Vacation/Sick Days

[greghare]

Hello,

I am in the process of creating an Employee Manual which will include the sick/vacation days in it. I decided to base the amount of vacation days that each employee received on seniority. I am having trouble trying to determine how many sick days each employee is entitled to. I have some employees that work only 4 days a week and some that work up to 6 days a week. To be fair I would like the amount of sick days each receives to be relevant to the amount of days that each works throughout the year. I am looking for other viewpoints/advice on this situation with how to determine how to assign these sick days.

Thanks for your help,

Greg

greg@mountkiscoframeshop.com

[JFeig]

Why not make your calculations based on "hours worked in the previous year".......or fraction there of.

Thus 1664 hours will equal 32 hours per week (52 weeks), 1248 will equal 24 hours per week. Or a variation on this theme.

[JbNormandog]

To be fair you could break it down by an hour structure.
If someone works under 140 hours in a month period they get 1 day sick time, over 140 up to 190 they get 2 days per month and so on.
The ranges and amount of days were completely made up but if you use a scale I think most of your employees would fall into 1 of 2 groups.

To be honest I never worked in a frame shop that paid for sick days!!!

As for vacation if I was lucky and had been there for a couple years I once got a week paid off vacation.

OUTSIDE OF TOPIC***********
I once helped set up a shop in Mt.Kisco. The chain was called Corners. Was it any where near you.
I know the whole chain went under pretty fast after I left, just curious if you had any amusing stories of them in your town.

Good luck with all you do!

[David N Waldmann]

Most software that handles payroll should allow for accruing vacation by the hour. If you figure that a full time person who's worked there one year deserves 2 weeks vacation you'd enter a rate of .03846 hours (40 hrs x 2 weeks divided by 52 weeks of 40 hours)vacation per hour worked. A full time person with five years may get 3 weeks, so you put .0577 hours. Then your part timers get the same rate, but a lesser amount. You can also usually put a cap, if you want, and specify whether overtime counts.

If you're doing payroll by hand, seriously consider either outsourcing it (to someone who has the proper tool) or getting the software to do it "right". Like any tool, it will pay for itself before too long.

[Bill Henry-]

Some larger companies (like one I used to work in) combined vacation and sick days into one account called “personal days”. These accrued at a rate which depended upon the hours and longevity of the employee.

For example, full time people with less than 10 years had a total of twenty-four personal days/year i.e. 16 hours/month assuming a 160 hour work month. That worked out to 0.1 hour for each hour worked, so it was fair to part-timers, too.

Between 10 and 15 years service, one received 36 personal days/year or 0.225 personal days/hour worked. This fraction gradually worked its way up the longer the employee stayed at the job.

As far as the employer was concerned, this kept down “sick days” since they would be deducted from the total leaving less for the employee's vacation if the worker suffered from chronic Friday tummy aches.

[Kevin Colbert]

Greg,

I would highly recommend against sick days. It is not a positive benefit. Those who are not sick will be encouraged to take time off, and those who typically call in will not be discouraged.

The vacations and holidays are a good benefit. I would simply pay based on the average of the last ½ year. It is easy to figure and applies to all. There is one more thing I do with the holidays as well. I don’t pay the holiday if the eligible employee misses another scheduled work day the week of the holiday. This discourages unexcused absences that would be tempting to create a longer holiday.

[johnny]

Ours are "anything days" and can be used for sick, vacation, or personal time with suitable notice. It is a benefit for full time employees. We prefer our employees to be full time. We try to be very human about it. For example, an employee is getting married in Italy right now. Although she does not have the years in for our maximum of 80 hours we are paying her for her time off as a wedding present. She just about cried because a) she felt extremely appreciated and b) she didn't have to worry about making ends meet after her honeymoon. She is very happy and, of course, I want her to continue be happy making a career here after such a life changing event. Besides health insurance, it is the most appreciated benefit we offer and makes for very healthy employee morale. It's a benefit for full time employees with a personal investment in our company (that means it's not going to used by someone working here for a year and scooting) We add 8 hours per year worked and 24 hours become available when an employee begins their third year averaging 35-40 hours per week.

[David N Waldmann]

Originally posted by Kevin Colbert:
I would highly recommend against sick days. It is not a positive benefit. Those who are not sick will be encouraged to take time off, and those who typically call in will not be discouraged.I'd suggest that those are the employees better off working for someone else.

[Ron Eggers]

I think you need to make a clear distinction between vacation days and sick days (if you offer the latter at all.)

Vacation days are scheduled in advance at the discretion of the manager as coverage and work load allow.

Sick days are unscheduled. An employee who habitually takes sick days on Fridays or Mondays or at the beginning or end of scheduled holidays is suspect. They'd better be sick. Some employers will insist on a note from the doctor.

If you're not going to make a clear distinction, just lump 'em all together as personal days and assume that everyone is going to use all of them.

My employer has vacation days, paid holidays, personal days, funeral leave, short-term and long-term disability and a host of other special days. If someone actually used all of them, they'd end up working about six days during the year and they would be looking for another job.

