unused vacation

[Waidesworld]

My wife isabout to give her notice later this week. She has 3 vacation days left. Thoughts?

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[monkeydog]

What is her company policy on vacation?

 

[SLTA]

I believe standard practice is that she'll get paid for any remaining, earned vacation after she quits. That's what I've seen when I leave a job. Good luck to her!

 

[moltenmetal]

Unused vacation usually becomes part of the notice period. I wouldn't expect a cheque for this unless the employer needs particular tasks done prior to departure.

 

[zdas04]

There is not a world-wide, standard answer to that question. It is almost standard to pay it (but a lot of smaller companies find ways to sleaze around even that), but how it is valued varies widely. It is pretty normal for hourly folks to be paid at their base hourly rate for 8 hours/day. For salaried people it is all over the map. Some will take your annual salary and divide it times 8766 hours in a year and multiply that times 8 hours to get a day. Others will say that the year is 52 weeks each of 5 days so there are 2080 hours (8 hours/day) in a year. Others say there are 10 holidays in a year and call it 2000 hours. They all write this up in a policy manual and it is really hard to fight it if the policy was in effect when you started.

David

 

[YoungTurk]

She should be paid for earned vacation. The company might have her take the days as the final days of her notice period.

The key being EARNED vacation. Many salaried employees are alloted the year's worth of vacation at the beginning. I've heard of that allotment being prorated to determine the amount earned when someone resigns to reduce the quantity of vacation remaining - and hence the payout for it. I've never heard of anyone being penalized for using more vacation before resignin than they would have been prorated.

 

[Waidesworld]

It's accumulated vacation so yes it is earned. I will ask her to check the manual.

drawn to design, designed to draw

 

[SLTA]

well, YoungTurk, here's a fun story - on the Monday of my last week of (completely unpaid) maternity leave, I got a call from HR wondering why I hadn't shown up to work that day. I reminded them of my agreed-upon return date (which couldn't be changed due to babysitting schedules) and was subsequently docked a week of vacation. I protested and they didn't care. When I quit a few months later, my last paycheck was me paying them because I hadn't earned enough vacation to cover that week. Lovely, eh?

 

[metengr]

There should be no surprises here - if you work for a company you better read the fine print when it comes to benefits before accepting employment. Most employees are so concerned with pay that they overlook this simple task.

Regarding notification of departure, if you work in a state that is “at-will” employment, this means they can terminate you without warning, as an employee can leave without any notification or providing two week notice to the employer.

 

[casseopeia]

IT DOES NOT MATTER WHAT-SO-EVER what your wife's company policy is regarding unused vacation. If you are in the US, there is a federal law, called the Golden Bear Rule for the case precedent, that mandates all unused vacation time be treated as if it were wages. It is Federal law that vacation time is accrued pro rata, i.e., they must pay her fractions of days if that is the standard by which they pay her wages. If she is paid monthly, they must calculate her wages to the nearest day, not the nearest month.

If her employer gives her any grief, tell her to file a complaint with the local labor board. I will guarantee that her employer will not need any more than one phone call to their labor attorney to set them straight. I've been there on the employer side. I tried to fight company vacation policy against two ex partners and lost a huge sum to attorney's fees, and had to pay the vacation time on top of it. As I recall, it was even more vacation time than they had initially demanded.


"If you are going to walk on thin ice, you might as well dance!"

 

[csd72]

slta,

I cannot understand how that worked, did they pay you for that original weeks 'vacation'? If not then what did they doc it from your pay for?

 

[Waidesworld]

As it turns out, there's a section in the manual that says
"Upon termination, employees will be paid for accrued but unused PTO. If accrued PTO has a negative balance, that time will be deducted from employee’s final pay. "

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[zdas04]

Cas,
You are absolutely right, the law trumps policy.

BUT, any company big enough to have an HR department will always point to their policy while trying to shaft folks (especially someone leaving). A friend of mine actually showed me the letter he got from HR when they told him that his vacation was based on his official annual salary (prorated to account for his April raise) divided by 8766 hours. Seems like it worked out to around $10/hour, then they took out for all his benefits (including a non-matched contribution to his 401K, and a full month's insurance). He called the HR person who signed the letter and got "read the policy". It was 4 weeks vacation so he took the letter to a Lawyer. I never heard exactly what happened, but the next time I saw him he definately felt better even though he had to sign a non-disclosure to get whatever settlement he got (I'm assuming it was more than fair or he would have sued).

Companies will always point to policy manuals. We as mere mortals believe that the manuals are based in law. Not always a good assumption.

David

 

[macmet]

Does "termination" apply to your wife's case?

I view the word termination meaning being fired. In that case, if you're resigning, it would be different.

I once got caught, b/c I used my 90% of my vacation days by October and was laid off shortly after. Since I had used more days off than already earned for that year (by Oct you get 10/12 of your total time which is less that 90%), I was given $0 instead of money for the last day I would have been able to use that year. I viewed it as a plus, b/c I was worried they'd make me pay the 'extra' vacation time I'd taken.

 

[casseopeia]

This is not the first time this question has come up. Looks like I gave pretty much the same answer back in 2007.

http://www.eng-tips.com/viewthread.cfm?qid=193155&page=7

For a discussion of the 1989 Supreme Court ruling,

http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=us&vol=490&invol=107

"If you are going to walk on thin ice, you might as well dance!"

 

[SLTA]

csd72, yes. I asked to be allowed to take unpaid leave for the last week but was denied. I was paid for my "vacation" and then got to pay it back. good times, good times...

 

[KENAT]

Of course, if an 'at will employer' one assumes they could ask her to leave there and then and only give her the accrued PTO pay.

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