PTO donations!!!
Elizabetharess
179 Posts
We have an employee who is terminally ill. She has not been with us long and she has been paid out all of her PTO. Her supervisor wants to donate 2 days PTO from her cache to give in dollars to the terminally ill employee. We haven't done this before but my thought is that we would calculate the PTO dollar amount based on the donating employee. Has anyone out there done this before and what is your input?
The ill person wants to go to Florida for a few days with the family to spend some quality time with her husband and children. This money would be a little extra to do something special while there.
She has very little time left.
Thanks
ERS
The ill person wants to go to Florida for a few days with the family to spend some quality time with her husband and children. This money would be a little extra to do something special while there.
She has very little time left.
Thanks
ERS
Comments
The conversion rate is based on actual salaries of both employees:eg. donating employee earns $15.00 per hour/ receiving earns $10.00/hr so would get 1.5 hrs of time donated.
Hope this helps & I personally think it is a great service to the sick employee. In the past they have been very touched by the generosity of their co-workers.
What is a normal procedure for giving PTO to another employee?
Thanks
Elizabeth
Elizabeth
It is converted based on the givers hourly rate. So 8 hours at $20 per hour would covert to 16 hours at $10 per hour.
It goes through as payroll for the recipient. This eliminates all tax issues. The giver does not get a donation deduction because they never use this time, nor get paid for it.
This is under our catastrophic leave policy. The leave and need for donations must be approved by our Exec Director before any appeal goes out to our staff. None of the confidential medical information is included, nor is the name of the intended recipient.
Of course, we cannot stop what the recipient might do or say, but we do prohibit any direct asks.
How do you launch an appeal without mentioning the person's name? And in describing a policy, how do you talk about the catastrophic or debilitating nature such that it is relatively clear what situation would and wouldn't apply?
For example, we have an employee who has a serious chronic disease that causes her to max out her PTO every year. Her position is probably one of the lowest paid in the org., and I'm sure the combination of both would cause folks to want to contribute PTO. Would that situation be covered, for those who have this policy?
As to how one determines the catastrphy, it does not have to be an illness - it could be a home destroyed by a tornado, for example.
We did have one lady who had used up all her time and got married and wanted time donated for her honeymoon. That was not approved.
As to your chronic disease issue, this would probably qualify in our shop.
Here is a copy of our policy.
J. Catastrophic and Emergency Leave
If an emergency or catastrophic event occurs in which an employee uses all of his/her accumulated sick leave, annual leave, and well days, other employees have the option of donating their accrued vacation leave to a pooled account for use by the affected employee. The rate of compensation will be equal to the donor’s, whether higher or lower than that of the employee.
Use of this catastrophic/emergency time shall be in accordance with existing Personnel Polices to include immediate family members. Approval for this leave will include assessment of the current (company) resources, budgetary constraints and impact on the organization. Use of the catastrophic/emergency leave will be by the approval of the Executive Director.
Employees should apply directly to the Executive Director who will determine if the need qualifies. If the need qualifies, the Executive Director or designee will appeal to the staff for donations. Employees shall not make direct appeals to any staff.
I'm assuming that the appeal is anonymous, you don't mention the person's name? You may have said that earlier.
My other question is if your company already has any kind of paid FMLA leave. It occurred to me that we already have a benefit that provides for paid leave for FMLA eligible and non-eligible crises, so for us the donated PTO would be above and beyond.
The other consideration would be what a company's vacation carryover policy is. We have more than a few people who carryover the limit for when they need it, or for a little cash payout when they leave. Do you allow people to carry vacation over?
Also (sorry, this is bringing up more questions as I consider implementation) do you have a maximum amount of time the EE can be awarded? What's to prevent this being requested when LTD should be applied, which in our case would only provide partial salary continuation and carry with it a date by which a person's employment is terminated.
Responses to the above by anyone welcomee.
We allow a 40 hour carryover of unused vacation each year.
No maximum number of times - it has never even arisen more than once a person so far. When the requests come in, I also determine if the EE has chosen optional STD or LTD, and those factors are included in the decision of whether or not to designate the time as catastrophic.