Paid Time Off Together vs. Vacation, Sick, etc.

Caroliso · August 2004

This is on the same topic as the other question being posed, which I'm tracking with interest, but I actually want to know how common these combined paid time off plans are.

I'd been thinking about these as the current trend in HR, and they would solve certain administrative problems for us, but when I mentioned that I was thinking about it at an internal meeting of our senior leadership someone said that these are not that common.

So, the question is, do you have a combined PTO program (one category that can be used for vacation, sick and personal time off) or do you have separate poliices for vacation, sick and personal time?

Any other thoughts or opinions on this are also welcome. Thanks.

Carol

System · August 2004

Caroliso,

We addressed this in our HRhero.com Monthly Survey back in March 2003. Out of 2,700 respondents, 79% had separate vacation and sick leave while 21% had PTO. Numbers may be different today.

If you're interested, the complete survey results are in the Subscribers Area of this website:
[url]http://www.hrhero.com/lc/[/url]

Our company has PTO. I like it, but not enough days.

James Sokolowski
HRhero.com

jmcaa · August 2004

We have PTO. I love it! If I just need a day off, I can ask my supervisor.

Personally, each January I look at the accrued leave time I have available and deduct out for vacation days, day after Thanksgiving, time between Christmas and New Year's, etc. then see how many hours I have left to use if I happen to get sick. Even if I ended up having more sick days during the year, I still have the built in time I would have taken off during Christmas. So I just do a rough estimate for my time off for the year.

I love not having to feel guilty if I don't feel up to coming in one day. I have a VERY understanding boss, who doesn't mind if I take a day off here and there as long as all my work is done.

seeleyhr · September 2004

We use PTO for everything. Sickness, breavement, vacation, personal days, holidays. The employee earns so much per each hour worked which increases after they have reached their first anniversary date and then again at 10 years. Can carry over but only until it reaches a 2 year max and then cannot earn anymore until they use it. We increase on first anniversary date so that by the end of two years if they haven't used it for anything else, they would have two weeks at the end of their 2nd year for vacation. New employees cannot use for 90 days. Minimum usage of 2 hrs. Less than that not paid. We do require them to use if if they take 2 hours or more off. Otherwise, they save it up and take time off at a later date. Problem is those people that take it as fast as they earn it and then have no PTO for holidays. Also, if they don't work the required number of hours per year they do not earn the max.

Hope this helps.

Caroliso · September 2004

Seeley, thanks.

Are employees paid any of their accrued untaken time when they leave the company?

seeleyhr · September 2004

Yes, as this is earned time, you cannot withhold payment.

dbutton111 · September 2004

Current company uses PTO and it's ok. The one thing I don't like about it is the administration. Sounds simple, but it's a nightmare for my leave administrator. Hard to tell if someone is on vacation or is sick. We're 1100+ employees in over 300 locations now, working primarily at gov't sites so we don't have hands on with our employees.

I've worked with just about every combination of leave time possible. The last company had the best plan. We had two divisions. One had vacation and sick and the sick time was unlimited. The other division had the same number of vacation and nine sick days. When upper management wanted to limit the number of sick days for the entire company I did an analysis and found out that those that had 9 sick days used every single one of them every year. Those that had unlimited used an average of 4.3 days per year (and we had a 30 day wait for STD - they were paid from their sick leave for those 30 days and the 4.3 average included those employees using 20+ days a year). Interesting.

seeleyhr · September 2004

I set up PTO earning codes on the time sheets. I use PTO VAC; PTO ILL; PTO FML; PTO OTH, etc. When an employee uses PTO, it is up to the manager who okays the time card, to report the correct PTO earning code. Hope this helps. Makes for easier attendance tracking.

Don D · September 2004

I'm not sure I understand the logic of combining all leaves into PTO but then breaking it out again with the time charges. Ultimately, what is being accomplished?

seeleyhr · September 2004

The breakdown is necessary because they are allowed one week of vacation in the first year, two in the 2 year to 10 year span, 3 after 10 years.

For attendance purposes, I needed to know how many vacation days they were taking versus sick leave, etc. Managers would come and want to know the breakdown.

Invariably someone would build up their PTO and request 3 weeks of vacation or more in the 2-10 year span. Managers wanted the option to tell them no.

Our employees can only accumulate up to a 2 year max.

dbutton111 · September 2004

I still don't understand. Why bother clumping it all as PTO if you're still tracking it seperately and only allowing x number of vacation days. Why not just have Vacation and then Sick?

seeleyhr · September 2004

They only have one total that they work from. We do not limit number of days they can use for sick leave, etc., but we track vacation just so that if someone has accumulated near their max they can't come to the supervisor and ask for 3 weeks off just because they have enough PTO to take it off. Believe me it happens. They also have to use PTO for holidays.

Rockie · September 2004

We lump vacation and sick time together into a PTO plan. The major reason is the abuse of sick leave. If it comes out of a PTO bank, most employees look upon this as "vacation" time and they don't want to use it unless they have to. With sick time, if they feel the least little bit under the weather they will take it if they have it available.

We don't lump holidays into PTO; I did work at a hospital that did this once,but it wasn't very popular.

seeleyhr · September 2004

We lump it all together; break it down for attendance purposes only. For some reasons our employees want to know how many days vacations they took versus sick leave.

Paid Time Off Together vs. Vacation, Sick, etc.

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