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I've been working for a company for a few months now. I wasn't aware of the companies vacation policy and whenever I asked co-workers they didn't seem to know either.The company work-force is divided between the warehouse and the offices. I work in the warehouse. And I work at night, so it's not often I'm around any of the office employees.
But I've asked all the people I work with if they get vacation time and none of them do. They can request time off but it's not paid. A lot of my co-workers have families and this job is their career. They work 50 hours a week and work really hard. They always seem stressed out. Who wouldn't be? If you worked 50 hours a week every week and never ever got paid holiday time you'd be worn out.
It really bothers me that the company does not offer paid vacation time for all its workers. This job is only temporary for me; I'm a student during the day. So, I can't imagine being in a situation where this would be my career and I would never ever get a holiday.
In every other industrialized country paid holiday is mandated by law. Not in America.
So, I have a couple questions.
Is is immoral for a company not to offer all its full-time employees paid vacation?
How much paid vacation do you get? Are you encouraged to take it or is there a feeling that if you take your vacation it could affect your status at work (future promotions, falling behind with your workload and thus making you seem less productive)?
I get 15 days paid vacation per year. In prior jobs I received 10 days.
If a company doesn't offer paid vacation and that is important to you, why did you take the job? Why didn't you ask about the benefits before committing to the employment?
It may be "immoral", but, no one made the employee accept the job either. I always know or find out what the companies Vacation policy is prior to accepting, even back in the day with $5 an hour jobs.
As of now, I get:
4 Weeks a Year- Vacation
56 Hours of Sick Time
3 Floating Holidays
7 Different Paid Holidays- New years, Choice of MLK/Presidents Day, Memorial Day, July 4th, Labor Day, Thanksgiving, and Christmas, with Christmas being the only day we are shut down for sure. Most of those days, I can take off, or get a Comp Holiday to take another time.
All of those are capped at how much you can have accrued.
Seems like a lot.. right? It's fantastic, actually.. except that it is hard to take it. I don't like to take too much Sick Time. The Vacation and such is awesome, but, in my role, as well as my previous one, I really don't have a backup... so, I hate taking the time because it will mean lots of long days before and after to get ahead and to get caught up. I tend to take a bunch at one time, I took about 2.5 weeks last year to go to Europe and another week in December to go to Mexico.
I get 26 days of paid vacation, plus holidays and sick days.
Immoral is too strong a word to use, but I do think that companies should offer vacation (and health insurance).
People who respond by telling a poster that they should not have taken a job if it doesn't provide vacation, or pay X, offer benefit Y are disingenuous. We are in a weak economy with limited options. Many people simply don't have other options.
Companies function within the economy and society that we have collectively created. It is reasonable to require companies that benefit from society to contribute to it as well. Vacation and a reasonable minimum wage should be part of that.
I get 15 days paid vacation per year. In prior jobs I received 10 days.
If a company doesn't offer paid vacation and that is important to you, why did you take the job? Why didn't you ask about the benefits before committing to the employment?
Well, it's not really about me. I'm a student by day and I don't work full-time. So, not being a full-time worker and considering that the job is temporary, and considering I needed the job to cover housing and living expenses, I didn't feel the need to ask about when my vacation would be. It still would be nice to have some though. Even part-time workers in EVERY COUNTRY in the industrialized world qualify for paid time off.
But, you seem to be one of the people who thinks the individual always has power over his situation, whether its the company he wants to work for, and what benefits he can demand. Surely you cannot believe this. Not everyone is in situation where they can demand benefits from an employer. That's why the government in every other industrialized country mandates it. Oh I get it though. "I got mine" is your attitude.
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I currently get 5 weeks PTO, to be used for either sick days or vacation but in another two years it will go up to 6. We can accumulate up to 7 weeks and then it will stop until you get below that, and we can sell it back if we want
to. By policy we are encouraged to take at least two full weeks off every year, since it's been determined that it helps avoid burnout. It would be great if everyone got paid vacation, but I don't think the government should get involved in making it mandatory. It should be up to the employer and
whether they can afford it. people should ask about benefits such as paid vacation before accepting a job offer.
I have been with my employer 3 years and have worked my way up to 15 days a year for vacation and can carry over 10. If I make it to 5 years, it will be 20 days.
I also get 12 sick days a year (12 day cap), 4 personal days (4 day cap), and around 15 holidays including 3 days for Thanksgiving and 5 for Christmas depending on which days the Jewish holidays fall (more days if they're on weekdays). During the summer, we can flex and work our normal workweek in 4 days to get long weekends. The most useful perk this year is the ability to work from home on a moment's notice for a snow day.
The flexibility is really important to me because I have lots of medical appointments. I've only taken two brief and fairly local vacations since I started, but take lots of days here and there for long vacations when I guess I'm going to need a "mental break." Typically, I've also taken a few random days off in the summer to go to the beach while most people are at work. I am lucky that in addition to a generous vacation policy, I am NEVER EVER begrudged for taking vacation. I was going to lose 3 days this year and my boss made me fudge a timesheet the next month so I could get the days off under the radar.
The general lack of vacation in the US is very sad to me - or vacations that are difficult to take because of management, workload, etc.
This discussion comes up every now and then and I come to the same logical conclusion. The government can encourage employers to offer paid vacation in the same manner that they encourage employers to offer retirement benefits.
Just like a 401k, the government should make another plan that is completely optional (just like a 401k - the employer is not required to offer the plan, and even if they do, and employee is not required to participate). Rather than contributing to a retirement fund, an employee contributes to a PTO fund. Each day that the employee takes off, they get paid for that day from the PTO fund. This way, the employee has a paycheck coming in whenever they take off.
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