Vacation time, Holiday pay, PT/FT... a few ??

[tink_n_pooh]

I'm working on putting together some company policies so I thought the DIS seems like a great place to go for a sounding board....

Generally speaking full time is anyone who works 40 hours per week (some places I've heard of as little as 32 hour, depends on the industry, this company was using 35 hours per week). With people who work various different hours per week I assume it's an average of 40 hours per week but over how long? Is a one month average sufficient? Or should the average be over 6 months?

Considering that vacation pay, holiday pay, and company benefits (50% of health insurance cost) are provided to those who are full-time it has become apparent in my situation that determining FT/PT status is key. How often does it seem reasonable that one can change between FT and PT?

 

[Lisa loves Pooh]

How often? I am not understanding what that means. All my jobs, I was one or the other. I didn't toggle back and forth. Many companies have separate benefits for FT/PT. That is why some companies have a policy that you are FT at 30 (or however many) hours. This allows the employee to have the benefits of the 40 hour folks.

PT folks will sometimes approach FT hours in any given week, but that doesn't necessarily mean that you convert them unless you wish to keep that status permanent and then expect they can maintain the FT hours.


But I'm not really sure what you are asking. I wOnder if your state labor laws can provide some insight.

 

[TheIncredibles!]

Are you saying you have people that can be considered full time one day and part time the next? Or are you looking to establish a policy that will indicate to FT workers that if you miss so much unexcused time in a certain period you would be dropped to PT status?

Confused because usually you are FT or not and it's not a status that changes regularly.

 

[Allison]

People shouldn't be moving back and forth. Typically people would have a status set ahead of time-budgeted to work 40 hours and considered full-time or 20 hours and considered part-time as an example. It's not something that changes from week to week or month to month.

 

[Christine]

Pick the full-time hours (let's say 40). Decide, upfront, who is full time.

If they don't work 40 hours per week, they can either take their leave for the missing hours OR they can take LWOP. If they take LWOP, leave accrual should be reduced if a certain amount is taken. This keeps the full-time person in the full-time category but inhibits someone who doesn't put in their time from earning full benefits. I've worked for a private company and the federal government and that's how they handle it.

 

[kaytieeldr]

Because of the stress involved in certain jobs in my company, depending on the specific job, a regular weekly schedule of 32, 35, or 40 hours is considered full time. A regular weekly schedule of 30 hours or fewer is considered part time.

A 35 hour person who works only four days one week doesn't automatically drop down to part-time status that week with its accompanying, more limited benefits; nor does a part time employee who usually works 30 hours suddenly gain full-time status and benefits by working 33 hours for a week or two. Either would require a permanent change in status.

 

[mamacatnv]

Our medical benefit provider defines PT as anyone who works on average less than 32 hours a week and FT is 32 and up per week.
Unless a person has some unforeseen circumstance that would affect their work hours for an extensive period of time we don't evaluate it daily or weekly from week to week.

I'm considered FT but some weeks I work 50 hours, some I work 30 and a whole lot in between. No one cares, I'm paid by the hour and I get my work done.

 

[malibuconlee]

The 40 hour full time can be misleading. If you work an hourly job vs. a salary job many companies don't want to you go even a minute over 40 hours because they don't want to pay overtime.

I believe 28 hours a week is when benefits can be earned at my husband's company. Most people with the exception of admin personnel are salary tho.

I want to say back when I worked retail it was somewhere between 28 and 32 hours a week. There was no toggeling back and forth. I was offered to become a "full time" employee that guaranteed me a certain number of hours per week and was enough to be eligible fore benefits. I didn't always work the same number of hours per week.

In high school I worked at a grocery store and while I don't remember the particulars there was "part time", mostly high school kids with no benefits, "regular time" which was guaranteed 30 hours a week and I think some benefits and "full time". No idea really of the difference.

I think you need to decide on a set number of hours worked per week to qualify for benefits, but it should be "offered" to them as it was to me so there is some formality. You don't want Joe coming up and saying "well, you asked me to work extra hours the last two weeks, I want benefits now" type of situation.

 

[golfgal]

Make it easier and forget the FT/PT monikers and just say you are benefit eligible at xx number of hours-32 is pretty standard for a lot of companies. You can still be part-time and be benefit eligible. Many companies offer limited benefits at as few as 20 hours/week (some companies offer full benefits at 20 hours). At 20 hours/week they could be eligible for the lower cost benefits like short and long term disability, vision and dental plans, for example, at 32 hours they could be eligible for health coverage and at 35 hours everything and 401K matching.

