PTO minimum requirement

Economy
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A Mandated Paid Time Off (PTO) policy for full-time workers would create a federal requirement for employers to provide a minimum amount of PTO, promoting both public health and productivity. All but six nations in the world have minimum requirements with the US being the only advanced economy not mandating PTO. Here’s a breakdown of why and how this policy could work:

Key Benefits of Mandated PTO

Health and Well-Being: Guaranteed PTO helps reduce burnout, mental health strain, and physical illnesses associated with overwork.
Increased Productivity: Rested employees are more productive and engaged, reducing turnover and boosting workplace morale.
Equality and Fairness: It ensures that workers, regardless of their job or sector, have access to rest, leveling the playing field and reducing reliance on unpaid leave for essentials like illness or family emergencies.

Legal Framework

Amend Existing Laws: To implement mandated PTO, the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) could be amended to include a PTO requirement. This change would establish minimum PTO standards similar to those in other nations.
New Federal Statute: Alternatively, a standalone law could set a national PTO baseline, mandating leave accrual, tracking, and protection against retaliation when employees take leave.
Enforcement and Compliance: The Department of Labor (DOL) would oversee compliance, establishing penalties for non-compliant employers, as with other FLSA requirements.
Vacation Leave: All employees would accrue a minimum of 20 days (160 hours) of vacation leave annually. This time could be used all at once or separately. A minimum of 10 days (80 hours) must be used each year. Employers reserve the right to deny specific requests but may not consistently deny time off to prevent employees from receiving leave. To prevent repetitive denial, the employer must inform employees of available dates. This vacation time would cover personal time, leisure, and rest, allowing employees to recharge.
Sick Leave: Employees would receive 7 days (56 hours) of sick leave per year, which can be used for personal illness, medical appointments, or recovery. This ensures employees are supported during health challenges without risking their income.
Parental Leave: New parents (both mothers and fathers) would be eligible for a minimum of 12 weeks of paid parental leave or 24 weeks of half-paid parental leave following the birth or adoption of a child. This leave would be job-protected, ensuring that employees can return to their role or a comparable one afterward.
Accrual Eligibility: Employees would need to work a minimum of one calendar year to be eligible for mandated PTO.
Termination Requirement: Employers must pay out all accrued PTO upon job separation.

Positive Impact on Employers and Employees

Cost Savings: By lowering turnover and reducing health-related absences, mandated PTO can lower recruitment and healthcare costs.
Alignment with Global Standards: With mandated PTO, the U.S. would better align with international labor standards, enhancing the country’s competitive edge in attracting and retaining talent globally.

Overall, a mandated PTO policy would not only support healthier, more productive workplaces but also create a standard of fairness that prioritizes employee well-being as a matter of public policy.

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I don’t agree with this policy as being a good thing because it currently is being abused by too many people already. I have numerous employees that use their PTO time to skirt the existing attendance system and in the end it ends up rewarding poor attendance instead of those who show up for work every day.

I would rather support a system where PTO is earned by good attendance, allowing for a maximum amount of paid days off that they can earn by the end each year, to be used as needed and desired. Providing it for all employees regardless of existing attendance status just encourages misuse of it.

Those who don’t already currently misuse existing attendance systems, won’t typically misuse their PTO days either, and then it is an actual reward when earned.

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Thank you for sharing your perspective! I really appreciate it, especially the fact that it came from a manager! I love to see opinions from all sides.

I understand that many would try to abuse it, which is why I added that employees must stay with the employer for a year to be eligible. I don’t know if this covers your whole argument against it, but requests for PTO generally have to be submitted well ahead of time except sick pay which still should be requested within a reasonable timeframe.

I don’t think I see how this would protect those who don’t want to show up for work, because if they don’t show up, then they can still be delt with by a write up or however a business decides to carry out a consequence. If someone doesn’t show up without a valid reason, then it’s usually breaking company policy which should definitely be a reason for reasonable penalty. If someone is consistently not showing up, then it would be a valid reason for job separation.

Of course, other protections can be put into place to prevent abusing the system. It seems to work in all other countries, so maybe we can look at their own laws and see what the effect is over there!

So I can better understand, would you mind explaining your point more in depth? Like I said, I like to see all perspectives so that I can better any opinion I have.

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Using our company as an example we were forced, and I say forced because it was required by law to provide this for employees. We already had a fairly generous attendance system, and then when this was implemented, we gave them more days that can be used whenever and without valid reason, because they are just as they say “personal time off” or “paid time off”, depending on where you go and they can use them as desired.

