How strict is your PTO policy?

[Tweak155]

They're very relaxed around here with time off. "Officially" it's 3wks vaca, 1wk sick and 1wk personal, but you can use them however you want on top of holidays. Outside of that, if you're a person that can be trusted, it's comp time.

I could work 12hrs today, 12hrs tomorrow and take Friday off, they would not have issue with that.

 

[NoCreativity]

The funny thing is that I knew that (a) she doesn't like accounting, and (b) would be miserable working that hard at a job she didn't like. She had gotten an offer that would have been not-quite-full-time (35 hours/week) at 70% of the salary, doing a job that was right up her alley and was much closer geographically to boot so I thought that would be a great path. But she felt like she needed to exercise her accounting degree and the sales job of "we take care of our people here" convinced her to go this route.

Wow. To me that would have been a no brainer. If that other job was still available I'd be all over that if I were her.

I can basically take off any time I need when I need it. A couple hours can be short notice (same day), a day or two requires a day or two notice and anything more requires a week or more notice. Obviously this all varies depending on work load.

 

[SearchMaster]

I found the problem.


I worked at a small accounting firm - we got NO PTO for the first year. I left after 1 year to a new company that gave me 13 days off/year after a mere 3 month probation.


OP: wife needs to find a new job.

Yep.

She does officially get PTO but in reality it doesn't work out that way. Everyone eventually needs a little time to run errands, see the doctor, etc. She had to take care of some stuff at my son's school a couple of times - boom, 4 hours of PTO taken each time. She had a serious UTI and HAD to see the doc - boom, 4 more hours of PTO docked. Add in the 40 hours in January for the serious illness and I think she has a grand total of 4 or 6 hours accrued at this point. She's going to need 4 of them to take a half day (read: leaving at 4pm-ish instead of 5pm) in June to fly to her niece's wedding so she may as well have nothing right now. The lack of any sort of flex time is ridiculous and I honestly want to go kick somebody's ass over it. If she does find another job, I might just do it.

 

[OutHouse]

She still put in about 40 hours that week from home, which is NOT easy when your head is exploding, but was docked the full 40 hours of PTO

thats theft of hours. she needs to report this.

 

[yinan]

Wife needs to get a new job. They are almost making her work for free which is kind of illegal.

Any place that strict does not deserve loyalty because there is no trust. No trust = me no work for you.

 

[Ns1]

^^

Seriously man if they're going to charge PTO for working from home then why the fuck would you work from home.

 

[OutHouse]

Yep.

She does officially get PTO but in reality it doesn't work out that way. Everyone eventually needs a little time to run errands, see the doctor, etc. She had to take care of some stuff at my son's school a couple of times - boom, 4 hours of PTO taken each time. She had a serious UTI and HAD to see the doc - boom, 4 more hours of PTO docked. Add in the 40 hours in January for the serious illness and I think she has a grand total of 4 or 6 hours accrued at this point. She's going to need 4 of them to take a half day (read: leaving at 4pm-ish instead of 5pm) in June to fly to her niece's wedding so she may as well have nothing right now. The lack of any sort of flex time is ridiculous and I honestly want to go kick somebody's ass over it. If she does find another job, I might just do it.

this is a sweatshop company. 1 hour for a doc appt (leave work and come back) and get tagged for 4 hours of PTO? have her just walk dude. that job is stealing from her and your family.

for the bold. she should just leave at 1pm.

 

[Ns1]

^^

Seriously if they're going to do a mandatory 4 hour dock why isn't she leaving at lunch? Fuck that place.

 

[Brainonska511]

thats theft of hours. she needs to report this.

Yeah. Report it and don't feel bad at all. It sounds like the company is run by a bunch of dickheads.

 

[SearchMaster]

^^

Seriously man if they're going to charge PTO for working from home then why the fuck would you work from home.

I agree, but at the time she had only been with the company for 3 months or so and tax season had kicked off 2 or 3 weeks prior. So she wanted to prove herself a dedicated employee, especially with her junior status with the company, and didn't want to leave her colleagues with a lot of extra work in her absence - again, it's a very small company. Also at the time she thought that proving herself early might lead to more flexibility from the company in the future but that was obviously not true.

 

[OutHouse]

she had only been with the company for 3 months

WTF? umm my company you dont get PTO until after 3 months.

 

[Zeze]

My boss is pretty lax- as long as you get your crap done and projects stay green.

No real policy being enforced. Just don't be stupid.

- Big vacations (3+ days), just give heads up in advance, I presume 2 weeks notice would be ideal.

- 1-2 day PTO, I reckon I can just tell my boss even on the day before and he should be okay with it.

Just use common sense and be good at my job first.

 

[SearchMaster]

WTF? umm my company you dont get PTO until after 3 months.

As my OP said, she went into a negative balance for that PTO. So she has spent most of the last 3 months making it up.

 

[PenguinPower]

There's no formal time log other than the billing system. I can't remember the exact numbers but she billed over 100 hours between like April 1st and April 7th (and it generally takes 1.0-1.5 hours of actual work to bill one hour). Another common office problem is that the previous generation of employees screwed things up so bad last year that figuring out things for this year's return could take several hours of non-billable time. She swears that if she ever runs across one particular former employee on the street that she'll punch her in the face for screwing things up so badly.