It is a VERY valuable hiring tool say your employees have access to benefits at as few as 20 hours/week.

 

[Planogirl]

This varies from company to company. At my place of employment, you can get medical benefits and so at 25 hours even though 40 hours is full time. We accrue vacation and the weekly accrual is altered based on regular shift.

 

[laurie31]

Make it easier and forget the FT/PT monikers and just say you are benefit eligible at xx number of hours-32 is pretty standard for a lot of companies. You can still be part-time and be benefit eligible. Many companies offer limited benefits at as few as 20 hours/week (some companies offer full benefits at 20 hours). At 20 hours/week they could be eligible for the lower cost benefits like short and long term disability, vision and dental plans, for example, at 32 hours they could be eligible for health coverage and at 35 hours everything and 401K matching.

It is a VERY valuable hiring tool say your employees have access to benefits at as few as 20 hours/week.

This!

And wow, I didn't realize how good our benefits are.

We've had huge increases in the cost of our health plans (but who hasn't) and two years ago, they stopped covering spouses, unless the spouse was unemployed. That didn't go over well. So now, people at my work do nothing but complain about the benefits.

Anyway, everyone is benefit-eligible at 20 hours. That's half of "full time" or a .5. Everyone .5 and over gets...everything. Medical, dental, vision, 401K. Vacation time is accrued based on how many hours you work. I'm a .9 so I get 9/10ths the vacation time a 40 hour person would get. Instead of 35 days I get 31 1/2. We can accrue up to 400 hours.

DH only gets 15 days a year and they are "use them or lose them" days, which is such a bummer. We can't save up days for years when we want to take a big vacation, and some years he has "leftovers" and ends up taking several days off in December for no reason.

 

[tvguy]

Every company but one that I have worked at considered full time anything over 32 hours a week.
As people shuffled jobs during the recession, and friends got new jobs, I was surprised to learn how many companies out there don't offer any benefits, not even sick time or vacation or holidays. They do close for holidays, but it's a day off without pay. Having said that, this same company gave all their employees a months pay and an i-Pad for Christmas, go figure.

 

[Mandychelle79]

Where I used to work if you worked over X hours ( i dont remember if it was 32 or 40) for three consecutive pay periods you were considered full time. If you dropped below X for three consecutive pay periods you were then considered part time. What some managers would do would schedule people at ft for 2 pay periods and then on the third drop them to part time hours @@.

 

[tink_n_pooh]

Where I used to work if you worked over X hours ( i dont remember if it was 32 or 40) for three consecutive pay periods you were considered full time. If you dropped below X for three consecutive pay periods you were then considered part time. What some managers would do would schedule people at ft for 2 pay periods and then on the third drop them to part time hours @@.

I think this is pretty much what I was trying to figure out... how many pay periods can a person work less than XX hours a week before being bumped down to part time. And then at what time would it be reasonable to make the person full time again if their hours pick up.

This industry is a little different because the employees work the hours which they have appointments. Although they are normally scheduled to have 28-35 hours of available appointment time they may only have appointments in 20 of those hours so they only work 20 hours. The next week they may have 35 hours of appointments and work 35 hours.

We discussed having the time frame be 3 months. If the person worked an average of 32+ hours per week for the last 3 months they are considered full time and eligible for benefits (holiday & vacation pay and insurance). To continue to be considered a FT employee they can not average less than 32 hours per week for 3 pay periods (6 weeks). Once they average less than 32 hours for 6 weeks straight they will be considered part time (no benefits, no holiday or vacay pay). Does that seem reasonable?

 

[MrsJackSparrow4Life]

At my job it is 36 hours/week but you have to actually be on the books as a FT employee to gain the benefits. As long as the hours are available PT employees can work as many hours/week (without going into overtime) but FT employees have to work the minimum 36 hours so they get first crack at them.

I was PT but worked 40 hours/week for a long time before I could get my hands on a FT spot, I needed the hours but they could only have so many FT positions at one time. Nowadays, if I don't sign up for the 36 hours/week required I have to make prior arrangements with my boss to use my PTO.

In my case they use PTO for everything, vacation, sick time, personal days, etc. When I was PT I accrued 4 hours per pay period (2 weeks) and now that I'm FT I get 9 hours per pay period. They also pay 75% of my health insurance (40% at PT) and provide a pension plan.

