Vacation. 1-days vs weeks

[Parkanzky]

Does anyone still have a vacation buy back? I know there used to be lots of companies that would buy back up to 40 hours once every 6 months. Worked great, you could sell back a weeks worth at Christmas time and summer time, so you had some cash to actually enjoy any time you actually had left. I know I generally don't have the spare money do do much when ever I actually have time off; and on the Rare time I have spare cash (is there really such thing) I'm working 60+ hrs a week for months on end.


As a variation; a lot of paving companies will shut down 1 week at 4th of July and a week between Christmas and new years. It helps eliminate all the scheduling problems, and superintendents and higher would get a third week worth to use the rest of the year (but probably better not try to use it all at once)

My previous employer would allow you to sell vacation time in one week increments any time you wanted to with management approval.

My current company used to let you sell vacation years ago, but they've done away with that and moved to the system of limiting how much you can roll over and paying out any excess at 50% of your pay. The idea is to encourage you to use vacation the way it was intended. To get you away from work and relaxing.

Vacation isn't supposed to be some kind of cash bonus. Cash bonuses are for that...

 

[jimmyj]

I used to have a bunch of staff who didn't take their allocated vacation time so it would build up in a "bank". The problem we had was this build up was a liability and it grew in value over time (example if you have a week off in 2005 at $500 a week that same week may be worth $750 years later since your wage is higher).

But at the same time, we lobbied the boss to allow us to take daily or even half day increments instead of his original "a whole week at a time" policy. His original policy was simply his preference and frankly there was no valid business or legal reason for it. I really liked taking 1 day off here and there. I had enough vacation time each year that I could take two 1 week breaks and with planning around national holidays I used the rest of my days in such a way that I had a long weekend every other week all day long. It was great.

I think too often supervisors make rules simply because they think business should be rules based.