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My employer has made it a "requirement" that we use ALL our vacation prior to the new year. Of the 200 hours of vacation used I still have 140 left over. From my experience employers either pay out those unused hours by the end of the year or allow you to roll them over. My employer has restricted the amount we can roll over to 40 hours so I'd essentially lose 100 hours of vacation. Is this legal, is there a baseline policy on vacation hours, etc...?
Perhaps someone with HR experience can chime in. I'm in the Oil and Gas industry supporting HPC arrays for processing geophysical data and simulations, not much if any time for vacation yet I'm expected to use those hours...
There's no law stating that you have to be paid for vacation time you don't use, unless the policy manual specifically states that you EARN rather than ACCRUE vacation time. Very important distinction there. If you EARN something you must be paid for it. If you ACCRUE it, then it's nothing more than a benefit that you can lose.
It's also legal for employers to mandate that you either use your accrued vacation time or lose it. Same with accrued sick leave or any personal time off.
Actually, I think it's a really stupid policy NOT to pay people for unused sick time - to me, losing unused sick days seems like a punishment and something that encourages people to call in sick even if they're not (for instance, in my past job I had two weeks of sick leave every year and there's no way I was sick two weeks out of every year, but if I didn't use it, it wouldn't roll over and I just lost it). But when it comes to vacation time, it sounds like your company WANTS you to take vacation, to get away from work a bit, and this is their way of encouraging healthy breaks in your work routine.
I have never worked anywhere at a company that would pay out for unused vacation and usually at most you can carry over a few days with prior approval that had to be used pretty quickly in the new year.
Is this a new policy or has it always been this way? If new when did they announce it? Are you talking about 2013? Because if you sounds like you are out of luck.
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Use it or lose it, there is no law to prevent them from doing that. We are still allowed to carry over but they reduced it to 500 hours max. We can also sell it back, to reduce the hours if we choose not to use them, or if in a financial bind and need quick cash.
A lot of employers have a use it or lose it policy. There isn't anything wrong with that. Since you were presumably notified of this policy in a handbook or somewhere else, it is really your fault that you didn't use it. Next year, take vacation!
There's no law stating that you have to be paid for vacation time you don't use, unless the policy manual specifically states that you EARN rather than ACCRUE vacation time. Very important distinction there. If you EARN something you must be paid for it. If you ACCRUE it, then it's nothing more than a benefit that you can lose.
It's also legal for employers to mandate that you either use your accrued vacation time or lose it. Same with accrued sick leave or any personal time off.
Actually, I think it's a really stupid policy NOT to pay people for unused sick time - to me, losing unused sick days seems like a punishment and something that encourages people to call in sick even if they're not (for instance, in my past job I had two weeks of sick leave every year and there's no way I was sick two weeks out of every year, but if I didn't use it, it wouldn't roll over and I just lost it). But when it comes to vacation time, it sounds like your company WANTS you to take vacation, to get away from work a bit, and this is their way of encouraging healthy breaks in your work routine.
My advice would be - take vacations!
Honestly if that were the case they would foster a work environment more conducive to taking vacations. We simply don't have time or resources to do so, management seems to notice this but pushes the vacation agenda to seem as if they truly want you to but the reality is we work until it gets done. Not a bad work environment, just little to no room for vacation yet we have such policies that seem to differ from managements ideology.
to me, losing unused sick days seems like a punishment and something that encourages people to call in sick even if they're not
Just like not paying out sick time might encourage some to call in sick when they aren't paying out sick time might encourage some to come in when they are sick.
Just like not paying out sick time might encourage some to call in sick when they aren't paying out sick time might encourage some to come in when they are sick.
My experience has been the expectation that we are "available" in the event we are sick, not saying this is policy or even how its done company wide but this seems to be the consensus with guys on my side. We are basically telecommuting if we are sick.
How much notice of the policy did they give? When our company put a cap of 400 hours accrued vacation in we got over a years notice it was coming and have been told it is eventually going down to 300 hours in the next couple years. We don't get a set number of sick days. That falls under a seperate category that is called 'net casual' that can either be positive or negative and is somewhat subject to management approval.
If they suddenly said in September that they were changing the policy and all vacation had to be taken by Dec 31 That would be tough and I would think the place would be rather quiet as the year approched the end. But if they are telling you now that as on this year (2014) you have to use it all by the end of the year you have some time to plan accordingly. My question would be What if I want to take vacation in January or February? Am I allowed to 'go in the hole' until I earn it if I had a zero balance on January 1?
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