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vivalostwages
03-12-2005, 07:00 PM
Just out of curiosity:

How do you accumulate sick leave at your work?

How about other personal leave time, if they count it separately?

Vacation time?

Do you lose any of the above hours if you don't use them?

Can you come in late or leave early if you have to?
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Since I teach at a community college part time, I accumulate one hour of sick leave for every 18 hours that I teach. So that comes out to one hour for every two weeks if I carry three 3-unit classes. It accumulates indefinitely. Also, when I left another community college last year, I took my sick leave from there and transferred it to the new place. I just recently heard that unused sick leave converts to retirement credit if you're in STRS.

I can take personal necessity leave as long as I state a reason, but under our new contract, it will no longer be necessary to give a reason. The limit on this type of leave is five days per year. It counts as 60% of one's sick leave.

We profs don't get vacation leave, so we just do our vacation thing during breaks, holidays, etc.

If I'm going to be late, I have to notify my division office so they can post the door. I am not supposed to let classes out too early.


And you?

Suburban Plankton
03-12-2005, 07:23 PM
I accrue a certain number of PTO (Paid Time Off) hours each pay period (every two weeks). How many hours depends on how many years you've been with the company; for me it adds up to 3 weeks per year.

PTO hours are used for both vacation time and sick leave. In California, there is a law against the "use it or lose" policy, so thay can't take away time that you have not used. What they can do is prevent you from accruing any additional PTO once you have reached a certain level. I'm not sure what that level is, but I think it's somewhere around 6 weeks for us.

In addition to accrued PTO, we also get three "floating holidays" every year. This is because our office is open on Presicent's Day, Martin Luther King JR's Birthday, and the Friday after Thanksgiving, all of which are holidays for many companies. In exchagnge for having to work those das, we get the three additional days of PTO.

FairyChatMom
03-12-2005, 07:27 PM
I'm a federal employee with more than 15 years of service. I earn 8 leave hours every 2 weeks, or 26 days a year. We are allowed to carry over 240 hours at the end of the leave year. Any beyond that is lost, unless there are special circumstances, like national emergency which requires us to work without taking leave. I've never been in that situation - I pretty much use all my earned leave every year. I started this year with 20 hours on the books.

All employees, regardless of longevity, earn 4 hours every 2 weeks, or 13 days a year. These never expire, and upon retirement, the hours all go away. Employees under the older retirement plan get those hours added to their total service, but I'm under the new program, so unless I get really sick before retirement, I get nothing.

We get no personal days, and if you use sick leave, you better be sick, caring for an immediate family member who is sick, going to a doctor/dental appointment, or attending the funeral of an immediate family member. I had a coworker who had the bad luck to get sick many, many Fridays... :rolleyes:

pinkfreud
03-12-2005, 07:37 PM
I'm a contract worker doing Internet research. No sick leave, no vacation time, no health insurance. It sucks to be in this situation, but there are very few options open to me, so I'm lucky to have a job. And I love the work that I do, so I get an emotional payoff from the good feelings about the work.

Waenara
03-12-2005, 07:44 PM
I'm a salaried long-term contract employee (not permanent staff), so I don't vacation days per se. Permenant staff get three weeks vacation per year, or more if they've been with the company longer. Contract employees don't get the vacation time off, but instead I get 6% vacation pay on every check. (6% extra pay works out to the equivalent of three weeks of salary per year).

In addition to vacation pay, I get one paid PTO (personal time off) per month. One PTO = 7 hours (length of workday). I can accrue up to 3 PTOs and then I have to use at least one of them, so that at any one time I have a maximum of 3 PTOs "banked".

My company is very good about flex-time. The core work hours are 9am to 3pm, and as long as you're in then, and you work 7 hours per day, it's all good. If you need to come in late or leave early, you can just make up the time later on.

Permanent employees get one sick day (General Illness Day) per month, and can accrue a maximum of twelve. Since I'm a contract employee I don't get Sick Days, and if I miss work due to illness I have to use any banked PTOs. If I use those up, then I just wouldn't get paid for my days off sick. In reality though, my boss just lets me work some extra time to make up for the missing sick time, so they don't end up having to take the missing day off my paycheck.

