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You can say that all you want, but it doesn't make it true. When you get all your PTO in one bucket to cover vacation, personal days, sick days and holidays, then the expectation is for you to manage your time off so you have enough to meet all of your time off needs, not just vacation time.
I don't get sick. I have not been sick that I needed to take off work since I started working in 2004. Why should someone like me allocate days to sick time that would go wasted? Rather put it toward vacation that I know i'll use.
Most PTO accrues throughout the year so spending all 8 weeks at once (unless you had a bank saved) is unlikely at best, but could probably be done near end of year.
Anwyay, the main reason i am responding again is that I wanted to ask if it is common to include "holidays" in PTO as emm74 referenced? My "holidays" are over and above my PTO allotment. All employees get the same "holidays", PTO is based on seniority.
You can say that all you want, but it doesn't make it true. When you get all your PTO in one bucket to cover vacation, personal days, sick days and holidays, then the expectation is for you to manage your time off so you have enough to meet all of your time off needs, not just vacation time.
Again 8 weeks is 8 weeks, if somehow the employee gets unexpectedly sick and goes over, I'm sure the company can take it out of his paycheck or subtract from the next year's PTO.
Most PTO accrues throughout the year so spending all 8 weeks at once (unless you had a bank saved) is unlikely at best, but could probably be done near end of year.
Anwyay, the main reason i am responding again is that I wanted to ask if it is common to include "holidays" in PTO as emm74 referenced? My "holidays" are over and above my PTO allotment. All employees get the same "holidays", PTO is based on seniority.
Many companies that do this, including my old one, just list ALL time off as PTO - regardless of whether it was vacation, holiday, sick or personal time. The company acknowledged only four holidays for the year - but we still used PTO to cover it if we took the day off. They were open on all minor holidays and expected you to be there unless you specifically requested PTO for it.
When employers have high maximum PTO banks that allow you to accrue far beyond your annual PTO, like 8 weeks, I think there's an unspoken expectation that you'd only use a bunch of it at once under extraordinary circumstances like having a baby or recovering from surgery. Beyond that they probably expect people to be sitting on it to cash out when they leave.
HR policies could certainly be written better to remove any ambiguity, though.
Again 8 weeks is 8 weeks, if somehow the employee gets unexpectedly sick and goes over, I'm sure the company can take it out of his paycheck or subtract from the next year's PTO.
Actually, that is a major record keeping nightmare, and one companies want to avoid if possible. They can't take it against next year's accrual because what if you leave the company? And unpaid time is problematic in its own way.
That's why people are expected to manage their time. It's not really that different than getting specifically designated sick days where you are only expected to take them if you need them, they aren't extra vacation days even though some people perceive them as such. So if you get a bank of 8 weeks, then it would normally be expected that you'd keep a week or so banked, just in case. Of course, it could be a car accident or some other injury vs. an illness.
Or you may need a day to stay home and wait for the cable guy or the plumber. Again, the expectation is you keep some days in reserve to cover those unexpected things. Not that you take 8 weeks of vacation and then expect the company to just handle it when you need to go over that.
Many companies that do this, including my old one, just list ALL time off as PTO - regardless of whether it was vacation, holiday, sick or personal time. The company acknowledged only four holidays for the year - but we still used PTO to cover it if we took the day off. They were open on all minor holidays and expected you to be there unless you specifically requested PTO for it.
I've seen that, but I do think it's relatively rare to include holidays in the bucket. Mostly I've seen vacation, personal and sick days all combined, and the straight holiday pay for whichever days the company designated.
But yes, those holidays are getting pretty sparse! When I started in the working world about 30 years ago, 10 or even 12 paid holidays was pretty common in the corporate world. Now it's more like 6, maybe 8 but I rarely see above that any more. 4 is particularly chintzy though!
Many companies that do this, including my old one, just list ALL time off as PTO - regardless of whether it was vacation, holiday, sick or personal time. The company acknowledged only four holidays for the year - but we still used PTO to cover it if we took the day off. They were open on all minor holidays and expected you to be there unless you specifically requested PTO for it.
So no holiday pay either? That is really really crappy. We are expected NOT to be there on holidays unless voluntold, but at least we get paid extra!
I would suggest trying taking shorter leaves next year and see if that makes a difference - i.e. maybe it isn't about the total but about the "long" chunks of time. I wonder what would happen if you did, say, a 5 day weekend every other month and one two week vacation?
Yeah, this sounds like this might be a specific workplace issue. As in, technically the OP has unlimited PTO, but for the most part other employees take one, maybe two week-long vacations in a year, interspersed with random days off and long weekends.
That taking two two-week-long periods off was specifically brought up to the OP means that his use of the benefit has drawn attention of management. It might be the letter of the law to say that PTO usage is unlimited, but in reality it's not that flexible. Some employers actually like it because their staff ends up taking less time off than they would if they had to use or lose their PTO days.
What would be concerning to me is that you continue to take big chunks of leave at one time. Two weeks is a lot of time to be away from work without your coworkers feeling the burden. And you are taking two of those in one year PLUS an additional week.
I have 5 weeks of leave every year, but I only take a "two-weeker" every 2-3 years because I know it affects my team.
What if someone wants to travel internationally? One needs a minimum of two weeks to make a long flight worth it.
Two weeks is a bare minimum and I find your thinking sad and a symptom of this messed up live to work mentality America has.
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