Vacation Time

I would like some ideas on how other companies handle vacation time. Our current policy states you must work six months to receive a weeks vacation (which is accured on a monthly basis and then posted on the new employees six month anniversary) and after your six months you recieve a faction of the next week over the remainder of the year. So for the first 5 years of employement you earn two weeks vacation a year. Then after you have completed your fifth year then you start earning one additional day a year until you reached three weeks after you have worked for the company fifteen years. An additional week is given after you reach twenty years with the company.

I feel like we are way out of touch with other companies and would like to hear what some of you do.

Comments

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  • Our vacation policy states new employees must work six months before they may use any vacation time, during their first year - 5 years they accrue two weeks per year; after five years earn 3 weeks per year; and after 10 years earn 4 weeks per year.
  • Same as atherese regarding six months before vacation can be used. However, our accrual policy is as follows:

    6 months-3 years - 10 days - accrual rate per hour paid is .038462
    4 years-8 years - 15 days - accrual rate per hour paid is .057692
    9 years-11 years - 20 days - accrual rate per hour paid is .076923
    12 years or more - 25 days - accrual rate per hour paid is .096154

    (all based on working a 40 hour work week)

    We have several people who have been here over 12 years, which is a strong sign for how this helps retain people.

  • We can not use vacation time until employed 1 year (which I think is too long) at which time we get 80 hours. 80 hours til 5 years (again, I think too long)After 5 there is anohter 8 hours per year until 20 years at which time it stops at 160 hours.
  • Our vacation time is based on service as of June 1st of each year, and then is as follows:

    3 mo but less than 6 months - must start work on 3/1 or before = 3 days.
    6 mo but less than 1 year - must start work on 12/1 or before = 5 days.
    1 year but less than 2 years - must start work on 6/1 or before = 10 days.
    2 but less than 3 = 10 days.
    4-5 & 5-6 years = 11 days.
    5-6 & 6-7 years = 12 days.
    7-9 years = 13 days.
    10 years = 15 days.
    11-15 years = accrue one day per year up to 19 days.
    15-25 years = 20 days.
    25 and up = 25 days.

    Plus we have 4 floating holidays per year, assigned as seen fit by the GM, and of course public holidays - total additional days off here including public & floating holidays, are 10 days.

    And each year on January 1st each employee that has been here for one year, and that is an hourly/non-exempt, gets 3 personal days to use, and these can be carried over/accrued from year to year (whereas vacation must be used or will be paid out each December). Salaried/exempt will also obtain personal days, but their method of earning is as follows: For every 3 unused sick days they get one personal day. (Salaried/exempt have 10 sick days per year to use, whereas hourly/n.ex don't, which is why we came up with the personal day benefit).

    I like our plan, and I think it is pretty generous (we are a manufacturing plant), except for the method of calculation, i.e. based on length of service as of June 1st of each year. Very annoying method!

    Ana
  • 1 year - 1 week
    2 - 6 years - 2 weeks
    7 years - 3 weeks

    You are not allowed to use vacation until you have been here a year.
    You are allowed to carry over if you do not use all of it.
  • Dianna, that sounds awfully generous. Do you have paid sick leave, too?

    James Sokolowski
    Senior Editor
    M. Lee Smith Publishers
  • 7 days a year. For new hires, it depends on the month you were hired.

    January, February, March - 7 days
    April, May, June - 5 days
    July, August, September - 3 days
    October, November, December - 1 day

    We also have 2 floating holidays per calendar year that you use or lose. Regarding the sick time, we have a new policy in place that you can carry up to half of the hours you don't use over to the next year or get paid out for the time.

    It is generous, I agree!!!

    Dianna

  • >I would like some ideas on how other companies handle vacation time.
    >Our current policy states you must work six months to receive a weeks
    >vacation (which is accured on a monthly basis and then posted on the
    >new employees six month anniversary) and after your six months you
    >recieve a faction of the next week over the remainder of the year. So
    >for the first 5 years of employement you earn two weeks vacation a
    >year. Then after you have completed your fifth year then you start
    >earning one additional day a year until you reached three weeks after
    >you have worked for the company fifteen years. An additional week is
    >given after you reach twenty years with the company.
    >
    >I feel like we are way out of touch with other companies and would
    >like to hear what some of you do.

    Our company allows employees to begin accruing vacation right away. Being a fairly new employee, I think this is great. My old company was like your company--you had to work 6 months before you earned any vacation and at that time you only earned 40 hours. From the 6 month to 1 year point you earned the other 40 hours. The policy at the company where I work now is that employees earn 15 days of personal time off per year up to 5 years of service. After that it is 20 days per year.

    AMW

  • We allow employees to begin accruing PTO as soon as they are employed. They accrue 1.33 days per month for their first 5 years and 1.75 days per month after that. Since it is PTO, Paid Time Off, it can be used as vacation, sick, personal, whatever.

    They can begin using PTO day one and, as long as they don't leave before earning the number of days they have used, there is no problem. If this does happen, the used but unearned days are deducted from their final check.
  • New hires - one day a month for five months.
    1 yr but less than 5 years - two days a month for five months.
    Completed 5 years + - three days a month for five months.
    Completed 10 years + - four days a month for five months.

    This does not include sick time, which is ten days per anniversary year. New employees have to wait 90 days
  • Our company is a large not-for-profit and we use our generous vacation time accrual policy as an added benefit to make up for wage rates that are, in general, lower than for profit corporations. Thus you may want to factor that in when evaluating our plan.

    New employees begin vacation accrual immediately at hire and any employee may use accrued vacation as it is earned. Accrued vacation time is owned by the employee and cannot be taken away, thus why restrict it's use? Full-time, hourly employees earn vacation at a rate of 8 hours per month during first year of employment...this equates to 12 days per year. Rate then increases to 15 days per year during years 2-5 and 20 days per year during years 6 and out. Management, salaried exempt employees earn at a rate of 15 days during year one, 20 days years 2-5 and 25 days years 6 and out. I told you it was generous.

    Part-time employees accure vacation time at a percentage of full-time employees based on a ratio of their PT hours to FT of 40 hours/wk. Thus a first year, 30-hour per week employee would accrue vacation at a rate of 6 hours per month (30hrs/40hrs = 75%, 75% x 8hours = 6hours).

    We do NOT restrict nor cease accrual once a certain accrual level is reached. Rather, by policy, we reserve the right to force employees to take vacation until their accrual is reduced to the maximum level they can earn in any one year.


  • I'm hesitant to answer this one but will since I think it is probably the extreme on the generous side. Exempt employees have 26 days per year accrued to a maximum of 48 days. Non-Exempt employees have 14 days in the first year, 19 the second and 26 in the third with a maximum accrual or 26 days. Then we shut down for two weeks for the holidays/new years and have 10 holidays as well. This schedule only seems unusual to us in the US. It wouldn't look out of place at all in many European countries. No, there aren't any job openings.
  • Our agency provides 3 weeks of vacation for the first and second years of employment. For years three through 19, employees get four weeks of vacation. Then at 20 years, five weeks of vacation. Vacation can be accrued to four weeks except for 20-year employees. Then it is a use-or-lose-it situation. Our vacation time is accrued on a daily basis and can be used once it is accrued, so even new employees can have some paid time off soon after hire. Employees are paid any remaining vacation time at termination. (We also receive nine holidays and 12 sick days per year too!)

    I think our agency is very generous in paid time off.
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