Foible
03-12-2005, 07:50 PM
I do contract work but I do it as an employee for a company that finds me jobs. I get somewhere around ten percent of my billable hours as personal time that I can use for vacation or to get a paycheck when they can't find me work. I have the option of taking it all up front in my paycheck but I don't. Why? It's the benefits. I'm on the health plan as long as they're paying me and I can't get coverage as cheap as they provide.

jweb
03-12-2005, 07:51 PM
I get 20 days of PTO a year, plus three 'floating holidays' like Suburban Plankton described. (Actually, since New Year's day was on a weekend this year, we get a 4th floating holiday in 2005).

We can carry over up to 40 days of total PTO from year-to-year. We can't carry over floating holidays, so you just make sure the first 3 (4) days of vacation you use in a year are your floating holidays.

Right now I will have 48 vacation days at the end of the year, assuming I don't use up some of them. But I will.

Geez, so I could take off of work for 9 weeks and still get all my paychecks...

ouryL
03-12-2005, 09:35 PM
Read your employee handbook!! :smack:

Thalion
03-12-2005, 09:52 PM
I'm a cop, with over 17 years on the job.

I accrue 8 hours of sick leave per month, with no maximum. If I stay until retirement, I get 100% of my sick time paid out (if I quit before then, I get 50%). Since I currently have about seven months on the books and twelve years to go to retirement, that should be one hell of a check!

I also accrue 17 hours of vacation time per month, to a maximum of 300 hours (as long as I'm under 300 hours on December 31, it carries over to the next year). In addition, when I go three months without using any sick time, I get an additional four hours of vacation time. So every fourth month I earn 21 hours of vacation time rather than 17.

We also get 12 holidays per year, but due to the nature of the job we can't actually take the time off. If I'm off on a holiday, I still get paid for a full shift. If I work on the holiday, I get the full shift pay plus overtime (totaling 2.5 times my regular rate of pay). The pay for those holidays is banked and we get a very nice check just before Thanksgiving every year. I don't have to think about saving money for Christmas.

All in all, a very sweet deal, and I know that I'm very lucky to work here.

RickJay
03-12-2005, 09:54 PM
Just out of curiosity:

How do you accumulate sick leave at your work?
I get 5 full days of sick leave every year I work. They accumulate limitlessly; I have about 20 saved up now. I also get an additional 15 per year at 75% pay, which also accumulate endlessly.

How about other personal leave time, if they count it separately?

Vacation time?
Vacation is separate; I got 3 weeks a year until this year, I'm now up to 4 a year. We also get three designated floaters. There's other types of special leave too - parental leave, bereavement, etc.

Do you lose any of the above hours if you don't use them?
We can only carry over one week of vacation to the next fiscal year, though if you have a good reason you can carry over more. It's considered important here that you take all your vacation.

Can you come in late or leave early if you have to?
Usually.

Jophiel
03-12-2005, 10:36 PM
We get five sick days a year. They don't build up but any that are unused at the end of the year get paid out at 50%.

Vacation I believe is a base of two weeks after you work a year. I'm up to three weeks -- and one of the few people in the company who've been around long enough to get three weeks (7+ years).

I know there's something on the books about bereavement time but I don't think it's paid time off.

On the other hand, my supervisor has always been pretty casual and understanding about half days or coming in an hour late due to "real life" issues like parent-teacher conferences, doctor's appointments and what-have-you.

vivalostwages
03-13-2005, 12:02 AM
I've got over 80 hours saved up at this point, and many of them were hours I brought with me from the other campus, where I worked for 11.5 years. There are those who have many, many more hours than that.

I'm glad they're getting rid of the requirement that we state a reason for taking personal necessity leave, because sometimes you just need a day for reasons that may not be on the list, and we don't enjoy fibbing or pretending to be ill. (Illness does not need documentation unless it's in excess of one week, and it can be hard to get people to sub at a college although it's certainly possible.)

gotpasswords
03-13-2005, 12:04 AM
Where I'm at, we get 25 days of PTO per year to start. That's vacations and sick time. Think it goes up to 30 days after 5 years with the company, and so on. There's quite a few people who've been here for over 30 years, so they get a lot of PTO.

