Jacqueline McClure, Genesis Background Screening Services
In today’s competitive market for attracting and retaining good talent, is your time off policy a good fit for your company? Does your PTO (Paid Time Off) policy cause a lot of confusion or grumbling among employees? Or maybe you have employees that make sure to use “sick” time whether they really need it or not because they think they are entitled.
There’s been a lot in the news about companies like Netflix and LinkedIn giving unlimited PTO to their employees. Great PR, but in reality, most employees in those companies would never let their team down to take advantage of that policy. The competition within the company drives staff to work hard to move their careers forward, not kick back taking time off.
So what does an average small company need to offer as their PTO benefit to find and keep excellent employees and keep up with the norm? For some companies, a PTO program is to have one policy that encompasses vacation, sick, floating holidays and personal days. The benefit here is that there is no reason to differentiate between vacation, dental/doctor appointments or personal days. And, you won’t get people calling in sick at the end of the year to utilize their “use them or lose them” sick days because everyone gets the same amount of time off.
For some companies, they prefer to keep their policies with more specific use wording. This would differentiate vacation from sick time and personal days. Although this requires more record keeping, if your company has a lot of turnover, it could prevent you from having to pay out sick time to a departing employee.
What else do you need to think about?
- You will need to determine whether you will go by employee anniversary or calendar year for your PTO time period.
- Will your PTO be granted all at once or accrued during the year? All at once is easier to manage, but you could end up paying out more time off than they earned if the employee leaves the company early in the time period. Accrued makes it harder for employees to take vacation at the time they want without “borrowing” ahead and maybe having a negative balance or having to wait until they accrued and taking a vacation at a less-than-optimal time for your business.
- Does everyone get the same amount or do you have tiers? Many companies tier by how long an employee has been at the company or their job level.
- How will you handle carryover or unused days? Will you have a cap and a payout or allow your employees to carry over? Be sure to check your state to stay in compliance.
- How will you handle situations that are not typically part of an employee’s annual time off such as bereavement, disability or jury duty?
Partnering with a CRA (Consumer Reporting Agency) that has the services you need to fill in your HR gaps can be a very economical solution. The right partner can help you recruit, integrate your system, perform background screening, drug testing at convenient locations, and provide support throughout the process. Not only can you feel confident that you are bringing the best hire into your company, but you will know that you have done due diligence both legally and ethically for your employees and customers. In addition to accomplishing this at a price that fits your budget, a professional CRA partner pays for it self by avoiding costly hiring mistakes. For more information, contact Genesis Background Screening Services at 866 944-0041 ext 101, email getstarted@gbsspro.com or visit www.gbsspro.com
Genesis Background Screening is not a law firm and provides our blogs for informational purposes only. These blogs should not be considered as a substitute for experienced legal advice. Any laws or regulations mentioned in our blogs need to be researched by your company and any questions you have need to be answered by your legal counsel to be sure your organization is within the law and compliant with regulations.
