PTO

Claudia · September 2003

We are a small comopany of 20 employees in Califormnia. We are considering implementing a PTO system, but we are uncertain of the positives and the negatives that are involved. Can anyone give me more information in regards to what entails a PTO, how employees benefit from it, and are there any disadvantages for the employer?

gillian2 · September 2003

There are a lot of Pro's - flexibility, less recordkeeping etc. but a big con for us in California. For us, vacation is viewed as earned income and cannot be taken away, thus paid to an employee on an accrual basis. That does not apply to sick leave or fixed holidays. If you combine them, ALL of the time is viewed as earned and must be paid if not used.

Eliant · September 2003

Dear Claudia,
I'm in California as well. We hae a PTO policy that we implemented two years ago. Our employees had no sick time available as a benefit, however they had their B-day and a couple of floating holidays. We decided that if the employees had one bank were all their days wee gathered this would make life easier for them and for us (specially to track the days) So, currently our employees accrue according to years of service under one roof PTO. Traditionally an employee with 5 years or less of service would have accrued 2 weeks of vacation, two floating holidays and a B-Day (10 + 2+ 1) Now 5 years of service or less they accrue a total of 15 days under the PTO policy (an extra 2 days)

The negative is teaching the employees to manage their PTO time, so when they are ready to take the traditional vacation time they have days available. This is a check book.
(you see in our attendance policy we have the following) if you take a day off under PTO with prior authorization it does not count against them. But, if they call in after the fact this counts agiainst them in their attendance. The first year we allowed the employees to borrow against their accrued if they had 0 earned hours, in order to make their transition smooth. The second year they could only used their earned and not their accrued.

The positive, they can use these days for what ever their hear desires. If they have no attendance issues in actuality they will have an extra week for time off. If they have a lot of issues well, now they can take time off with pay in order to take care of these issues. (By the way we allow them to use their PTO in increments of hours, minimum two hours at the time like for Dr.'s appointments or school conferences)

Our employees are very happy with the program, now that they understand it.

Good luck

Eliant

Rockie · September 2003

We have used PTO for some time. The biggest "pro" is there is no sick leave bank to abuse. If they abuse PTO and run out of time, their attendance is adversely affected. We give four unscheduled call offs per year and on the 5th call off, an extra penalty PTO day is assessed for excessive call-offs. Since we implemented this "penalty" at the beginning of the year, we have had about a 50% reduction in unscheduled call offs.

patmills · October 2003

My employer provides generous All Purpose Leave (PTO) accrual with holidays paid separately. The question I have not found the answer to relates to how we pay out APL when the employee leave our employ. Our policy is that we pay either 1)75% of the maximum amount accruable according to length of service, or 2) their actual available APL hours. No one has been able to verify to my satisfaction that this policy is legal in Michigan. Anyone know where I should seek my answer?

PTO

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