rules for vacation time/sick days/etc. likely vary by company and whether you are hourly or salary.
That's why I asked the question. 🤣

I am very jealous of those who get 3-4 weeks of vacation time to start. I had built to four weeks of vacation time at my old employer (you get 20 days after 20 years of service), when I was let go and found a new job, I had to start back over at two weeks. Yes, I tried to negotiate more, was unsuccessful, but happy to get another job.

First job was "use it or lose it". This job is "roll over" (plus up to two sick days). There's a max we can have at any time in the "bank", the max increases with years of service.
 
We only get PTO. I can carry over what was earned in the previous year but it must be used the following year. For example, in 2025 I am carrying over 200 hours from 2024 that I must use by the end of 2025.
 
We get PTO (sick + vacation) and an unlimited amount can be rolled over to the next year. We can bank up to 400 hours, but then you lose it if you accumulate past that.

Those with <1 year get 12 hours per month, those with <5 years get 15 hours, and on until the max of 25 hours per month in earned PTO.
 
That's why I asked the question. 🤣

I am very jealous of those who get 3-4 weeks of vacation time to start. I had built to four weeks of vacation time at my old employer (you get 20 days after 20 years of service), when I was let go and found a new job, I had to start back over at two weeks. Yes, I tried to negotiate more, was unsuccessful, but happy to get another job.

First job was "use it or lose it". This job is "roll over" (plus up to two sick days). There's a max we can have at any time in the "bank", the max increases with years of service.
Salaried employees at my institution get 20 days a year for vacation and 15 days of sick time (plus the other days I mentioned upthread).

Hourly and union employees vary, depending on their length of service and the union they belong to (we have two, plus a separate one for faculty). I had to look it up, but faculty don't get vacation days, per se. They get 6 personal days and 15 sick days.
 
3 sick days per year. These are use-or-lose.

We also get 15 days (120 hours) PTO to start off with it. It goes up 5 days/40 hours at 10 years of service. You can "bank" up to 200 to carry over to the next year (or next, or next) with no penalty. You can also roll over other hours above 200, but you have to take them before the end of June (though exceptions can be made). So, for example, if you take 210 hours from 2024 into 2025, you have to use 10 of those hours by the end of June, otherwise you just lose them.

We also have flex time, so if you have to miss some time in order to go to a doc appointment or something, you can make it up later. (Or pre-emptively build up time before then if you know you'll have to take off some time in the future.) There are limits to this- they don't want you to just work 80 extra hours and take two weeks off- but the limits are kind of gray and dependent on what you're up to. There was a very busy time period of work where I was up 20 hours in order to get a project done by a deadline, so my boss was ok for me to take a few days off the following week as a kind of recovery period. It works out pretty well, actually, since the work gets done, we still get to balance our time, and we're "rewarded" for putting in more time when it's needed.
 
I have unlimited PTO. The only stipulation is we aren't supposed to take more than 2 weeks at a time.
I've been with my company and under the old system I would have had 31 days of PTO, so I aim to take that as a min.each year.
 
Sounds the same as me.

I haven't figured out the reason for the 2 floaters. We have unlimited PTO, why call out two floating holidays in particular? I don't have to report anything to a time card, it never gets recorded as PTO or a floating holiday.

I try to somewhat match the old system before we had unlimited, because I know that it is not really unlimited despite the name. I shoot to take 25 days a year since under the old system I would have 20 days of PTO and 5 sick days.

Well, we are an accounting firm, so time sheets matter quite a bit here. But it is strange to have those two floating holidays. I believe it is to make people feel like it is okay to take two bonus days for whatever reason you see fit. Many say they use it on their birthday, for example.

I agree with what you say about somewhat matching the old system. We we hire the new staff classes or experienced hires, that is the advice I give as well. I think the flexible unlimited thing about it is say you had something extraoridinary happen one year (wedding, honeymoon, sick family member, etc.) it would allow you to flex without a ton of questions.
 
At my old company the floating days were for people to use on their particular religious days (like good Friday, Rosh Hashanah, etc)
 
I have 3 banks.

Vacation is accrued by pay period and rolls over until a maximum is reached. We can also cash out a specified amount each year.

Personal , we get a bank of personal leave at the beginning of the year and it must be used within that calendar year.

Sick is accrued by pay period and rolls over with no maximum. Unused sick leave gets added to service time for calculation of pension.
 
