Mandatory PTO

Schreier

My employer is proposing the following policy and I need clarification that it is legal to do.

From December 1 through March 31 all full time personnel, with at least 6 months of services as of December 31 will be required to take a minimum amount of PTO during this period as follows:

6-24 months of services as of December 31 take 5 days PTO
Over 24 months of service as of December 31 take 7 days PTO

Personnel with insufficient earned PTO need to request in writing a PTO advance to fulfill this requirement. The request should state that the advance must be paid back by the employee only in the event of their voluntary termination prior to the next anniversary of their date of hire. This policy is to facilitate management of labor utilization during slow seasonal work periods.

dhnyct

It sounds like management could be faced with a possible seasonal layoff, which could be without pay for some employees. Or maybe they just want to get people to use their time off during the slow season and not build it up to take during the busy season??? Either way, if this is a consistent policy I don't see a legal issue.

franfields

Is it legal to dictate that an employee take PTO at a certain time?

Down_the_Middle

Given the fact that this policy seems to apply universally ATB, I don't see any legal issue with it.

Rockie

There is nothing illegal about this. Manufacturing companies have been doing this for years - they shut down only at certain times and employees are required to take their vacation weeks at those times and this is all they get! Also, financial institutions used to commonly make employees take mandatory time off in order to uncover any illegal activity, etc.

A lot of companies require that employees take a certain amount of time off each year. This serves a couple of purposes - one is everyone needs some time off. There are people (few and far between) who would never take vacation unless you made them take it and also it keeps employees from banking up extraordinary amounts of PTO and get into a "use it or lose it" situation. Or...when they resign, the company has to pay out a big chunk of money to the employee.

TheCol

From the employer viewpoint, most anything that is done on a "sound business basis" is allowed without fear of charges of discrimination or otherwise in EEOC difficulties. In my opinion, fairly applied, not in violation of an existing contract or agreement, would be allowed. Historically, I remember Bell Helicopter Company, Textron, in Ft Worth, Texas shut the whole plant down for a couple of weeks around Christmas and all were required vacation-takers.