My current employer just restructured the vacation/sick/personal time plan for salaried personnel.
It was 4 sick, 2 personal, X vacation depending on time with the company.
Now they get rid of the three identifiers and put it all into a Paid Time Off (PTO) pool which = X + 4 where X=the same as the prior vacation schedule.

To most people this is a reduction of 2 days. Senior management claims "Not So! Those 4 sick days were not a right! They were not earned! We're actually giving you two more days that can be paid out of you don't use them!"

Now, every company I've worked for has handled this differently: one place had 3 personal + "unlimited" sick time, another had 5 sick + 3 personal - all of which would be paid out at 1/2 day each if unused, another was 6 sick/personal use 'em or lose 'em.

What does your company do and what do they allow?
Just looking to benchmark sort of.

We get 10 vacation days to start, next bump is at 5 years. No sick or personal time, period. No carryover, it must be used by the end of the year or it vanishes. No payout either.

In my experience, this is somewhat generous on the vacation time (in the beginning, at least), but it is the first place with nothing else. Past sick/personal time has varied from 3 to 12 days (1 per month) per year.

This is written as I sit here with a horrible head cold, but I can't take off as my vacation time is already spoken for... guess I will just have to infect my fellow employees... ;)

We get 10 days vacation and 7 days sick/personal to start (salaried), then a bump in vacation days at 5 years. This is rather generous, I think. Any unused vacation or sick/personal at the end of the year is bought back or paid out at half the pay. In addition, we get either 7 or 8 paid holidays.

Previous employer had "use or lose" policy for salaried folks, no sick/personal time - they called it PTO (paid time off). Hourly folks only had prescheduled vacation time, no PTO.

My previous employer switched to a "paid time off" scheme as well, it was actually quite a boon to employees as everything was lumped together including holidays, I ended up having 260 hours total per year that I could use as holiday time if I wanted, or save and get paid at half rate at the end of the year, no roll over of time permitted. Of course things were always too busy to take time off, but it was nice having the option there....:lol:

New employer is 10 days vacation 5 days personal, very straightforward.

My friend, now living in Saarbrucken (sp) Germany likes to brag to me about his 5 weeks of vacation time....I think they have the right idea over there, work to live rather than live to work :notme:

My friend, now living in Saarbrucken (sp) Germany likes to brag to me about his 5 weeks of vacation time....I think they have the right idea over there, work to live rather than live to work
Ouch! :yuk:Not wanting to salt the wound, but I can't imagine life with only ten days holiday per annum.

New starters here get 28 days holiday + about 8 "Bank" Holidays (paid national holidays), plus virtually unlimited "sick" days, although evidence of actual illness is required for periods in excess of five days. As a long term employee I get 33 days, plus the 8 etc...

I think 25 is pretty much standard for professionals in the UK

How strange that we have such hugely different "norms".

Jimmy

Oh, yeah. What a shocker for most Brits (also Europeans) to come to the USA and work under USA employee contracts! Forget all those sick days, holidays and religious based time off! And you'd better work somewhere for a looong time before you accrue any kind of serious paid time off - compared to what you get 'normally' in the UK.

And let's not get started on health coverage and related expenses under COBRA etc when you're between jobs, like I have (twice, recently)!

Ah what we need is an international standard......Standard Practice for Paid Time Off!!

It seems a natural assumption to me, though, to say it would be more beneficial to offer employees more time off than the states currently do. After all, people on vacation spend money, spent money=healthier economy :cool: not to mention happier employees ;)

Vacation is pretty good here if you stick around.

1 week after a year
2 weeks after two years
3 weeks after 7 years
1 day added every year after 10 years
1 day added every other year after 20 years

No policy on sick/personal time - take what you need.

When I was an "exempt" worker for most of my adult life (salary + bonus or commission, ineligible for overtime pay), I had a prescribed vacation period, but I had no contractual limit on "sick" days or personal days. If I was too sick to work, I merely called in to let folks know I wouldn't be in. Similarly, for personal time off, I came and went pretty much as I pleased for full or partial days away from work to do something I deemed necessary (go to school with my kids, play golf, paint the living room, etc.) The difference was that I normally averaged a fifty to sixty hour work week even after my various non-vacation absences.

