Military Reserve Training/PTO Benefits

susan macias

We are a healthcare facility. Employees accrue Paid Time Off (PTO) and we require people to use it for scheduled time off. An employee who has obligations to the military for two weeks' training a year objects to using his PTO for this leave - he would prefer to take leave without pay and use his PTO for vacation time.
Does anyone else have a requirement that paid leave be used for scheduled absences? Our logic comes from the expectation that employees will take their allotted time off per year and not supplement that with leave without pay unless they are on an approved leave of absence.

Camlan

The Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act of 1994(USERRA)states that an employee may, if he or she wants, take paid time off for reserve duties, but an employeer cannot require this. A helpful web site is the Employeer Support of the Guard and Reserve (ESGR). They have an employer FAQ at [url]https://www.esgr.org/employers/employerFAQ.asp[/url]

Rockie

Yep...we have the same policy, but military folks are the only ones that are exempted (by federal law) from this one.