[johnny]

Also make sure you designate that they cannot be accumulated year to year, unless you plan on offering that which I don't advise. Ours expire on September 30th, before the busy season. If they aren't used by then they poof. They are not redeemable for cash. They are not an asset to be paid out if an employee is terminated, and that has been a spark for some very nasty arguments in the past as well. This has caused some amount of grief before it was very clearly defined. Not paying them off to a terminated employee will continue to be a source of "spirited" debate at some point in the future I'm sure, but I hope that I've learned to hire better over time.

[Kevin Colbert]

The issue about no cash out is the real sticking point for me as to why I don't even offer sick days. (I provide vacation and all major holidays as paid benefits.)

By paying for sick days but not cashing out for unused days, the people you are rewarding are not the best workers.

I don't see the upside in it.

[Dave]

Check your wage and hourly board...I believe you must pay un-used vacation time at the end of your year as it is accrued based on the time already worked. You also must pay vacation time upon voluntary or involuntary termination. Sick pay, I believe, is at the discretion fo the employer. I suggest paying it also at the end of the year so that goof offs are not rewarded while those there all the time are not penalized...kind of a built in year end bonus too.

I no longer have any employees and am a one man shop...therefore I have no idea what vacation or sick time is anymore! Used to have 33 employees and used a program called Policies Now! Made the writing of an employee manual easy as you just answer multiple choice questions and the program makes sure you comply with state laws, etc. They also have a subscription service so that as the laws change it is easy to update your manual.

If you do not use such a program, I highly recommend having your attorney review your manual for the multiple legal pitfalls employee employer relationship laws can cause.

Make absolutely sure that you have the employee read and sign an acknowledgment that they have received and read the manual and that they understand it and that they have had and always will have the opportunity to ask for clarification of any points.

Also, on each and every page of the manual and your acknowledgment form have a disclaimer stating that this manual is only a statement of current policies and is changeable at any time. It is not an employee contract. All attempts to update the manual with written changes will be made, but, failure to do so does not alter any changes made in company policy.

Have employees sign acknowledgment forms when written policy changes are made.

The manuals should be kept on the business premises and available to employees at all times with check out privileges available for overnight study. The acknowledgment forms should be kept separately in the employee files.

Writing an employee manual should not be taken lightly at all. If you do not use an attorney or a legal oriented software program to assist you, you would probably be better off not writing any manual at all. This is one of these..."don't try this at home" situations. From experience, I can tell you not to take this on yourself without assistance...you leave yourself open to being sued at some point and it will eventually happen even when you have the best of intentions and think all your employees love you and would never even think of twisting things around.

Why do you think I no longer want to have any employees in my new business?

Dave Makielski

[Jim Miller]

We did away with free days of all kinds a long time ago. Employees are paid for hours worked. It's a very simple and brutally fair policy.

That may seem a bit old fashioned, but we pay better than most frame shops. We allow flexible scheduling (up to a point), and we cooperate with vacation and other event schedules whenever possible.

[Harry]

Jb,
Actually the "whole chain" (Corners)did not go down after you left and in fact the store in Mt. Kisco is still open and has historicaly been a very good one for the chain. Having spent 9 years with that chain from it's inception, in and out of Chapter 11 and then through a merger, I could share a story or two with you....
We must know each other. I helped open that store as well and was the DM when it first opened. Boy, that seems like a long time ago. A different day. A different life.

Now, what was this thread about? Oh ya. Vacation/Sick. I am with the group who beleive in the accrual method allowing employees to earn a prorated share based on hours worked. Set a cap on the maximum time to be earned and allow it to roll from year to year, but to never exceed the cap. Have a waiting period to begin accruing time and then let your employees use it as they earn it. It will help keep your total vacation liability down.

As for Sick time... mixed on this one. It absolutely has it's benefits. (No pun attempted) Again, an accrual/prorata approach works well. I would not give more than 8 Sick days in a year.

No matter what you do, you will have those that use the time in the way in which you intended and those that try to abuse it. Make sure your policy spells out the ways in which it should be used and the possible consiquences should it be abused.

Either way, Good Luck. I can't wait to be big enough to worry about employee benefits again.
Harry

[johnny]

Originally posted by Dave:
[QB] Check your wage and hourly board...I believe you must pay un-used vacation time at the end of your year as it is accrued based on the time already worked. You also must pay vacation time upon voluntary or involuntary termination. Sick pay, I believe, is at the discretion fo the employer. I suggest paying it also at the end of the year so that goof offs are not rewarded while those there all the time are not penalized...kind of a built in year end bonus too.

Nope, not in Ohio anyway. I'm required to pay for hours actually worked and that's it. If they are chronic goof-offs they are penalized by getting the boot. smile.gif

[David N Waldmann]

Originally posted by Dave:
Check your wage and hourly board...I believe you must pay un-used vacation time at the end of your year as it is accrued based on the time already worked. You also must pay vacation time upon voluntary or involuntary termination.Emphasis on "Check your wage and hour board". It does vary by state. In Vermont, as in Ohio, unless you have an internal policy to the contrary, they are due only hours worked.