The reason she would be forced to use PTO if she left at 4pm on a Friday is because mandatory office hours are 9am-5pm and PTO must be taken in 4 or 8 hour chunks, but to get the work load done it's generally 7:30am-6:30pm during non-tax season, and more like 6:30am-9:00pm during tax season (plus mandatory 8+ hour Saturdays and not-officially-mandatory 6+ hours on Sundays).

They can't do that either. Exempt associates can only have full days decremented from their banks.

It sounds like this is pervasive and not inadvertent. That could mean that your wife could be considered non-exempt during the time period that this practice has been in place and would be owed compensation, including overtime, for all hours worked. I seriously would contact the DOL.

 

[purbeast0]

my pto is really flexible. i get like 10 hours a pay period or so, but i can use it pretty flexible.

right now my mother in law who watches our son went on vacation this past weekend for 2 weeks. so i'm getting in really early (around 6) and leaving at 11am, then my wife is going to work in the afternoon. the rest i'm just using PTO to cover.

i told my team about this situation a week ago and told my tech lead yesterday, and my tech lead had no problem, even with the fact i didn't let him know earlier. as long as i get my work done and have the time to take off, he's fine.

 

[Skeeedunt]

So massively terrible I won't even begin to comment. Get her out of there.

 

[Jeff7]

Sounds like a shitty place to work.
If they aren't offering ANY semblance of balance between life and work, GTFO

Yeah, that's....bleh.

- PTO policy here is pretty lenient. You can request vacation up to 24hrs from when you intend to take it. If you are requesting <24hrs you get points against you that count toward disciplinary action.
Most people try to schedule in advance just out of respect, and also will try to work around other vacations if possible. It's actually somewhat decentralized just by the nature of the working environment.

- Once every 3-6 weeks we are dismissed early on Friday with pay. (Or if it's just a really nice day sometimes and we're caught up and being profitable.)

- There's not really "flex time" though, not officially. It's a manufacturing environment that relies a lot on everyone being here at the same time to be efficient.

- Managers can grant additional PTO at their discretion. It's also awarded as random prizes at parties.


It's nice to work in a niche market.
The company also avoids debt and generally takes care of its employees. Long hours only show up when there's a surge in business, and even then, it might peak at 6-day workweeks for some departments. The nature of the business is that work comes in spurts, so we have to be able to handle both the peaks and valleys without having excessive overtime costs, but also be able to avoid employee turnover or layoffs during temporary slowdowns.

We have 5 weeks of vacation time and can take it whenever we want with reason.

:thumbsup:
Nice.
US-based company?

So massively terrible I won't even begin to comment. Get her out of there.

Yeah.
Maybe unless she's making enough money that she can retire after 5 years of it....

 

[DaTT]

She worked 40 hours from home and still docked her 40 hours? You don't see an issue with that?

 

[boomhower]

Ours is very very flexible. We get vacation time and comp time. We acquire comp time for in service training and you can take it instead of overtime. You can use it about however you want at the discretion of your supervisor, and mine is very cool. Want off a few hours early on a slow night shift, see ya the next day. Take a few hours off early on day shift for your kids baseball game? Bye. He only uses it if you leave early. Need to stop at the doc or go watch a kids game? Just leave your radio on so you can leave if absolutely needed.

Vacation time needs to be somewhat planned, even if it's just the day before.

 

[child of wonder]

Unlimited PTO and no problem to take whatever I need.

Your wife should begin applying for work elsewhere.

 

[s0me0nesmind1]

PTO is PTO for us. We start off with 5 weeks (obviously you have to earn some first when you start employment) and get 6-7 weeks the longer you stay. Of course, there's a reason for that... Most weeks are at least 50 hours.

My problem with our time reporting is.... Say I work 6 hours, but I spend 2 hours going to the doctor on monday.... And on Tuesday - Friday I work a normal 9 to 11 hour days... You would think ok, take 2 hours from the days we worked overtime to reimburse the 2 hours going to the doctor.... Nope! They weren't on the same day, and you need to report 8 or more hours per day.

Of course, I change my time and divvy it out anyways because theres no way in hell I'm working 50+ hour weeks and taking so-called PTO at the same time.


My biggest problem with "PTO" and companies that encompass all types of paid absense into one bucket is... No one will EVER want to take PTO when they are sick. They want to preserve it for when they go on vacation and such. So what does that mean? A shitload of people are going to be coming into work sick... oh - and getting other people sick too. Overall, I think it's stupid not to get workers at least SOME sick days.

 

[NutBucket]

This is absolutely true. Currently I have vacation and (unlimited) sick leave. They've been talking about switching to PTO. Naturally most folks are against it. I really can't see how it benefits anyone except the employer.

 

[Ferzerp]

All things in, 8 weeks of time of a year (counting vacation, holidays, etc). I never use it all, but I always feel like I can take off when I want to.

What you have described is a situation I would get out of immediately.

 

[Markbnj]

I've worked in a couple of startups with "unlimited PTO" policies, with the result that almost nobody took any PTO.

Your wife's employer sounds like a dick.

 

[OVerLoRDI]

I work from home. As long as I get my shit done, no one cares where I am.