Is this discriminatory?

We would like to create sliding scale leave policies which start with the legal minimums for all eligible employees and then are more generous for more senior employees (i.e., employees in higher management and employees who have been with the company for longer periods of time). We are not unionized. Is this legal? Any suggestions for implementing such a policy?

Comments

  • 4 Comments sorted by Votes Date Added
  • I believe that as long as you are providing the state and/or federal required leave amounts to all qualified employees, that you may be more generous to certain employees, based on nuetral, nondiscriminatory criteria, such as years of service or more senior positions.
  • I agree with Californian, but be careful that the nuetral policy does not have a discriminatory impact (i.e., it adversely impacts a protected group). If your senior employees are all or mostly white males and less senior employees are all or mostly females or members of another protected class, then you should think twice about the adverse impact issue.
  • We use a seniority scale for PTO and have for many years. It is based on years of service rather than position. 1-5; 6-10 , and every five years until the twentieth anniversary. There has been no adverse impact issue though if you are starting something new that is not a bad idea to keep in mind.
  • We have a seniority scale for vacation time only.  It seems to work well and I haven't heard complaints.  The company handbook spells out the years of service necessary in order to attain a certain number of days vacation per year. 
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