Do you require employees to be at work on Jan. 2 in order to receive their vacation, sick, personal days for 2010? If an employee is on unpaid leave (sick days have run out) do you grant them their paid days off beginning Jan. 2 or do they have to be at work in the new year first?

Our vacation is based on what they earned the prior year so yes they would get vacation they had earned even if on uppaid leave. As long as we consider them employeed they would also earn their sick time (can be used for personal days). Any special time off earned requires you to be working so they would not have or get any of that.

If they start any time after the first day of the year, their vacation is accrued at either .85 or 1.15 days per month, depending on if they would received 2 weeks or 3 weeks. Anyone starting after July 31 is not grated vacation until the following year.

Anyone already on unpaid leave at the end of the year/start of new year, I would grant them their vacation on day 1 (I'm assuming that an employee is on maternity leave, benefits expired, but not yet due back). They are an employee in good standing and have earned the right to these benefits.

Take a look at your policies....if how leave is earned is not clearly spelled out....make a revision to your policy. Unclear language is just a headache and creates confusion for everyone.

I also agree with the above-poster...if the employee is one in good standing the leave should be provided as agreed.

I have worked in places where the policy stipulated that in order to paid for a holiday you had to be in a paid status the day before and after a holiday. (that would include an employee on paid leave-vacation, sick or otherwise)

Here, employees are required to be at work or on a pre-planned paid leave status (vacation days or maternity leave only, not sick days) both the day before and the day after a holiday in order to earn any holiday pay. If you happen to be dying of a strep throat on 12/23 and call in sick for several days, you'll get sick pay for 12/23 and 12/24, but you won't get paid for Christmas Day at all. If you worked 12/31 and then were scheduled to work but called in sick on Saturday 1/2, you would not get paid for New Year's Day, even with a doctor's note, per our policy.

In terms of earning vacation time, we used to not be able to use sick time, vacation time, etc. until earned fully. Now, it is all allocated up front as of 1/1 of each new year, as long as the employee was hired before 7/1 of the previous year.

Our current policy states that all full time employees receive their vacation, sick, personal days each January. Our situation right now that is causing us to think of changing the policy is that an employee has been off work since mid Nov. and continues to be off with an unknown, but expected, return date. All their paid time off expired early on in the absence. Per our current policy we are giving them their paid time off for 2010 as of now but thought we might want to change that for the future. We just wanted to see how others would handle this situation.

It seems the person in question is in an unusual situation...and you really can't change your policies mid-stream (at lease not without appearing retaliatory, anyway).

Honestly, I think you have to consider your goals in changing your leave program. What are you trying to prevent/acheive? Or is the concern more about how long an employee can be on unpaid leave and continue on the company's benefit program?

It's important to have all of these situations in a policy, because you don't want to create a situation where it may appear that favoritism was shown.

You may offer a period of "disability" where the company will continue benefits as if they were active on the payroll...and then require that the employee pay all or part of these benefits.

Just curious to know some of your vacation and sick days benefits. Just a little comparison if you don't mind. Like does you sick days accrue, do you have to have a DR excuse every time, any personal days, how many days vacation and do you get more with the more years you spend there?

We accrue leave with every pay. It's a percentage based upon years of service. It begins in January and any PTO left on Dec. 31 (up to a certain amount) is transferred into a bank that is used for long term illness.

I think for new FT employees it works out to about 20 days/year; however, we have only 3 paid holidays.

Replying to "Relax"'s question:

Effective Jan. 1, 2010, we are pleased (and suprised!) to now have 10 paid holidays per year (all 10 of the Federal Reserve holidays) - we used to just get 5: New Year's Day, Christmas, Thanksgiving, 4th of July, and Memorial Day. Every employee must work both the day before and the day after a holiday (or be on pre-planned vacation time or maternity/paternity time) to earn the paid day for that holiday. Part timers not ordinarily scheduled to work that day of the week do not earn holiday pay for that holiday.

Each employee gets 6 paid sick days per year. Bank officers get 12 paid sick days per year. No sick days roll over at all - it's "use it or lose it" during that calendar year.

Zero personal days. Zero comp days. Zero floating days.

Vacation: First year employed - if hired after June 30th, zero vacation can be taken, but it accrues and can be taken the next calendar year. First year employed - if hired on or before June 30th, earn (and can use) vacation per month of service equaling maximum of 5 days per 12 full months of service until you have completed 3 full years. After 3 years of service, earn vacation per month of service equaling maximum of 10 days per 12 full months of service until you have completed 10 full years. After 10 years of service, earn vacation per month of service equaling maximum of 15 days per 12 full months of service until you have completed 20 full years. After 20 years, max of 20 days of vacation is earned per 12 months.

I'd be curious to see what other banks have as policy, too. Thanks.

10 paid holidays this year. 10 vacation days for 1-5 years. 1/2 sick time accured monthly and can be carried over. 1 personal day and 1/2 day if you donate 1 hours of pay a payday to United Way. 1 float day this year.

10 paid holidays, 2 personal days per year-cannot carry over; 6 sick days per year (no dr. excuse required but must be personal illness or illness of one for which you are the primary care giver) that accrue until 90 days when disability pay takes over; vacation 2 wks. with 1-9 years service; 3 wks. with 10-24 years service; 4 wks. with 25+ years service; vacation days do not carry over; Additional days = $4 donation per payday to United Way gets you 1 day off; $2 donation per payday gets you 1/2 day off; participating in the state banking association sponsored wellness program gets you 1 day off.

In CA, accrued vacation is considered income, they are entitled to it even if terminated.