We can only "roll over" five days to the next calendar year.

The annoying thing is that starting this year for my department, management wanted us to schedule all of our time off for the year by the end of February. OK, so I'll be sick on November 10 and 11, and out with the flu, the week of December 26-30. :rolleyes:

On the plus side, we're loosely managed from several states away, so as long as passwords are reset and requests are completed on time, we have a fair bit of leeway with getting in on time in the morning and nobody seems to mind the occasional two or three hour lunch if a doctor appointment is rolled up in there somewhere.

Duckster
03-13-2005, 02:03 AM
I'm a federal employee with more than 15 years of service. I earn 8 leave hours every 2 weeks, or 26 days a year. We are allowed to carry over 240 hours at the end of the leave year. Any beyond that is lost, unless there are special circumstances, like national emergency which requires us to work without taking leave. I've never been in that situation - I pretty much use all my earned leave every year. I started this year with 20 hours on the books.

All employees, regardless of longevity, earn 4 hours every 2 weeks, or 13 days a year. These never expire, and upon retirement, the hours all go away. Employees under the older retirement plan get those hours added to their total service, but I'm under the new program, so unless I get really sick before retirement, I get nothing.

We get no personal days, and if you use sick leave, you better be sick, caring for an immediate family member who is sick, going to a doctor/dental appointment, or attending the funeral of an immediate family member. I had a coworker who had the bad luck to get sick many, many Fridays... :rolleyes:

I suggest you check out the OPM web site (http://www.opm.gov/oca/). There are a number of special leave categories above and beyond what you stated.

flyboy
03-13-2005, 03:38 AM
I'm a DoD employee. I get 30 days a year. We can save up to 60; at the end of the fiscal year I lose anything beyond that unless I've been deployed for a certain amount of time. At one point, I think I had 85 days of leave on the books. Right now I have around 70. I tend to be so busy that it's hard to take large amounts of leave. If I leave the military, I will have the option of selling that leave back (up to 60 days, I think).

If I'm not deployed, I get all the usual holidays. If I'm sick or something else requires my attention (family issues, other appointments), I can arrive late or leave early or even take the whole day off. If I'm deployed, the closest thing I get to a real holiday is probably a fake turkey dinner at the chow hall.

Smeghead
03-13-2005, 03:40 AM
I'm unique. I don't get any paid time off...sorta. See, I work 7 days on/7 days off. I work 7 10-hour shifts in a row, then I get a week off. But, although I only work 70 hours, I get paid for 80 (assuming I work all my hours - it's prorated if I work less). I get that extra 10 hours every two weeks in exchange for the fact that I have to work weekends and holidays and also instead of PTO. Theoretically, I should be banking that extra money so if something happens and I have to miss work, I'll have that to fall back on. But what it boils down to is that if I'm not at work, I'm not getting paid (and I'd better have a darned good reason for not being there).

Richard Pearse
03-13-2005, 06:33 AM
I'm a salaried employee and get 42 days leave per year plus 14 days sick leave. After 10 years I'm entitled to 3 months "long service leave" this can actually be taken after 7 years on a pro rata basis and is fairly standard in Australia. All leave accrues but any accrued sick leave will not be paid out on termination of employment, only annual and long service leave.

On the flip side of the coin I get NO public holidays and "weekend" is a meaningless term.

Richard Pearse
03-13-2005, 06:35 AM
Oh, and the company can force me to take any leave accured over 42 days but I haven't heard of it happening.

Lsura
03-13-2005, 06:52 AM
I accrue 1.5 days of vacation and 1.25 days of sick leave a month.

There is no limit on the amount of sick time that can accrue, but I can have no more than 40 vacation days - if I reach 40 days, I acumulate no more until I take some.

