Personal Day vs. Vacation Day in Michigan

hr traci

My company would like to mandate that ee's can only take vacation days in blocks of 2 days or longer. If the request is for 1/2 or 1 day off, they want this time taken as paid personal time.

The reason for this decision is because one of our facilities is experiencing abuse of personal days policy - If dept. isn't busy, ee goes home for 1/2 day, putting it down as vacation time. Meanwhile, their personal days (everyone gets 5 days per calendar year)are still remaining and any remaining personal days are paid out at the end of the year. Vacation time does not rollover or get paid out if days remain at end of year.

This particular facility had many people getting the full 5 personal days paid out as a lump because they were remaining at end of 2003.

If an ee calls in sick (not within FMLA or STD situation), they would only be able to paid under personal days - if none left, they would be unpaid.

I just want to confirm that it is okay for company to mandate the ee to take vacation time for only 2 day or more requests. I don't agree with the decision because of other operational issues it raises, so your feedback is welcome before I meet with the VP that handed this down - before I was able to give my input mind you!

POPEYE

Unless the great state of Michigan has a law concerning vacation pay, you may have a policy stating how you will pay vacation. I have worked where you had to take a full week, minimum of one full day, and currently we allow vacation to be taken in as little as 1 hour increments. (Hopefully soon to be changed)

Rockie

You can mandate how you want employees to take their leave time. I guess I am puzzled....if you don't pay for accrued vacation or allow it to roll over, why do you allow payout for personal time? This is what's causing the abuse and this is where you can put a stop to it.

We have everything rolled into one PTO bank to be used for vacation, sick or personal time off. We do have a rollover provision though, up to 45 days.

Make sure you check your state laws to ensure that your "use it or lose it" policy for vacation is valid. Some states do not allow it.

System

traci, I'm with Rockie. Your policies reward employees who play the system, so you can't blame them for doing it. Just treat vacation and personal leave the same.

James Sokolowski
HRhero.com

JM in ATL

Ditto. We have Earned Time Off (ETO) and employees use it how they see fit. If they abuse it and use it all up then when they need to take time off and have no ETO it goes against their attendance record. And of course they don't get paid for it.

hr traci

Thank you all for your input!

Rockie & James, I appreciate your suggestion on moving everything into a PTO bank - I had campaigned for this solution a couple years ago when CEO complained of abusers, but management was not receptive to the concept (stuck in old ways! )

I think they will be forced to consider this option again if they want to stop the abuse. Thanks again!