:topic:Back in the 1960s, Members of the steelworkers union in the USA had a deal where every 5 years they would get 13 weeks vacation time, once they had put in 15 years of service. In point of fact, the primary purpose of this was not to give employees time to really revel in sun & fun or any other activity, but to provide a platform where more total workers could be employed over a year to fill in for the one fifth of employees who were off work for 3 months and to offset the employees who would otherwise have been laid off permanently because of a shift from open hearth furnaces to basic oxygen process furnaces which used fewer workers.

Alas, the scheme flopped and the US Steel Industry virtually collapsed because no new money was being invested in innovation or capital improvement.

When I was dealing internationally in the aerospace business prior to 9-11-2001, I heard lots of complaints from employers in some European countries that the work laws granting reduced hours and longer vacations were as ruinous to them in the 90's and early 21st century as the featherbedding and overtime rules had been to USA organizations 20 years earlier.

When they took the time to think about the situation reasonably, most of those same employers agreed it was a wild backlash from earlier times when employers had ruthlessly exploited the workers. Similarly, the management/labor relationship dynamic is still in a wild state of flux in the USA where the unions (once strong and powerful) are being destroyed by aggressive employers who wield the stick of "outsourcing" to wrest more and more concessions from domestic labor (union and non-union.)

There is no easy solution to creating detente between management and labor because no one wants to be first to grant a concession and look weak and vulnerable in the marketplace.

New starters here get 28 days holiday + about 8 "Bank" Holidays (paid national holidays), plus virtually unlimited "sick" days, although evidence of actual illness is required for periods in excess of five days. As a long term employee I get 33 days, plus the 8 etc...

I think 25 is pretty much standard for professionals in the UK

How strange that we have such hugely different "norms".

Similar here. New starters get 25 days vacation increasing to 30 days after 7 years + 10 days public holidays + up to 10 days carried forward from previous year. We don't get payment for not taking sick days. That's very rare in the UK but not unknown. Our average across all employees is 6 days per year which includes a few long-term sick which skews it up. In exchange for a high degree of self certification, sickness absence is very closely monitored with senior managers having targets:mg: There are interviews on return from sick, various trigger points that call for action and other stuff I am not going into. Also we can't sell back our unused leave days.

My company starts exempts with 3 weeks as soon as you walk in the door (prorated for the first calendar year.) we go to 4 weeks at 5 years or upon promotion to Director level or above. We also get 1 month of additional 'sabatical' time at 10 15 20 25...years

there is no limit to sick time or personal time but we are expected to be 'reasonable' They really are serious about not coming in to work if you're sick. and teh great majority of individuals don't abuse the time at all.

What's getting me is the sick time. The gig I had with "unlimited" sick time - no one abused it and if you were really sick you took off. Kind of made one feel professional and trusted.

It's current for me because I'm getting over the flu. But guess what - I came in for at least partial days on Fri and Mon because I need to save the precious PTO days for when my kids are sick or have no school. Either that or I can write off family vacation time.

So we're suffering from Presenteeism - because everyone who is sick (and I know of 6 people here today with diagnosed bronchitis) keeps coming to to work and sharing.

My personal experience has varied a lot - much time was in the steel industry, with 1 week vacation @ 6 months, 3 weeks @ 1 year service, 4 weeks @ 5 years and 5 @ 15 years. 11 paid holidays a year. Sick Time - take off as needed, but don't abuse. The last employer in steel I was off for 12 days straight due to a planned operation - no issues with taking the time off.

From there I went to producer of iron powder for the PM industry - 11 holidays and 17 days of PTO prorated at start of the position for the year increased to 22 @ 5 years service. PTO had to be used for vacation, sick, etc. For technical personnel, they were fairly flexible as to start/stop times - if you needed to leave early or come in late it could be arranged. Heck, even on days I did that due to an appointment I never worked just 40 hours for the week but always closer to 50. Of course, if we'd started with the Swedish parent instead of the US startup we would have had 5 weeks vacation and 1 or 2 more holidays.

WOW. I guess I'm on the other end of the scale. We get 1 weekvac. up to 3 yrs. After 3 years we get 2 weeks. 9 paid holidays, 4 sick days , no carry overs. This has been pretty standard with my several jobs. I need to move to the UK!

