employee refuses to use vacation
Sally
117 Posts
Our policy is that employees can carry over 5 vacation days after their anniversary date, but must use them within six months or else lose them. Our Director of Finance has not--with the exception of a few days over the Christmas holidays--used any vacation days in two years, and has successfully lobbied our Executive Director to make an exception for her on this policy. As a result, she has nearly two months vacation time on the books. This means that 1) I have an employee who should get some R&R but won't; 2) if she were to leave our employment that time would, under our policies, be compensated to her; and 3) the person in charge of the finance department is never gone and while I don't question her honesty, I don't feel that is a good practice. Our annual audit is coming up and I feel I should make sure the auditors are aware of this situation. Any other suggestions out there? Because our Executive Director has allowed this to happen I feel hampered in resolving it.
Comments
I don't see how you can make her take the entire 2 months, but the company certainly could let her know that she is not allowed to bank any more days, and she is now on use it or lose it with everyone else. I would have the executive director sign a letter to her in writing to that effect. She needs to have her employees trained so that they can cover short term absenses. That should be part of her job, and if she feels that she cannot leave the office, even for a few days because she has not properly trained her staff, she is not doing her job.
The executive director needs to understand that if this isn't stopped, this employee will continue to bank days for the duration of her employment. I have had to deal with employers who had employees who banks over a years worth of vaction, and the employer was hit for a hugh bill when several employees retired within a few months (all having over 6 months banked vacation).
I also believe that vacation is important psychologically for employees. She could burn out by never taking any time off. If she is having trouble scheduling time off, her supervisor needs to help her do so.
Good Luck!!
As I understand it, banks use this method all of the time for audit and control purposes. I remember hearing a story of an HR employee that never took vacations, was kind enough to fill out people's timesheets for them, and if he happed to schedule time away, came back in for just the day to process the payroll because no one else really understood the program. As you can imagine, there were other things going on there from padding paychecks (for a cut of the pay) and creation of imaginary employees.
1) It's possible when the Executive Director agreed to make an exception for the Director of Finance it was because of a particular situation and has no idea how long this has gone on and how much has been accrued. I would certainly bring the problem to the director's notice, along with all the ramifications. However, if the director chooses to hide his head in the sand after that, it is his/her responsibility.
2) I am a trained accountant who somehow got HR dumped into my lap. I have used this site quite a bit to learn about the problems and solutions facing companies and it has been very helpful, even though there is quite a lot of "accountant bashing". As an accountant, I can tell you that it is VERY important that EVERY employee in a finance department, payroll department, billing department, etc (anyone who works with company funds)take at least one week (5 consecutive business days) of vacation every year. It won't hurt to put the auditor on notice about the Director of Finance not taking a full week, but if the audit firm is anything but stupid, they should notice that themselves. Such an oversite (not taking the week)often shows up in the auditor's report. Something I am sure your Executive Director would not like see, nor would he like all the stakeholders to see it.
3) I have seen many accountants work an average of 60 hours a week (been there myself) while the HR people left at 4:25 every day. I am sure it often works the other way too. I think it helpful to remember that the hours "necessary" to complete a job depend upon the actual expectations of the job itself, the organization's culture, the supervisor's attitude, and the competance of the employee. (I had a CFO once who claimed that we must set the example on cost cutting so all exempt employees in the department worked like dogs for small pay, on old equipment, and using the supplies the other departments didn't want.)This is true whether you work in accounting, HR, or maintenance. Lighten up on us accountants guys!
I have worked in the accounting and the HR departments. Each one has its own needs, standards and purpose. You can not expect them to work the same. For accounting, 2+2 should always equal 4, most matters do fall into the black and white category. However, in HR you find that 2 is not always 2, perhaps a shade over or under, and that each seemingly similar situation has its own circumstances that need to be judged on itw own merits. I don't see this as accountants beinf stiff and inflexible, but that the materials that they work with are more standard and unbending. HR has the difficuly in applying policies and laws fairly and equally when situations are not always the same.
Each profession works hard (as a whole) but certainly there will be individuals who do not. I think that by the fact that we are all here reading and posting is a sign that we care about what we do, care that we do it right, and plainly just work hard.
Personally I would not have the CFO's job nor would he have my job..they really are poles apart, but we respect each other for what we and our positions bring to the table.
I have worked in organizations where the almight dollar is the only thing that matters and it is a very unhappy place to work. I have also worked where employees rule the day and run rampant over everyone and spend money like drunken sailors - this too is not the ideal.
Everyone deserves respect for the job they do!
Let's play nice!