Paid time off or vacation/sick pay?

By Lance Haun • Mar 18th, 2008 • Category: Slacking Off at Work

Evil HR Lady puts out an interesting post about PTO versus vacation/sick time.

I know it is foolish but I always assume that HR people hate vacation/sick time and love PTO if only for the simple administration of the policy. If you are gone, we use time from your PTO bank. End of story. I love it.

HR Lady puts forward a compelling argument, one that I can relate to given my recent story about bosses forcing employees to come to work. If employees are saving their PTO for something else, they will be compelled to come in sick. I don’t think her solution (unlimited sick time) is a great choice for many organizations but it is a better solution than the current one.

I am going to completely disagree with her on the idea that good employees do not abuse sick time policies. They do. And many company policies encourage abuse. I know good employees who have used it, I know I have used it. Like the poster on HR lady’s site, I have rarely been sick and because I don’t have sick kids, I get maxed out at 40 hours of sick time. If I am away on a weekend and don’t feel “good enough” to come in, I am sick. It doesn’t happen often but if a policy forces me to use it or lose it, I will use it.

That being said, I simply don’t care why people are gone from work. I’d much rather risk the possibility of someone coming in sick (they probably will do so anyway) and make up the productivity in the fact that you can actually plan for people being away from work.

Lance Haun is the principle blogger for YourHRGuy.com. He is a 26 year old Human Resources Generalist practicing in the field for the past five years. His professional interests include recruitment, team building, training and development, employee relations and restraining himself from beating the crap out of bad managers and employees. He is a proud product of the Washington State University School of Business. In his spare time, he likes to recreate outdoors in the beautiful Northwest US with his flawless wife and tell stories about his co-workers with friends over a beer after work. Your HR Guy is a regular blogger on Vault.com as well as being featured on Wall Street Journal's Career Journal and MSNBC.com
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4 Responses »

  1. ttanis on March 22nd, 2008 at 6:32 pm:

    As a manager you have to stand up an protect other employees. If an employee is at risk to make others sick send them home and charge them PTO.

    I think the problem is that the culture of managers has changed and many more would prefer to be your friend then an agent of the company. The company has a responsibility under federal law to provide a safe work environment. This, in my mind at least, includes sicknesses.

  2. Chelsea D. on March 28th, 2008 at 6:38 am:

    I agree with HR Guy on this one. I read the original Evil HR lady post and understand her thinking, but PTO is the way to go.

    If you’re sick or not, if you have the PTO time in your bank you can use it however you wish. There are no personal, or intrusive questions when someone calls a manager. All they have to say is that they’re using PTO, and that’s it.

    Still, employers should discourage employees from coming to the office when they are truly sick. We love your work, but not your flu. Thanks.

  3. Lea Griffin on April 8th, 2008 at 8:24 pm:

    Didn’t see the original post but admit I like separate time. You don’t typically plan on bring sick and I can require notice for vacation. Also like the sick flag for seeing potential FMLA qualifications. Yes, you will have people call in sick when they are not but we have the option to require a doctor’s note at the 3 days in a row point. We are so busy for about 4 months that I can’t afford for employees to decide to use their PTO time then - notice or not.

    As far as managers and dumb questions go, tell managers to just take the info they are given and forward to HR. If there are questions to legitimacy have managers request HR inquire further.

  4. PeterG on April 16th, 2008 at 11:58 am:

    What should a company do when a new employee who only has 2 days accrued of sick time and is gone a week for sick time and has all doctor and hospital records to prove was actually sick. Dont they get paid for whole week and there sick time just goes negative and then catches up over the next couple of months?

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