[RKDinOKC]

So...How does this sound.

Where I work they are changing the way they accrue vacation time. Probably because of the software used to keep track of it.

Anyway.

In the past your vacation was earned every so many days. Example, if you have seniority for 40 days vacation a year, every 6.5 days or 52 hours worked you earned 1 day or 8 hours vacation with a maxium vacation you can carry to the next year being 40 days. So if you only used a week or 5 days of vacation you carried 35 days to the next year. And if you only used a week the next year you would have accrued 70 days, but you can only carry over a maximum of 40 so you lose 30 days because you didn't use it. Conversely if you used all 40 days in a year, come January you would have 0 days and have to wait until you accrued more earning a day every 6.5 days until you could take it.

The change is as of January 1st you get your years worth of vacation, ie 40 days, and get until Dec 31st to use it. Then every January 1st it is reset to 40 days again. The idea being you can use your 40 days at any time during the whole year. Before, if you had used all 40 days the previous year, you couldn't take vacation until you accrued more that year. So if you wanted to take vacation the first week of January, you could only take it if you had vacation left from the year before.

To kick this whole thing off this year only if you have any vacation left at the end of the year they are going to pay you for it. Then as of January 1st you get your next years 40 days. Then next year, if you don't use it, you lose it.

As an employee that never uses all their vacation time I think this is great as it means I get a bonus paid on the vacation I didn't use this year. As a concerned employee of a company trying to make it through a market slump think this is pretty stupid waste of the companies money. Employees are already under the old system losing any vacation days they accrued the year before because you can't carry more than 40 days. And you get 40 days as of January, so why pay employees for vacation they didn't use?

Several years ago they changed the vacation you couldn't carry more than 40 days. Have been working there long enough that I was accruing vacation basically carrying any not used until I retired. When they went to the 40 days max they let employees like me just keep carrying whatever vacation I had accrued as my maximum. A couple of years ago to get everyone on the same system paid me for all my accrued vacation up to 40 days. It was $12,000!

Do you think they should be paying employees for vacation they are not using this year when It would basically be lost anyway?

or Are they doing this to keep too many employees from taking a bunch of vacation the last few months of the year?