 

[golfgal]

I think this is pretty much what I was trying to figure out... how many pay periods can a person work less than XX hours a week before being bumped down to part time. And then at what time would it be reasonable to make the person full time again if their hours pick up.

This industry is a little different because the employees work the hours which they have appointments. Although they are normally scheduled to have 28-35 hours of available appointment time they may only have appointments in 20 of those hours so they only work 20 hours. The next week they may have 35 hours of appointments and work 35 hours.

We discussed having the time frame be 3 months. If the person worked an average of 32+ hours per week for the last 3 months they are considered full time and eligible for benefits (holiday & vacation pay and insurance). To continue to be considered a FT employee they can not average less than 32 hours per week for 3 pay periods (6 weeks). Once they average less than 32 hours for 6 weeks straight they will be considered part time (no benefits, no holiday or vacay pay). Does that seem reasonable?

The insurance company is going to want to see an audit of all employees and hours worked over the year to determine eligibility for whatever the company decides is "eligible" for benefits.

 

[tink_n_pooh]

The insurance company is going to want to see an audit of all employees and hours worked over the year to determine eligibility for whatever the company decides is "eligible" for benefits.

While this seems easy enough to do (hours are already in a spreadsheet), I'm wondering if if the insurance company will question it. There are less than 10 people on the insurance plan and I'm estimating maybe half of them will no longer be eligible for benefits when the policy is established. Those few people will be given the opportunity to go on a Cobra plan.

 

[golfgal]

While this seems easy enough to do (hours are already in a spreadsheet), I'm wondering if if the insurance company will question it. There are less than 10 people on the insurance plan and I'm estimating maybe half of them will no longer be eligible for benefits when the policy is established. Those few people will be given the opportunity to go on a Cobra plan.

Or the company can change what they consider "eligible". If you have so many people close to the cut off for your eligibility requirements and want to continue paying for them you can do a couple things-first adjust the minimum hours for eligibility-make it 25 so you don't have to worry about this for a while.

You can offer two plans-paying the 50% of the one plan and allowing ALL employees to buy up to the other plan. For simplicity, lets say the base plan (a high deductible plan with a deductible of $2500 for example) is $200/month for a an employee. The company pays $100 of that (your 50% you said the company pays). They also offer a second plan that is a PPO type plan where you just pay a co-pay but that plan costs $300/month. The company can still put in the $100/month and satisfy the definition of a "group plan" because they offer more then one plan, the employee then needs to figure out which plan is more cost effective for them. For us, plan 2 would cost us LESS over all because the coverage is better (even just one MRI would make up the difference in this example). You could then offer insurance to more people at the same (or even a lower cost to the company) because your base policy costs so much less.

 

[golfgal]

For the audit I was talking about, they will want the schedule from the company taxes showing what was paid out in wages/hours worked, etc. (I can't remember what that is off the top of my head right now). A spreadsheet won't be enough but it should be easy enough to get from the corporate accountant or whomever.

 

[simba20]

When I worked at Barnes & Noble anyone working at least 20 hours or averageing 20 hours per week, became eligible for benefits (vacation/health/dental/401 k). I liked that they included the average, because at one point the managers had to cut hours across the board (full timers, part-times, managers, etc) and so they always found a way for everyone to make the "average" so that those who had benefits couldn;t lose them and benefits woul dbe available to all, well except for those who only worked an extremely few hours each week. We had a guy who worked a full-time job, outside the store, but would do one weekend part-tiem shift (4-6 hours) just to keep his discount. I often think of going back and doing this just for the discount.

Full timers were considered anyone over 32 hours. Leads/department heads once were scheduled 36 hours per week, but the company had to cut back and now most leads work 32. Same goes for managers.

At B&N you earned "hours" of vacation time. I was a part-timer and earned 40 hours per year. Hours did not roll over to the next year. You also earned hours of sick and personal time. To do the conversion my 40 hours of vacation gave me roughly 10 days of vacation during the year. I always worked a 4 hour shift, hence 10 days. Hours equated to the hours of your shift, so it didn't go by a 24 hour clock or anything. Always loved it when I already put in for my Christmas vacation (we had to do so in October) and realized I had unused days and could take time off AND GET PAID whenever I wanted (following the rules and giving three weeks notice).

Full timers also earned hours and salaried positions (managers) got weeks.