I was salaried for 16 of my 42 working years. I ran into an issue when I was on Jury Duty. Hourly got two weeks paid time for Jury Duty. I ended up on a trial that went 6 1/2 weeks and the Business manager, after consulting a labor lawyer concluded that, as long as I walked into the building once a pay period, they had to pay me. Walking into the building to pick up my paycheck met that standard. As it was explained to me, salaried means you are being paid to do a job and if you can do it in one minute, or your need 24 hours a day, your pay can't be impacted.

This is true but not the full story. As a salaried employee they can not dock your pay because they don't have work for you to do. They can however require you to use your paid time off to cover hours that you did not work due to anything other then there being no work for you to do. Meaning, they could have required you to use your PTO/Vacation time while you were off for jury duty. However, I would imagine they would have had to have paid you for at least the 2 weeks that they allow hourly employees. From the employers viewpoint, I think they did the right thing by paying you while you were on jury duty. I wonder what they would have done for an hourly employe who was on a 6 week long jury service.
 
Last edited:
. I wonder what they would have done for an hourly employe who was on a 6 week long jury service.
Oh Lord, that did come up after my Jury Duty by a year or two. Employee said he would only be paid for two weeks and that it would be a financial hardship to serve longer than 2 weeks. Judge asked for the name of the General Manager and called him to see if something could be worked out. GM said no, nothing could be done because it was corporate policy. Judge said he was sending over Subpoena for the GM to appear before him the next day, and that if a way to pay this employee for the duration of the trial had not been found, to "bring your toothbrush and personal items because you'll be spending the night at the County Jail so you have time to think of a way to pay this employee". Amazingly, the GM immediately said there was no need for any of that, the employee would be paid for the duration of the trial. Not sure whether the Judge could have forced them to be paid, but just the phone call was enough to solve the problem
 
I don't have a job but for my husband's job....he doesn't technically have a set amount of vacation/sick/PTO days. They basically trust him and others at his level to be responsible and not go crazy. He should probably take more time off than he does. But right now we go on roughly 2 vacations a year. Then he takes random days off here and there for us to do fun things with our son on his days off or in the summer. And he takes a couple hours here and there for doctor's appointments. It's nice. At his last job, about a decade ago, they had a use it or lose it kind of thing and so he had to pay more attention to taking time off or he'd end up barely working in December. Ha!
 
retiree here, mine was-

sick-12 days per year, rolled over year to year to no max (no cash out upon leaving or retirement),

floating holidays (in addition to all fed/state holidays off with pay)-3 days per year, available in full as of the first of the year. use it or lose it.

'managment time' (paid time off)-40 hours per year, available in full as of the first of the year. use it or lose it at years end.

vacation (year one earned 15 days per year, by the time I retired i was somewhere shy of 25 days per year)-rolled over year to year up to a maximum you could bank of up to 3x your current annual leave eligibility at which time it became use it or lose it. my classification (civil service) was permitted to sell back up to 1 years leave per calendar year which people used to their advantage as they approached retirement so they could increase their 'average pay' for those last 2 years in order to increase their pension.
 
Now retired but once upon a time my last employer gave us separate sick, PTO & vacation time. Sick rolled over, PTO was use or lose & vacation could be carried over up to double your annual allowance ( 2 weeks equaled 4 weeks etc. ). If you had accured sick time and left after age 55 you got up to 10 weeks.
They changed it a few years before to everything lumped together.
There was an amount you could carry over but not was much . But if you gave proper notice when leaving you got the money.
I was grandfathered in to get my accused sick time when I left.
 
We assign PTO according to how long a person has been with us/position. No rollovers.
I get unlimited. I also consider myself 'on' 24/7 unless I'm overseas, but even then I stay in contact. Three others also have unlimited but are available 24/7.
Also give all employees - outside of their earned PTO- the days from Christmas Eve - New Years off paid so everyone gets that holiday period off paid. Also the Friday after Thanksgiving. If July 4th is a Thursday or Tuesday we give everyone that Friday or Monday off paid so they can have a 4 day holiday outside of PTO.
 












Save Up to 30% on Rooms at Walt Disney World!

Save up to 30% on rooms at select Disney Resorts Collection hotels when you stay 5 consecutive nights or longer in late summer and early fall. Plus, enjoy other savings for shorter stays.This offer is valid for stays most nights from August 1 to October 11, 2025.
CLICK HERE













DIS Facebook DIS youtube DIS Instagram DIS Pinterest

Back
Top