alicat

I'd like to know what your different companies policies are, feel free to share if you can't offer help. My hubby has been at his company for 3 1/2 years. It's a smallish company (about 50 people) but has been in business around 40 yrs. They're also really cheap, cutting corners wherever possible (I don't know details would shed any light or whether they even factor).

Hubby is a valued employee with four raises and two promotions in his time there to his current salaried position (started hourly). He's now an equal to his former bosses and the boss to his former co-workers (stated I guess as sort of a gauge of his (very) limited clout.)

The problem is thus: this company starts the vacation days on the hire date. Hubby happened to be hired on Augest 4th. and as some of you (at least in the northern mid-west) know, the first week of Aug. is the cusp of fall. This means we can't really schedule any vacation every year until the freakin' summer is almost done with.

My question to everyone: Do you have any suggestions, creative or straight-forward, my hubby could pose to his bosses to circumvent the "hire date" clause to reset it to Jan. 1st.? Losing vacation days for a year would be preferable to not having them reset until the end of the vacation season for the rest of his tenure there.

As an aside, I've just returned to the TFP after a long absence, so Hi anyone who remembers me!

Love,

Ali

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Daniel_

Am I being too simple when I say - you husband surely has the FIRST chance to book NEXT YEAR'S holiday?

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Menoman

surely his days last from aug 4, until the next aug 4.

Why not just save them til the next summer instead of using them at the very end of the summer you get them?

Maybe I don't understand this, that seems too simple hehe

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ShaniFaye

yeah Im confused too, can you explain a little better why if his vacation accrues starting 8/4 then they should be good until the next 8/4, he cant just save them until you're ready to go somewhere?

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I want the diabetic plan that comes with rollover carbs. I dont like the unused one expiring at midnite!!

Redjake

why not just schedule your vacation in August for next year?

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tinfoil

Book ahead, simple as that. There's nothing you can really do other than that.

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shakran

either that or. . . he can go to HR and. . . . ask. . . .

DJ Happy

What? He has to take his vacation in August every year? I don't think I understand.

alicat

Sorry it took me so long to respond, doctor's visit's and we left for the weekend.

I guess I didn't explain sufficiently, hence the confusion. My hubby was hired on Aug 4th '03, and didn't qualify for a week's vacation (5 business days) until he'd been there a year. We hadn't had a vacation for a myriad of reasons for a few years before his employment with this company. When he hit the year mark at this company (Aug 4th '04), we were eccstatic to use his time and go on vacation, which we did, which exausted his vacation days for a year.

Flash forward to the next Aug ('05) and like most people we were ready to have another vacation which we took. That meant no more vacation days for another year until our vacation of Aug '06 (which we again took).

The problem is that his vacation days don't reset until Augt. each year. Alot of our families are taking camping trips starting in June, most are not still doing so in Aug which is the soonest hubby can scedule any vacation time. This means we can't share vacation with our families. We can't expect any of them to accomidate us because their vacation days all reset on the first of the year. Our families aren't freezing us out or anything, they all get more vacation days and have other trips they take seperately, the family ones just happen in early to mid-summer when they can all coordinate.

Going to HR won't help without creative thought. Hubbie's already heard through the grapevine that they haven't budged so far in a number of years so it would be a precident for it to happen. Granted, if they would allow a reset of the vacation days to the beginning of the year, we'd still have a year wait for a reset but we'd at least be able to go on trips with our families earlier in the summer.

After next Aug (when he qualifies for two weeks vacation) this will all be moot but I was just hoping for some suggestions on what we might be able to do to change the status of his hire/vacation reset date to sometime before the summer starts.

Hope I cleared up any confusion and thanks for any input.

Ali

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"You cannot do a kindness too soon because you never know how soon it will be too late."--Ralph Waldo Emerson

shakran

well i'm a little confused now. It sounds to me like you want an extra week's vacation this year because you've already used yours up. I can't see why they should let you have that.

Charlatan

He only gets five days of vacation time for the whole year?

That's just no right.

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ShaniFaye

lots of small companies only give a year in the beginning.

If you want to take vacation with family and friends then you need to not use it all up as soon as he's eligible.

Im eligible as of Jan 1st, but you wouldnt see me using all mine in the month of January so that I am stuck for an entire year with no time off.

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I want the diabetic plan that comes with rollover carbs. I dont like the unused one expiring at midnite!!

thingstodo

I'm confused. After being there for over a year is he now eligible to receive two weeks beginning in August? Does he have until the next August to use the two weeks or only until the end of the year? If so, the end of the year one sounds odd and worth talking to management.

HR policies should also be in writing.

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ShaniFaye

thingstodo, If I am understanding this right....he's been there 3 1/2 years and only eligible for one week, which instead of saving they take immediately so there was no vacation time left until his anniversary the following year.

It sounds like when he's been there 4 years he gets two weeks.

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I want the diabetic plan that comes with rollover carbs. I dont like the unused one expiring at midnite!!

alicat

Yep, Shani got it dead on in her last post.

And shakran your right, that would be unfair. That's why as I said in the OP that the only solution we could see would be to have it reset to Jan. 1 and be penelized by no vacation this year at all and have to wail until next Jan.

