PTO question: does your employer count holidays against yours?

[vi edit]

My employer has a very weird way of accruing PTO time. In their calculations they factor in holidays and roll in an extra 6 days or so worth and include that in your balance every paycheck.

It's just frustrating because you look down and see that you have 40 hours of PTO accumulated....but you have to figure that 24 of that goes to having Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New years off.

I've never seen it like this any place else I've worked. Is it common?

 

[sswingle]

Nope, not common.

 

[PaNsyBoy8]

nope, that doesn't sound right at all. hopefully they give you more pto because of their policy

 

[vi edit]

Originally posted by: PaNsyBoy8
nope, that doesn't sound right at all. hopefully they give you more pto because of their policy

They do account for it...instead of geting 14 days a year you get like 21 days...but the extra 7 are there for the holidays. It's just that I've never seen it counted like this. As a new hire it's kind of annoying to look down and see that I have 40 hours banked but in reality it's only like 16 unless I want to be in here working on Christmas day.

 

[mcvickj]

That sounds like a pretty f'ed up system. It certainly sounds pretty unethical to make you burn vacation time because of a national holiday.

 

[thomsbrain]

bait and switch!

 

[tm37]

Originally posted by: vi_edit

Originally posted by: PaNsyBoy8
nope, that doesn't sound right at all. hopefully they give you more pto because of their policy

They do account for it...instead of geting 14 days a year you get like 21 days...but the extra 7 are there for the holidays. It's just that I've never seen it counted like this. As a new hire it's kind of annoying to look down and see that I have 40 hours banked but in reality it's only like 16 unless I want to be in here working on Christmas day.

Do they let you work on XMAS?

Because I have to tell you if they would let me work the day after thanksgiving I think I would.

All of my customers are off so I could come in and sleep.

 

[Alex]

here when there's a holiday on a thurday they give us friday off and subtract 1 day of holidays that everyone can take... its not optional either but having long weekends is definitely nice!

 

[Phoenix86]

Originally posted by: mcvickj
That sounds like a pretty f'ed up system. It certainly sounds pretty unethical to make you burn vacation time because of a national holiday.

Did you read his post? They are giving him extra time for it...

It makes sense really, PTO and vac. time are just two seperate buckets of time that mean the same thing. It's all paid time off work.

 

[amddude]

I reckon that'd be pretty lame. My employer does not do that, they actually do the reverse IIRC.

 

[FoBoT]

never heard of that. but it is basically making everything a floating holiday

 

[nwfsnake]

You could make it work to your benefit if they pay you for your vacation hours when you quit. Just make sure you quit on Jan 2, and get payed for the Holidays for the whole year!

 

[mcvickj]

Originally posted by: Phoenix86

Originally posted by: mcvickj
That sounds like a pretty f'ed up system. It certainly sounds pretty unethical to make you burn vacation time because of a national holiday.

Did you read his post? They are giving him extra time for it...

It makes sense really, PTO and vac. time are just two seperate buckets of time that mean the same thing. It's all paid time off work.

Yeah I missed that part. Still seems like a strange way to go about it. /shrug

 

[AaronB]

I think you might have a better system than most of us and you don't realize it.

Where I work, I get 10 days of vacation plus the standard holidays (I don't remember how many, so call it 6). If any holiday falls on a weekend where I would normally be off anyway, I don't get an extra day added to my vacation time or an extra days pay added to the check. I just lose that paid day off.

On your system you would start off with 16 days of vacation and if a holiday falls on a weekend you would get to keep it as an extra vacation day.

 

[vi edit]

I'm definitely not claiming that I'm being cheated. I'm fully compensated. It's just the matter of having to do the math on remaining holidays and factoring that into PTO requests that is frustrating.

Every other place that I worked at it was just a given that salaried people had certain holidays off. Those days were added to your PTO balances, nor were they subtracted. When I saw that I had 20 hours left, I had 20 hours left.

Eventually it will be less and less of a deal as my acruel rates start to increase and catch up with the holidays, but as a recent hire it's a little wacky.

 

[Golgatha]

Originally posted by: Phoenix86

Originally posted by: mcvickj
That sounds like a pretty f'ed up system. It certainly sounds pretty unethical to make you burn vacation time because of a national holiday.

Did you read his post? They are giving him extra time for it...

It makes sense really, PTO and vac. time are just two seperate buckets of time that mean the same thing. It's all paid time off work.

QFT. They give him an extra 6 days accrual per year?! Six to one, half a dozen to the other anyone? The only thing crappy at my work is that they are closed the entire week of Christmas, and they make you take off 3 days against your PTO every year. Can't complain too much though because I accrue 21 days a year to start with and after 2 years I started accrueing 28 days a year and can bank up to 35 days.

 

[amdskip]

I've been here since May and I'm getting 2 days of vacation a month, pretty good if you ask me.

 

[Ramma2]

Same way here, and I like it.

Just get your PTO balance over 100 hours then you don't have to worry about it anymore.

 

[kranky]

I've never worked anyplace that tracked PTO on your paycheck, actually.

 

[Zenmervolt]

They don't do that here. Sounds odd, we have a PTO bucket (192 hours/year) and separate company holidays that everyone gets off work.

ZV

 

[vi edit]

Originally posted by: kranky
I've never worked anyplace that tracked PTO on your paycheck, actually.

We don't have an "e-payroll" system like Peoplesoft(yet) that you can log in and check on your own and we have over 5,000 employees corporate wide. That makes for a lot of people asking what their balances are. Putting it on the paycheck helps clear up a lot of questions.

 

[kranky]

In that case, I would agree it makes little sense to lump holidays into a PTO balance. The poor person who fails to remember that is going to be pretty angry when they don't get paid for a holiday.

 

[woowoo]

I think it's a religious thing.
Say someone does not want to take off christmas and wants off on passover.....

 

[vi edit]

Originally posted by: woowoo
I think it's a religious thing.
Say someone does not want to take off christmas and wants off on passover.....

Interesting point. I work for a Catholic organization.

 

[GasX]

I worked at a company that gave you a few extra PTO to account for lesser Holidays in case you wanted to observe them. Major holidays were not counted as PTO.

e.g. You could stay home on MLK day if you wanted or not...

The underlying reason for this was that it was a European company that wanted to provide a semblance of parity in time off to US employees.