PAID TIME OFF

Life happens and there are times when you will miss work. Paid time off is a benefit some employers offer that allows you to get paid even when you are missing work. It can be a great benefit to employees to help create work life balance. The main ways employers will let you use these are holidays, vacations, parental leave, bereavement leave, jury duty and days you or a family member are sick. Some will offer these benefits as separate choices, and some will offer these as one total of paid time off days that you can utilize for all days you miss work. 

HOLIDAYS

Some employers choose to pay their employees for holidays. These typically align with some or most of the federal holidays including: New Year’s Day, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Presidents Day, Memorial Day, Juneteenth National Independence Day, Independence Day, Labor Day, Indigenous Peoples Day/Columbus Day, Veterans Day, Thanksgiving Day, and Christmas Day. If your company offers this time off and the holiday falls on a weekend when you are already off, they may offer an adjustment. One way they do this is to give you the previous Friday or the following Monday off. Another way they do this is to give you a floating holiday that you can use at a time of your choosing. Some employers have also begun providing additional floating holidays to try to be more inclusive of diverse backgrounds. You may receive a few floating holidays to use for your recognized holiday, which may not be in the list of the federally recognized holidays. Companies operating during the holidays may provide holiday pay of time and a half or double pay where you make 150% or 200% of your normal pay, while others provide you a floating holiday for working during a holiday. 

VACATIONS

Some employers will give you a set number of days you can use for vacations and may also refer to these as personal time. It is common for employers that offer this benefit to offer two weeks (10 business days) or more. Some companies will align the number of vacation days you receive with tenure, and you earn more days the longer you work for the company. Other companies will have a set number of vacation days they offer, and you may be able to negotiate these days when you are hired or promoted. There are rare cases where employers offer unlimited vacation days.

Vacation days usually require advance notice or preapproval by most employers. As these days are being used for personal time, they may be stricter about when and how you can use these. Employees like to try to maximize their holidays by taking off the rest of the week using a combination of holiday time and vacation time; some employers set policies that vacation time before or after a holiday may require preapproval in an effort to balance not having too many employees off during holiday weeks. Employees may not use all of their vacation days and if this happens, they may either lose the remaining days, be allowed to store the remaining days until they want to use it, or be allowed to rollover a certain number of days to the following year with the requirement that you use them at the start of the year before a certain date.

PARENTAL LEAVE

Parental leave can be protected if you meet the criteria under the Family Medical Leave Act, however getting paid while you are on leave depends on the company as pay is not legally required during this time. Parental leave benefits can come in a few different categories: maternity leave, paternity leave, and adoption or foster care leave. Companies may have a standard policy for all of these or a separate one for each one. Typically, all of these will require you to take this leave immediately after the life event of having a baby, adopting, or getting a foster child, while some companies let you do it at some point during the first year of the life event. 

The most commonly offered parental leave is maternity leave and length of time you are paid can depend on the type of birth that you have. Paternity leave tends to be a standard set amount of time. Paid time off for adopting and getting a foster child are much less common and tend to also be for a standard set amount of time. You also want to review to see if you are eligible for parental leave benefits as some companies only offer this benefit for full time or salaried employees. If you know that you want to take advantage of these benefits in the future, you may want to preemptively move to a company or position that offers these benefits. 

BEREAVEMENT LEAVE

Bereavement leave is leave taken following the death of someone close. Some companies allow you to take this time off unpaid, while others will pay you during this time either as a separate benefit or an overlapping paid time off benefit. If this benefit is an overlapping paid time off benefit, companies will require you to use your allocated vacation time or sick time during this time off. Companies typically set regulations on whose death does or does not qualify for bereavement leave such as only providing it for immediately family.

JURY DUTY

Although you may receive a stipend from the government when you are serving jury duty, this pay is usually significantly lower than the pay you would be making working. Some employers offer set days of jury duty pay where you will be making your standard pay while missing work to serve on jury duty. 

SICK DAYS

If your job offers sick days, using this benefit is usually a more flexible process. This can be broken down into sick days just for yourself or sometimes sick days specifically intended for family members. Some places may only provide sick days just for the employee. Others may provide either additional sick days with the idea that they will be used for yourself and family or separate sick days meant just for taking care of family members. Sick days are usually use it or lose it where you only have them for the year or some employers may allow you to store sick days for later use. Some companies even offer unlimited sick days; you will want to check with them what their requirements are for utilizing sick days. 

Paid time off is a benefit that greatly helps when you need to take time off. Knowing that you will be paid even while missing work can make the missing work a lot easier. Although this benefit does not add to your compensation package, it instead helps to make sure that pay isn’t subtracted. If you have days available, make sure that you use this time especially if you will lose unused days.  

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