Vacation Policy

[Guest ycurran]

We have some people in our company who are lax about turning in signed vacation forms. Is it legal to advise people that not turning in a vacation form before the vacation time starts will result in one-half day penalization from their vacation time? If so, would we need to add it to our employee manual? Do we need to follow that rule with all employees, or can we categorize the groups of employees that need to comply?

Thanks,

Yvonne

[mroberts]

Yvonne:

It sounds like it would fall back on state law as to whether or not you could take away a half day of a person's vacation. However, since vacation time is merely a perk and not required by law in any state, you can enforce the rule better by possibly reducing the employee's vacation time the following year if they do not follow the rules. For example, if an employee were to get three weeks, but did not conform to the prerequisites the previous year, perhaps you only allow them 13 or 14 days rather than the 15 days off. You also should be careful that this doesn't cause your workers to become disgruntled. If you think this could hurt your chance to retain your employees, don't do it - plain and simple.

If you decide to create a policy to address this issue, I would highly recommend adding it to your employee handbook since it is then clearly laid out. You could simply indicate that not turning in the necessary paper work could lead to denial of vacation time. I'm sure this will help enforce the policy without creating a pessimistic perception from your employees.

Lastly, I would recommend applying whatever rule accross the board regardless of class. There's nothing that bothers employees more knowing that other classes get treated differently, especially when it comes to rules similar to these. If you decide to overlook it for key employees, then nobody else has to know....

If you would like to discuss further, do not hesitate to send me an email!

Take Care!

[Guest ycurran]

Thanks for your response. It definately helps!

-Yvonne