Got paid military leave?
californian
84 Posts
We have a few employees who are active reserve and national guard members. One employee is about to be deployed for the second time since her employment with us began. We do fully support her service and the other employees' membership in the military. We do not currently offer paid military leave (beyond any sick or vacation leave the the employee wants to take to cover unpaid leave).
Just wondering how many other companies out there offer some type of paid military leave. And, if paid leave is offered, how much? What limitations? Thanks in advance for your help!
Comments
My company doesn't offer it, but I have a copy of BLR's 2007 Benefits survey and it has information on pay for military leave. It looks like only about 20 percent of employers offer full pay. Most--almost 45 percent (the data is broken up by Exempt, Nonexempt Office and Nonexempt Plant, so I"m averaging) pay the "difference between salary and military pay" and about 36% don't pay anything. Hope that helps.
My company pays a national guard member the difference between his/her military pay and regular work pay for the 2 week period each year that is used for training. We do not consider this time as vacation time.
If one of our employees is deployed for a longer period of time (to Iraq, Afghanistan, etc.), we do not pay the difference. The employee may, however, use any accrued vacation time.
I've found a number of organizations provide up to 6 months of supplemental pay and up to 3 months of benefits when on a military LOA. In these cases, the supplemental pay equals the amount by which an employee’s straight-time pay exceeds military pay. After 6 months the employees are placed on "unpaid military leave", unless they have vacation time, which they can choose to apply.
NOTE: I recommend that you also look at 401(k) and incentive bonuses to make sure anyone on a military leave has these things handled appropriately (see USERRA regs and related commentary).