But, again, on his four year mark in Aug. he'll qualify for 2 wks. a year. So I guess the most painless way will be to just suck it up this summer as far as families go and we'll have the days to carry over for next summer.

For discussion's sake, I'm still curious on other companies policies if anyone care's to share. Do your vacation days go Jan. 1-Dec. 31? Do you get to carry them over or is it "use it or lose it"? How many weeks do you get and how do the numbers change with years worked?

Ali

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'Beware the Jabberwock, my son! The jaws that bite, the claws that catch! Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun, The frumious Bandersnatch!'--Jabberwocky, Lewis Carroll

"You cannot do a kindness too soon because you never know how soon it will be too late."--Ralph Waldo Emerson

shakran

but that doesn't make sense. You don't need to have it reset, you just need the personal restraint necessary not to go blow your vacation the second you get it.

Oh, and only 1 week vacation after 3 years sucks. Plain and simple. Even in my industry, which is notorious for underpaying and screwing everyone but a select few anchors, the standard is 2 weeks vacation + holidays (usually floating) the first year you work. Vacation carryover is rare anywhere these days, and my industry is no exception. You can usually work your way up to 4 weeks of vacation.

Sultana

I've worked in aerospace most of my career, and we get 2 week per year to start, but some of the big companies are starting with three, partially to make up for not offering anywhere near as good of retirement packages as they used to. My company has not started this progressive line of thought.

Also, we all tend to get only 5 days a year sick time, which sucks.

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Grasshopper Green

We can't reset our days where I work either. I started in September, so I've always saved my days until the summertime, and then got my vacation again not long after vacation. I've never had a problem with that, but we'd had a month long "vacation" when I started and didn't have the inclination to take one immediately.

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laconic1

My company gives PTO (paid time off) in a lump sum to be used however you wish. Sick days, vacation days, personal days, they all fall under the same lump sum. You can rollover up to one year of PTO into the next year and it is based on your official hire date. For example I get 120 hours a year of PTO and I was hired on August 10. Right now I have accrued about 110 hours of PTO. If I don't take a single day off between now and August 10 I will have about 165 hours of PTO accrued. On August 10 only 120 hours of that would carry over into the next year and I would lose about 45 hours. So needless to say I will be taking at least 6 days off between now and then.

Gilda

I'm a nine month employee, so my vacation days are all pre-scheduled to go along with classes, but since I only work 36 weeks each year, it's not much of a hardship. I currently get one personal leave day per semester. If I teach a summer session, I get one leave day per session, so long as it isn't one of certain prohibited days, and these summer session days do not accumulate.

My wife is a 12 month employee, so her vacation works differently. Right now she gets 12 days a year. This goes up to 14 days after two years, 17 days after 5 years, and 20 days after 10.

The time accumulates as a certain number of hours per month, currently equal to one day per month, which can be used at the employees discretion depending on scheduling. This means that it's like a bank, with one day going in each starting with your first month, which you can take out as you see fit. You can save up to 30 days (six weeks), but anything above that gets converted to sick leave at the end of the year, which accumulates indefinitely.

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Menoman

For the last 25 years I give my guys 5 days at the 1 year mark. 10 days at 6 years, and 15 days at 10 years.

This is a business, not welfare

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spindles

I had a vacation with my brother to the US a few years ago. We stayed with a friend of his in San Francisco - where we went to a BBQ with a group of his (the guy we were staying with) friends. They were amazed we both had 4 weeks annual leave. The kicker was when my brother mentioned "leave loading". In Oz a lot of the big (union driven) companies actually pay you MORE when you are on holiday. The 4 weeks is a government legislated thing. Happy days!

Anyway - this year the company I work for (which is based in London) agreed we should be more in line with them - so now it is 5 weeks annual leave a year

Also, our leave is accrued quarterly (so that usually means one weeks leave each quarter).

Menoman - this might be business but it doesn't hurt to have happy employees.

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Menoman

I think that is plenty of time. Why do you need more than a week vaca?

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spindles

you don't *need* it, but vacation time sure is nice!

edit - also *you* think it is a good thing because you have never known anything else. My brother (mentioned above) lived in the US for three years and wanted to have his Oz holiday time when he started and was basically offered more money instead of being allowed more leave time. He took the money but was happy to get home after three years into more reasonable working conditions. Money isn't everything, you know?

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Menoman

I am not saying that, I don't really understand what you are even talking about.

I'm talkin about the folk that said I don't see how that makes sense, he's only worked there a few years, his employer can't even consider him a career employee at this point.

My employee's are extremely happy, judging by more than half have been here right around the 10 year mark. So one week vaca can't be that bad I don't think, or if it was such a big deal they'd have left within the first 6 years.



Odd, I just don't understand why one week a year isn't sufficient.

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DJ Happy

I quite often work 12 hour work days, as well as the odd weekend and public holiday. If I only got one week's holiday a year I would go crazy, or die, or simply quit my job. What on earth can you do with one week's holiday a year? If you wanted to go anywhere that wasn't an hour's drive away, you can remove two of those days for travelling there and back. That leaves you 5 days to run around like a mad person doing all the things you want to do, or to relax a little while you count the days before you have to go back to work. Either way, it sucks. Life is for living after all, and you can't really do that with 5 days holiday a year.

In case anyone was wondering, I get 28 days a year.