There are no problems with coming in late or leaving early if I need to.

don't ask
03-13-2005, 07:31 AM
I accrue 20 days "recreation" leave each year and 10 days "long service" leave which is basically the same thing. I work Monday to Friday and get the 10 public holidays off unlike 1920s Style "Death Ray" who gets extra leave in compensation. All shift workers including police, firies and nurses get extra leave too.

I get some fixed number of sick days but I don't know how they accumulate. I take the odd day off sick but I still manage to have hundreds of days of accumulated leave. So do most people it seems, I have never heard of anyone running out.

I can take other days of "Family and Community Service" leave to tend sick kids or help ailing relatives or play golf (just kidding of course....golf is flex leave).

Our whole system is based on Flexi-time. I have to work 35 hours a week or 455 hours per quarter. How I do that is up to me and my boss. I can take off 6 flex days per quarter and make up the hours on other days. At the moment, for instance, I am about 40 hours up on the clock and if my boss agreed I could take off the next 6 days and use no leave at all. I could save the time for the end of the quarter and build up some for the start of the next quarter and take two consecutive lots of 6 days if it was OK for me to have leave. I can also take my flex leave as 12 1/2 days.

I can start and finish any time between 7am and 7pm although my finish time must be at least 6 hours after my start time. I can have a lunch break of 1/2 to 2 1/2 hours in there when I like.

UntouchedTakeaway
03-13-2005, 07:36 AM
[QUOTE=vivalostwages]Just out of curiosity:

How do you accumulate sick leave at your work?

6 days per year - accrued monthly

How about other personal leave time, if they count it separately?

Vacation time?

10 days per year - accrued monthly. If I make it to July of this year (5 years at my company), I'll get 15 days per year

Do you lose any of the above hours if you don't use them?

By strict definition, yes. But my direct boss will let you carry over on an as-needed basis.

Can you come in late or leave early if you have to?

Yes. Again, I work for a saint. :) He's very flexible & appreciates that I do my job and am loyal to a fault.


VCNJ~

meathead
03-13-2005, 07:41 AM
Unfortunately, accumulating sick/personal time is not available to me. It really doesn't matter though - every year I get 20 vacation days, 20 sick days, 5 personal business days, 9 regular holidays and 2 floating holidays.

Very few people where I work use all of their time off during a given year, but if someone does go beyond their limit, the company just keeps paying them anyway.

FairyChatMom
03-13-2005, 07:45 AM
I suggest you check out the OPM web site (http://www.opm.gov/oca/). There are a number of special leave categories above and beyond what you stated.I'm very aware of the other categories, but as none of them apply to me (I am no longer a reservist, so I don't take military leave any more) I don't much pay attention to them. Plus the other categories aren't accumulated, which is what the OP asked.

FilmGeek
03-13-2005, 09:40 AM
I don't get sick time or PTO or anything of the sort. I'm not at work I don't get paid.

I have a friend who gets no time off (excepting major holidays, unpaid) and any absence more than 5 minutes (!) counts as a tardy, three tardies in some time period (a month?) gets you fired. So, if she walks in at 8:06 because there was traffic, she's got a tardy. Or. if she takes a 35 minute lunch rather than 30, she's got a tardy. It's absurd.

She is the marketing department for a very small manufacturer. She doesn't answer phones, nor is she essential at 8 am. But, because the people in the shop have to be there right on time every day, she has to as well.

I'll never get paid time off, but I'm okay with that, as I'm going into business for myself. :D

MaddyStrut
03-13-2005, 10:17 AM
I had to check my employee manual to answer this one! I'm an exempt, full-time employee in corporate America. I can only answer for exempt employees since my manual doesn't cover the non exempt staff.

We all get 8 sick days and 2 personal days per year. You get them at the beginning of every year though they are pro rated a bit during your first year of employment. You can't roll any over to the next year, and we don't pay out for any sick or personal days not taken.

Vacation time depends on your level in the company. Exempt but non officered employees in their first 5 years of employment get 10 paid days per year. As you move up in officer or tenure status, you get more days. Currently, I get 20 days. The max is 25. However many days you are eligible for get pro rated throughout the year. If you leave at some point during the year, you're paid for any days you've earned but not taken. If you've taken more than you've earned, it comes out of your final paycheck. You can roll over up to 5 days each year. If you have more than 5 days you haven't taken, you lose them. We don't pay out for days not taken. You have to take any rolled over days in the first 3 months of the year or you lose them.

