The Vacation Days Blues

NeedCoffee · November 2006

So I need a little creative thinking from you guys this time. In fact, this may just be a post of me venting, but a response or two would be nice.

We have what is most likely the worst employee benefit program of anyone on this forum. We have over 100 employees and this is what they all get, regardless of time of service:

3 holidays (Thanksgiving Day, Christmas Day, and New Years Day)
5 days of vacation per year

That's it. No PTO, no sick leave, no nothing. Despite all my protestations, my manager will not budge on the vacation issue.

He calls me into his office today and tells me that starting next year, he wants to put a stop to people taking vacation one day at a time and start forcing people to take their vacation all at once. While I know this is perfectly legal, I have BIG BIG BIG issues with this policy. I, for example, have no family where I live. When Thanksgiving or Christmas comes around, I tend to take 1 or 2 days vacation so that I can travel to be with family. If he institutes this policy, many employees (including yours truly) will be forced to miss holidays, miss a 3 day weekend here and there, and you can see where this is going...employee morale DOWN THE TOILET.

Anyone have any ideas on how I can show him this is a bad bad bad idea? I am at my wits end, and I think he's tired of hearing my broken record of reasons this is stupid. Any insight would be appreciated. This has been one hell of a day.

marc · November 2006

I cannot tell you where to look for the evidence in your company, but these types of policies create problems that must show up in the ocmpanies results. Increased turnover, low production, quality rejects, etc.

The trick will be to show what could happen, and if the company has been doing this for a long time, it is possible that they don't have superior results for comparison purposes.

awilliams · November 2006

How well does your manager like no-call/no-shows? I imagine those occurances would be greatly inflated under this draconian policy.

We have an HR Executive Special Report on Absenteeism, and it should give you some fodder for a conversation with you boss. If you are a subscriber to a state newsletter you can download it for free.

Just a few weeks ago some group protested outside the capital in Washington D.C. about how Americans are overworked. A colleague of mine now has a poster on her door from this groups' website that says: Americans Work More Than Medevil Peasants! Perhaps you could find some statistics on their website that will be helpful. I'm sorry I can't remember hte name of the group ...

Good luck!

Anne Williams
Attorney Editor
M. Lee Smith Publishers, LLC

FunHRBanker · November 2006

So essentially under this policy anyone sick would either not be paid for that/those day(s), or would have to use all 5 days of vacation?! To me that sounds beyond ridiculous. To be honest, 3 holidays and only 5 paid vacation days sounds ridiculous. I'd be job searching!

NeedCoffee · November 2006

Yes, it absolutely is ridiculous. If the other perks of my job weren't so great, I probably would be job searching! The "protect the people" side of me wants to stay and fight on the employees' behalf. I'm trying to open the dialogue with the manager, but so far I'm meeting lots of brick walls.

I know it sounds strange but it's really nice to hear someone else say that our situation SUCKS!!! After a while you lose perspective.

marc · November 2006

I look at these issues a bit differently. I work for the company first - and would only invoke that "people protection" part of my psyche if it meant it would improve the company in some fashion.

NeedCoffee · November 2006

Your benefits policy ABSOLUTELY improves the company - employee morale? employee loyalty? turnover? If you can't give your employees time to spend with their families, or time to decompress on their own, it affects the company in a very negative way. Everyone needs a break. The latest studies out there say that work/life balance is the number 1 factor in employee work decisions.

When management wants to take away a benefit and force employees to take leave all at once, that takes a lot away from employees - the freedom to do what they want with time they have earned. When it's only 5 days a year, those 5 days are pretty precious. I'd say trying to preserve that benefit absolutely falls under employee AND company protection. If you don't have happy employees, you don't have much of a business either.

We all work for the "company first." And that means protecting and improving the company - if you don't have employees willing to work for your company, you aren't protecting the company.

jmcaa · November 2006

What kind of company do you work for? What business are they in and do employees work a regular 8-5, M-F schedule?

NeedCoffee · November 2006

This is an automotive dealership, employees work varied shifts between 7:30am and 7:30 pm, 6 days a week.

System · November 2006

Will your boss at least consider granting more days off that can be used as "floaters" to those employees that have certain years of service? Maybe he'll compromise by letting this beneift be available to employees with at least X years of service. Sell it as a way to reduce turnover, reward longevity, and the senior employees can flaunt it as a "privledge" they earned through loyalty to the company.

J9JC · December 2006

My husband worked for a oil and fuel delivery company with similar benefits. It hurt real bad when a driver was on vacation or did not show up. What tended to happen is the guys would know they were not getting paid for a called in sick day, but they did not care. They basically decided they could "afford" it. Yes you can discipline, but you just make your turnover higher since I image your people work long hours too. They also valued their small amount of vacation days but called in sick all the time to extend vacations, and even though it hurt them monitarily, it hurt the company more in lost customers. The owner's never would budge and they ended up going bankrupt....

I'm not sure that helped any as I had no suggestions but just wanted to let you know I sympathize with you and am SOOO glad he left that company!

Irie · November 2006

My husband works for a very large delivery company. Under their attendance policy they are not allowed to call off and use one day of vacation at a time. If they do call off they are not paid for the day. Their vacation must be scheduled in advance usually by the end of February and the vacation must be taken in weekly increments.

The reason they have to do this is because of planning the workday. If this company had 20 drivers calling off on one particular day using a vacation day, can you imagine the chaos? Customers would be furious because they didn't receive their packages due to drivers' absences.

I guess it would depend on the type of business you are in whether or not it is necessary to do as my husband's company does or to be a little more lenient.

Where I work we permit employees to call and use a day of vacation at a time and don't make them schedule in weekly increments. This definitely does affect production but our management doesn't seem to mind.

The Vacation Days Blues

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