Problem is that most of the time when someone wants a day off, instead of using the attendance system, they will use their PTO time, our attendance system is a pointbased system, and is basically a regenerating type system. Where if you can keep yourself clean for a couple of months, you will earn points back so you can keep yourself out of job jeopardy so to speak if your points are getting too high.

Now, with the addition of the PTO days, they have just learned how to work it into the system and we have numerous employees. We just take advantage of it and hang around at the edge. Obviously, if they fell over that edge, then disciplinary action could be taken, But most of them are smart enough to work the system to just have a lot of extra days off during the year.

This might be easier to manage with a company with just a few or maybe up to 100 employees, but when you’re dealing with thousands of employees and constantly having to carry extra staff because of the amount of days off that people can now take, including their PTO days, it gets expensive.

For us, it has actually made it much more difficult to deal with problem employees than it was in the past before we had to provide PTO days. Just my thoughts and opinions and it certainly doesn’t mean, I am right or wrong, but just an example of in our case at least where the system has been tough to manage since the advent of having to provide PTO days.

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Ok, that makes a lot of sense, and I can see why you’d be against it. My opinion on your current attendance system is that it should probably be changed if people are abusing it, even if mandated PTO is not required. Keep in mind, I don’t necessarily have the full policies of your company, so my opinion is based on limited information.

I completely agree that it would not work with your company’s current system, but at the same time, companies implement different systems. If this were made law, then companies would change or make a whole new system entirely so as to prevent employees from abusing time off.

So for the problem of people abusing the current system, you would have to get to the root of it. While the people should not be abusing it of course, the company also somewhat allows it.

My opinion is that this law would work, but companies would have to change their attendance systems to adapt to the new law. This might be a smaller example, but take into consideration the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). Among other things, this law made companies change payroll practices, adding overtime pay. Many companies can just accept it, but there are also some that made a policy stating employees cannot work over 40 hours per week to prevent extra costs. Basically what I’m saying is that companies have (and historically have always had) the power to adapt to laws.

Your argument is completely valid, but I don’t think it should be the sole reason as to why you think the proposed policy should be struck down, especially because it is very specific. Aside from your attendance system, what would your thoughts be on the same PTO policies I mentioned? Would there still be problems with attendance? Is this your main concern, or even just in general, do you think this would bring about other negative outcomes?

Just like you said, this is only an opinion and it does not mean I am right or wrong.

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I just want to chime in on one part of this that I agree with 100% -

Too many companies in recent years have moved to a “Use it or lose it” strategy on Vacation Leave, where the employee forfeits any vacation time not taken by the end of the year. This has led to many companies practically shutting down in November/December as many key employees seek to take time off (but due to the work load have not been able to do so prior to that)

Likewise, many employers have merged Vacation Leave and Sick Leave into a single “Paid Time Off” (PTO) bucket, meaning a user loses vacation days if they’re sick (and thus could impact vacation plans). I have seen more than my share of people that will still come in the office (pre-pandemic) despite being ill, just to avoid the PTO penalty.

Therefore, part of this requirement should be that all unused vacation time must either be rolled over to the next calendar year, or the value thereof be reimbursed (preferably tax-free) to the employee at the end of the calendar year. Rolled over vacation time could be capped, or require it be used in a reasonable amount of time, but any time in excess of the cap or expired would have to be paid out.

For example when I was looking to buy a house, I would of loved to roll vacation time I had to use in December into the next year to take more time off to move.

Likewise, PTO should be distinctively separated to Vacation and Sick time (sick time can remain an annual allotment and not roll over), to encourage people to take time off when they’re sick (especially those that still work in an actual office or store, where being sick might make others sick)

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Personal assessment from my own workplace:

The company I work for has Paid Time Off, Protected Paid Time Off, and an option to request unpaid time off.

Paid Time off resets in February ever year, but pays out for unused hours. What I’ve learned to do is just not use the Paid Time off since it being reset makes it difficult to plan around, so I use unpaid time off requests and then cash out the Paid Time Off hours I’ve accumulated over the course of the year so that it functions kind of like an annual bonus.

The Protected Part time off, meanwhile, is special in that first, the number of PPTO hours accumulated don’t reset entirely each year meaning it’s always possible to keep some banked if you never use them; and second, they’re basically a ‘catch all’ ‘get out of jail free’ bank for emergency situations.

So Paid Time Off is basically vacation time but it’s not worth using if you don’t have to since it gets reset every year and pays out anyway, while Protected Paid Time off can be saved (to a point) but ideally I don’t want to use it in case I actually have a genuine emergency.