We also get some paid floating holidays each year. Usually you earn those days when your department has to come in when the rest of the company is closed (like on a day when the markets are closed so most of the office is off but certain groups like IT, marketing, or finance need to come in). You can also earn them if your particular office is closed due to inclement weather or other issues and you come in anyway. This year, everyone got one floating holiday since our offices were open Monday after New Years Day. You earn your floating holiday immediately after whatever event occurs. You can't roll them over and they have to be taken before any vacation time. If you leave before you've taken your floating holiday, you're paid for that day.

CrazyCatLady
03-13-2005, 02:15 PM
I don't get sick days or personal leave as a regular thing. We get a week of vacation time every six months. We also have an incentive program where we give each other "fish" certificates for doing a good job, and when you accumulate eight of those you can take a day off with pay. If you're sick, you either trade a shift with someone, use a vacation day or a fish day, or you don't get paid.

Our vacation days accrue at a rate of 1 week every six months, and if you don't use it within a year of accruing it, you lose it. I have never heard of this being a problem for anyone. The great thing is, though, that you can often trade enough shifts to cover a week-long trip without having to use any of your vacation or fish days.

We don't really get to come in late, although nobody will get all that terribly bent out of shape about you being a bit late because something cropped up. We often get to leave early, if everything is done and there are no emergencies on the way, but we just as often stay late because things still need to be done, or there's a possible surgery coming in. We're salaried, so we don't get penalized for leaving early when it's dead, but we don't get any reward for staying late when it's crazy. Overall, though, it balances out.

missing_link
03-13-2005, 02:56 PM
I have 25 vacation days a year, plus 10 days of paid holidays. Here in Switzerland, sick days don't exist. If you are sick then you're sick and don't go to work. You have to present a note from the doctor if you are sick for more than 3 days in a row though.
As for working hours, I can pretty much come and go as I wish (within certain boundaries). I just have to make sure that I work my 2080 hours a year (40 hours a week). All hours worked are saved in your personal time account. Right now I have about +40 hours on my personal time account and 32 vacation days left. This means i could take little more than 7 weeks off this year though I doubt that I will be able to do that. The hours on the time account never expire, the vacation days expire after 6 months into the next year.

Cunctator
03-13-2005, 03:06 PM
My personal leave accrues at the rate of 20 days per annum. The maximum amount that I can have accrued before my employer forces me to take leave is 50 days.

The sick leave entitlement is unlimited, with a doctor's certificate required for absences of over 2 days. I assume that a cap would be put on the sick leave entitlement of anyone who was caught abusing the system.

Voyager
03-14-2005, 01:29 AM
I've never worked at a place where I accrued sick leave. If you are sick, you stay home. At one place after 2 weeks you go on disability, I don't know about where I am now since it never came up.

We accrue vacation per pay period. We have just reduced the maximum you can accumulate. Almost everyone has a lot, and we've started forcing everyone to take the week of July 4 off to reduce it.

When I worked for AT&T we got a year's worth Jan 1 - which was nice when I took the buyout package from the trivestiture, where I left Jan. 15 and got paid for the five weeks I got.

DoctorJ
03-14-2005, 01:47 AM
Right now, as a resident, I get three weeks every year--it doesn't "accrue" or anything. I don't have any official "sick leave", but if I get sick and have to miss a day, people can cover for me.

According to my contract for my job next year, I accrue 6.154 hours of vacation and 3.692 hours of sick leave per pay period. (That's four weeks a year and one day a month, respectively.) I also get two weeks of continuing medical education time, though that usually involves a conference someplace nice, and one of those weeks can be converted to outright vacation.

