Help! Save our sick leave
Carol CA
173 Posts
Our company currently grants 10 days (80 hours) of sick leave per year. This sick leave starts accruing from date of hire and can be carried over from year to year, up to a maximum of 240 hours. Our corporate offices want to change this policy to NO accrual for the first six months for new hires, and then accrue at a rate of 3.33 hours per month which would equal a total of 40 hours a year (and only 20 hours the first year of employment during the second six months). This means our sick leave would basically be cut in half!
What kind of policies do other companies have out there? Only 40 hours (5 days) a year seems pretty cheap to me. Have I just been spoiled all these years?
What kind of policies do other companies have out there? Only 40 hours (5 days) a year seems pretty cheap to me. Have I just been spoiled all these years?
Comments
This PTO policy has a provision to carry over up to 40 hours annually, then will pay out anything in excess of that. This will be a benefit to those employees who are highly billable and would rather have the cash than the time off.
Most of the feedback has been very positive so far. The only complaints have been from those employees that "scheduled" their sick time. You know the ones that are sick on the Friday before every holiday or on opening day for baseball, etc.
A problem I have where I work is employees want all the Vac/Sic/Per to be combined in one so they can use it for whatever they want. I know a lot of companies do it that way, but in my opinion, we give sick time to keep people sick at home. It benefits everyone. Some employees complain that they are never sick (so not true) but that's what they say. I tell them if that is the case, to think of their sick leave as a short term disability policy.
sorry, I kind of strayed from your question. x:-8
I really prefer this method as it gives healthy employees extra vacation time, while giving less healthy employees plenty of time available to take care of things. Also, it is never an issue about whether or not you can take sick time for a sick child as it all comes out of the same bank.
The only drawback comes when an employee leaves. They only receive 35% of accrued leave. That is not bad for 1st year employees, but kind of hard on employees who have been here for years.
I like the policy because it does eventually reward long term employees who are able to minimize their sick days, and does not punish those who do need to take care of medical issues by lowering the amount of vacation they have available to recharge.
In addition, our vacation accruals are as follows:
0 to 1 year 1.0 hour per pay period 6.5 days
1 to 5 years 2.0 hours per pay period 13 days
5 to 10 years 3.0 hours per pay period 19.5 days
10 years + 4.0 hours per pay period 26 days
There have been mutterings in our company about the possibility of changing to a PTO policy, but I feel very strongly that a generous policy like ours promotes the idea that people have lives outside the office. I want people to take care of themselves and be their best while they are here. Do we have a person or two abuse the policy? On occasion yes, but not to a degree that mandates a change.
The fact is benefits are expensive any way you slice them. We'll see if I'm singing the same happy tune in a year or two. Good luck!
We don't combine sick and vacation b/c it creates larger payout obligation problems in Illinois when they terminate. (Quirk in our state that makes PTO banks unattractive.)
We do payout out unused sick days at the end of each calendar year to our active ees though. This seems to prevent the mentality that everyone is suddently sick in the latter half of December.