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My company did this. It seems largely an accounting trick to get time off the books, and it simplifies employees across different states. Some states vacation t
by elmerfud 4y ago
My company did this. It seems largely an accounting trick to get time off the books, and it simplifies employees across different states. Some states vacation time is an earned benefit that needs paid out in cash other states it's not. Those who cash out vacation can be financially impacted but companies do have an interest in making sure employees do take time away from work from time to time.
Some companies could be abusive with this not approving vacation at similar levels to before. That's always a risky position and impossible to tell from the outside. I know my personal experience when we switched to, flex time off they call it, It gave me an incentive to actively use my vacation as I tend to not to use it prior. The years since we've changed I routinely take 6 to 8 weeks off each year without issue. This is more than double the time off I was allowed under the accrued plan.
- ceedan 4y agoI'd personally prefer required minimum time off. I love the feeling when my manager tells me to take a day off.
- brundolf 4y agoI've had this happen while under a flex/unlimited policy. It all depends on the company and the manager
- dogma1138 4y agoIsn’t the reason most companies switch is that if it’s discretionary they don’t need to pay out for it when you leave? I thought it is quite common to accumulate a fairly large number of paid leave days and cash them out.
- lsaferite 4y agoAnd they don't need a reserve to cover that accrual either.
- shagie 4y agoPTO is a liability that shows up on the balance sheet. Four weeks is about 7% of a year. If you could make it look like (on the balance sheet) that you are not incurring that liability for all your employees, it can make some accounting things that much happier. It does have the added bonus that you don't need to keep track of it for paying out when an employee leaves in some states (making that a consistent thing across all offices rather than a mismash that got worse with remote offices). For example, California is "Vacation is considered wages and must be paid when an employee leaves" and Oregon is "If the employee contract considers vacation to be wages, it must be paid out on separation", whereas Washington is "An employer only needs to pay out vacation if it is in the employee contract." https://www.paycor.com/resource-center/articles/pto-payout-laws-by-state/ https://www.paycor.com/resource-center/articles/pto-payout-l... Paying out vacation itself isn't the problem. Accumulating it, tracking it, having it on the books, and then having it as a liability is what drives the change.
- mgkimsal 4y ago> It seems largely an accounting trick to get time off the books, Maybe we can pull some accounting tricks to get 'health care' off employer books in the near future?
- cardiffspaceman 4y agoHealth care should be unbundled from employment. And decoupling time off from your current employer could be interesting. When you have to mess with yoour vacation schedule because you need to change jobs, it means only steadily employed people can go on vacations.
- rendaw 4y agoMine did it, and then switched back several months later effectively getting rid of everyone's accrued time off. Before someone claims any altruistic motives, supposing this wasn't the reason they would have allowed people to one-off use their old time off in the new policy, but they rejected that.