Small Clanger
03-14-2005, 05:27 AM
I accrue 6.154 hours of vacation and 3.692 hours of sick leave per pay period. (That's four weeks a year and one day a month, respectively.) Argh! The company I work for writes (amongst other things) software for managing holidays/vacations sick-schemes and - for those of the American persuasion - personal days. Also flexitime schemes time-off-in-lieu holiday calendars and the like. You people are making my head ache (yes, I get to write/maintain said software). Looking at our holiday management package I see parameters for ::deep breath::

Fixed or earned entitlement.
Units Days/Hours/Decihours (tho' I think we only go to two decimal points Doc
Year based on calendar or employee start date.
Period (for earned) Weekly, fortnightly, monthly. . .
Entitlement.
Carry forward allowed? If so how much. Use within period.
Forward booking allowed? - for how long in the future.
Pro-rata in first period (for earned)
Can exceed entitlement? If so by how much.
Allow brought forward? If so how much.
Additional time for length of service? A whole bunch of extra parameters for this.

It looks like some of you have schemes that would every option checked, plus some we haven't thought of. Naturally we don't use any of this complicated stuff in house. Holiday is a fixed number of days, use it or lose it. If you're sick you're sick (get a note if it's more than a couple of days) and we don't do flexitime just 9 to 5:30.

In a previous life I worked on a ship. There the system was very simple. Six weeks onboard - six weeks off. When on ship: Twelve hours on twelve hours off seven days a week. When off: Nothing.

Since someone brought it up, the way to spot the "always sick on Fridays" skivers is something called the Bradford factor. You take the product of the number of days off sick and the square of the number of separate absences, high scorers will attract attention.

RancidYakButterTeaParty
03-14-2005, 08:01 AM
I accumulate 1.25 sick days every month. I got five to start with.

I get 3 personal days per year. If these aren't used, the role over into sick leave.

No vacation time (I'm a teacher).

A very good set up indeed. I have been teaching for six years, and I have over 60 sick days saved up.

missbunny
03-14-2005, 02:12 PM
At my co., we get 8 sick days per calendar year - they don't carry over to the next year.

We get 2 weeks' vacation for years 1-4 and 3 weeks starting at 4 years. We can carry over 1 week per year and have 6 months to use it; otherwise we lose it. We are allotted our weeks at the beginning of the calendar year, but we are actually borrowing it since we haven't accrued it yet for the year. That is, if I want to take Jan. 15-30 off, I can; but if I terminate before I earn those 2 weeks, I would owe it back to the company. (Often times, they just let people keep it though.) We do get paid for accrued but unused vacation time upon termination (state law).

We don't get any personal days but when I take a partial day off or come in late or leave early, it's never counted against vacation time.

We get 10 paid holidays and usually get a day or two off extra - e.g., when Christmas falls on a Thursday, they just give us the Friday off even though it's not an official holiday.

ladybug
03-14-2005, 06:40 PM
I get 6 sick days a year that accrue at a rate of .5 days per month at the beginning of each calendar year. If you get sick in January and need to take more than a half a day, you fill out a form to borrow the sick time. If you leave before you earn back the borrowed time, it comes out of your last paycheck. First year employees get three sick days for the year.

Personal days work the same way as sick days. I accrue one every four months, and have to borrow after that. Personal days require advanced notice and management approval.

Vacation days are based on your service with the company. Newer employees (anyone 90 days to 3 years) get up to 10 days a year, accruing one day on the 15th of each month. Employees with 3 to 8 years get 1.25 vacation days a month up to a maximum of 15 days. Employees who've been with the company for 15 years or more get 20 vacation days a year. We also get 10 paid holidays, including one or two floating holidays.

PTO doesn't roll over from year to year -- I either use it or lose it.

Voyager
03-14-2005, 07:30 PM
Argh! The company I work for writes (amongst other things) software for managing holidays/vacations sick-schemes and - for those of the American persuasion - personal days. Also flexitime schemes time-off-in-lieu holiday calendars and the like. You people are making my head ache (yes, I get to write/maintain said software).

Do you handle sabbaticals? Evil :) One company I worked for gave you 6 or 8 weeks every seven years. I never even got near it. We shut down between Christmas and New Years, paid, which works about the same as a sabbatical but you can't lose it.

