We are in the middle of our annual employee survey and I'm getting some comments/suggestions on the number of vacation days and paid sick time.

We give 10 days vacation at 1 year; 15 days at 10 yrs. And 20 days at 20 yrs. and that’s the most you get. Everyone gets 2 personal days/year. Comments are suggesting additional days at milestones of 5, 15, 30 and 40 years.

Sick days are 6 each year and they accumulate up to 90. Once you use up your sick time and vacation/personal days and you haven’t returned to work you are off without pay. Comments are suggesting full paid maternity leave, paid leave for surgery or childbirth for as long as the dr. says you need off.

So my questions are: do you offer vacation days at intervals other than what we do? Do you offer paid time off that extends past when all your bank of paid days are used and you are still off?

I haven't heard of paid maternity leave in years and would guess that's not a common benefit anymore. I just wanted to see if we were similar to other institutions.

Thanks.

Your questions are a balancing act depending on the size of your bank and competition in the market(s) you are in. For instance, we have a lot of energy companies here they are very competitive in their benefit packages. In my experience banks tend to be behind in adjusting to current markets for benefits. We just went to a PTO plan which combines vacation and sick. Employees like this type of plan because they do not have to explain the reason for taking of one day. They are allowed to carry over unused PTO to the next year.

New hire through 5 years 10 days
6 years 11 days
7 years 12 days
8 years 13 days
9 years 14 days
10 - 14 years 15 days
15 - 24 years 20 days
25 years or more 25 days

Plus 7 personal days per year. We can carry over a maximum of 30 days.

Leave is handled per Family and Medical leave Act requirements. You only get paid leave if you have accumulated the time.

Our vacation is same as yours. No personal days given. They just cut our sick day accrual to 6 per year with accrual stopping when you reach 6 days until you fall under. What you had on the books accrued at change date you get to keep, but do not accrue any more until under the 6 day cap.
SOOOOOOOOOOOOOO Not happy with the change. One catastrophic event and you are screwed.

vacation
normal schlubs
10 days to 5 years
15 days years 6-10
20 days year 10+

VP, SVP
15 days to year 10
20 days from there

EVP and higher
4 weeks on day 1

sick leave -

when hired, given the equivalent of 10 sick days (80 hours)
every January 1, 6 more days (48 hours) added
unused rolls over annually to a max of 1040 hours
2 of your sick days may be used as "personal time off" annually

VP and higher given 1040 hours on date of hire

Does anyone not allow vacations/personal days in December? We are a small bank 17 FT and 5 PT employees. Of the 17 FT, the avg length of employment is 19 years. 12 FT receive 20 days of vacation and 2 personal days. We do not have a HR department so I don't know the laws but how can you get employees to take vacation? We have 56 unused days of vacation/personal days left for the last quarter of the year. To me its crazy that this happens year after year. We end up having two or three people gone just so they can get their days in. Thanks for any guidance.

Grannie, the combination I've seen put into effect to counter your problem is a black-out period with a use-it-or-lose-it policy. Many small banks do this to make sure they're properly staffed at holidays and EOY. I can remember having to work to 7 and then meeting my spouse at the venue to ring in the New Year.
And, of course, vacations must be approved so you could always say no.

In a former life, we had "all hands on deck" days.
1st & 3rd of the month/days before holidays... that kind thing.

Everyone knew about the expectation to be at work those days. Vacations were never approved during those times. It was very helpful to be staffed on the wildest days....

First and Third of the month fell on the same day (and the Fourth of July was Monday)....

Thank you and yes I remember those days also, but times have changed. So we could black out days or am I taking it wrong that we "use to" and no longer can?

I know of nothing that would prohibit you from 'blacking out' certain days to make sure you were properly staffed.

from December 20-January 1 we can only use 1 day of vacation.

our vacation goes as follows:
1st year-5 days
2nd year-8 days
3rd year-13 days
11th year-18 days
16th year & up-23 days

We used to have blackout days for our front line during the holidays. We have since gone away and have allowed them to carry over days to next year but must be used by March 31. Only frontline are allowed to do this. All other employees have a use it or lose it policy.

Non-Officer Employees get 15 PTO days at day 1 and then 20 at 5 years, 25 days at 10 years and max out at 26 days.

Officers get 20 days from day 1, 25 days year 5, 30 days year 10 and are then maxed out unless move to executive status.

Overall, we like PTO because you never have to explain why being gone. I do wish we could roll over a few days.