2 weeks vacation
3 weeks after 10 years
4 weeks after 15 years
1 personal day
0 sick days of course sick days are paid for salaried exempt within reason and legal requirements
7 holiday days

2 weeks vacation at start
3 weeks after 5 years
4 weeks after 10 years
Can accrue (roll over) up to 2X vacation weeks before losing any time
0 sick/personal days - no limit - off as needed don't abuse priviledge
14 holiday days
Mandated shutdown week of July 4, must use vacation time

1 week after the first year
2 weeks after year two
3 weeks after year seven

5 Personnel Days (that count against attendance and have to be looked at by management on whether they pay you or not) If you do not use them you get paid for them at the end of the year (Basically took the place of the perfect attendance bonus)

What is killing our plant is FMLA (Family Medical Leave Act) People have found that they can go to a doctor and get on FMLA and miss work when ever they want. Some people really need it but we have numerous employees that abuse it and that kills production. If you have 10 employees in a department and two of them miss 2 days a week by abusing FMLA it really hurts. I don't know if it is an HR problem or just the slack rules by the gov't but I know we probably have 30+ employees in the plant of 300 that or on it. Kind of reminds you of the welfare system and what it was designed for and what it is used for today. (ooops got of subject with a rant) :topic:

looks like vacation is very similar but Personal/sick can vary quite a bit from company to company.

Now another question - when interviewing for a job and an offer is going to be made do you at least try to negotiate more vacation time as part of the offer package?

I guess it would depend on the company and maybe industry. If someone interviewing here tried to negotiate vacation, I'm pretty certain that their name would be removed from the short list rather quickly, but it might depend on who it was, why we wanted them.

I guess it would depend on the company and maybe industry. If someone interviewing here tried to negotiate vacation, I'm pretty certain that their name would be removed from the short list rather quickly, but it might depend on who it was, why we wanted them.

I guess that might also depend on the "level" you are interviewing for.
I would expect a company more open to negotiation for a senior postition than a mid manager position.

I negotiate with vacation time to get quality people in my QC department. I wanted people with experience and education - I wasn't going to get anyone with the qualifications I need without flexing the vacation rules. I didn't give more, but I kicked the full benefits in earlier. Our hourly policy is 5 days after a year 10 after 2 years. That just won't fly with the experience and education I was looking for. So I gave 5 days after 90 days and 10 days after a year.

Scott, I can comment directly with regard to negotiating vacation with a potential/new employer. I changed position as of Jan 01 of this year moving to QC Manager/Metallurgist at a foundry. Their standard package for vacation is 2 weeks @ 1 year that has to be used during the July and December shutdowns. Moving from 22 PTO days to 2 weeks vacation that had to be used during shutdowns was a non-starter for me at age 55. I negotiated for 3 weeks of vacation during the 1st year that could be used when I wanted to. This was agreed to (at least verbally) I'll get to see what happens when I try to use them - I've seen some things since joining that make me question some of the "facts" I was told verbally during the interview process.

Guess the mantra for interviewing should be similar to the old cold war one of "trust but verify."

Scott, I can comment directly with regard to negotiating vacation with a potential/new employer. I changed position as of Jan 01 of this year moving to QC Manager/Metallurgist at a foundry. Their standard package for vacation is 2 weeks @ 1 year that has to be used during the July and December shutdowns. Moving from 22 PTO days to 2 weeks vacation that had to be used during shutdowns was a non-starter for me at age 55. I negotiated for 3 weeks of vacation during the 1st year that could be used when I wanted to. This was agreed to (at least verbally) I'll get to see what happens when I try to use them - I've seen some things since joining that make me question some of the "facts" I was told verbally during the interview process.

Guess the mantra for interviewing should be similar to the old cold war one of "trust but verify."


And also - "get it in writing"

looks like vacation is very similar but Personal/sick can vary quite a bit from company to company.

Now another question - when interviewing for a job and an offer is going to be made do you at least try to negotiate more vacation time as part of the offer package?

The last 4 jobs I interviewed for and accepted the job, I negotiated 2 weeks vacation to start with. The places that hired me were more than happy to give me the 2 weeks, one also volunteered to pay my C.O.B.R.A. payments ( $1038 per month ) for 3 months. It is always good to look for a job when you do not need one, you can negotiate to a greater extreme.:cool:

I have used the same technique as KevinH fairly successfully but as ScottK pointed out, "get it in writing" at some point. My experience with verbal committments has been that they are honored, - until a new boss takes over- suddenly it's all back to the book. No new manager knows what verbal committments were made, or even has any evidence of them other than your protests.