Is your flexitime daily hours of compensatory time? I'd hate to have to track my schedule. :) What with working from home sometimes, staying late often, it would be a real mess.

Small Clanger
03-15-2005, 03:22 AM
Do you handle sabbaticals? Evil :) One company I worked for gave you 6 or 8 weeks every seven years. This is just where the Argh! kicks in. No sabbaticals, they don't crop up in the sort of working environments we deal with. I suppose you'd be put on your very own customised holiday scheme for the year.

Is your flexitime daily hours of compensatory time? I'd hate to have to track my scheduleYou'd be expected to clock your time (with a swipe card usually), if you have an entry card to your office/place-of-work then that's what gets used.

What with working from home sometimes, staying late often, it would be a real mess.From home: log on by phone. Working late: swipe out of the office late and the system tracks your hours. Basically it looks like you are not in a job that expects (or needs) you to track your time so you won't be needing our services <phew>

The weird thing to me is that there are so many different arrangements out there. You'd supposed there would be maybe half a dozen standard arrangments for holidays and sick-schemes but no. . . there are hundreds - just look at this thread - it's a nightmare (and don't get me started on firefighters). I shouldn't complain, complicated employment senarios keep me busy.

easy e
03-15-2005, 06:05 PM
I'm an engineer at a medical device company. I'm on year #2 there, so I accrue 4.92 hours of PTO every 2 weeks. Once I've been there 4 or 5 years, it bumps up so I accrue more time. I'm salaried and was told that I don't need to use it for the occasional sick day, but that's an honor system. I'm sure if they saw someone abusing it, they'd change the policy. The hourly people do have to use PTO if they're sick. Though interestingly, really long-term non-salaried people get more PTO than their salaried counterparts.

I think we can accrue 1.5 times our yearly PTO allowance before we have to use it. My first year I spent it almost as fast as I got it, so I didn't have to worry about that.

interface2x
03-15-2005, 06:19 PM
My company's PTO program is really one of the only alluring things about it, in my opinion. As the company is primarily made up of somewhat recent college grads, they reward you with PTO more quickly because if you've been with the company more than 5 or 6 years, you're an elder.

As it is, I've worked there for a little less than 5 years and have 15 days of straight PTO, 6 days of sick PTO, 2 floating holidays, and 2 personal days. All of this is put together as PTO, so in total I have 25 days of PTO per year. Plus I think we have 11 paid holidays and occasionally get the time between Christmas and New Years off. Unfortunately, it's a "use it or lose it" program, so by the end of the year, I'm taking off random Mondays and Wednesday to ensure that I don't get screwed out of any time. This in addition to a couple of week-long vacations, maybe some day-trips, long weekends, etc.

I'm not looking forward to leaving the PTO structure as I leave for a new job. I'm still looking, but I haven't seen any program that even approaches what I even started with in the current place.

fluiddruid
03-15-2005, 06:35 PM
I'm a salaried, exempt employee. I get 3 weeks of PTO per year (determined by years of employment -- I'm in the 1-5 years bracket), plus about 10 holidays (8 floating, 2 set holidays) and one "diversity day" which is pretty much just more PTO. If I work a holiday, I just get another day. We are open one of our set holidays, so our site allows it if I have to work that day, I get another day. I cannot roll over PTO to the next year. I get the whole bank on January 1.

Hourly non-exempt can roll over 20 hours, can get slightly more or slightly less time depending on years of employment, and can get paid 2.5x normal if they work holidays or another day off, their choice. They don't get a diversity day. I still think I'm getting the raw end of the deal, considering I made more as hourly with a lower level job, but oh well.

buttonjockey308
03-15-2005, 06:56 PM
I get 8 sick hours per month or 96 hours a year. Since I'm a 24 hour employee, if I work the holiday, I get time and a half, if I don't, I get straight time. I get 20 days of vacation every year, next year it'll be 25. I can accrue compensatory time at the same 1.5 times rate rather than cash OT, with no cap, and they're pretty decent with allowing use (because a) they have to adhere to the bargaining unit contract and b) comp time is so regulated).

it ain't all bad.