Employee Benefits
The last part of your Employee Handbook describes the benefits and time off you provide employees:
- Waiting periods
Must employees wait a certain time to receive benefits? Can probationary employees begin to accrue (accumulate) benefits?
- Paid time off (vacations, personal days, sick time)
This section is handled in a variety of ways. There is no federal law that requires you to pay an emloyee for time off, including vacations, holidays, personal time, or sick time, though "time off" is high on the list of expectations by employees. Employees do have the option of taking time off without pay. Any paid time off will directly affect your productivity and customer service. One way to handle this is to provide an overall “paid time off” benefit that accumulates over time to a maximum of “x” hours. The paid time may be used for any purpose. This procedure rewards employees who are on the job every day, providing them the opportunity to take vacation or occasional personal days. Require employees to schedule PTO well in advance, except for illnesses.
- Vacations.
Describe vacation eligibility; how long does an employee have to work to be entitled to take a vacationm? How is the length determined? How are vacations paid? What happens if someone leaves; does he/she receive pay for unused vacation time? Most employers do not allow employees to receive pay instead of taking vacation, for several reasons. Don't allow an employee to carry over vacation to the next year; everyone should take vacation every year. When must employees announce their vacation plans? Who gets priority in scheduling?
- Holidays.
No federal law requires holiday pay; if the office is closed, you do not need to pay for this time. What paid holidays do you provide? List specific holidays for each year. You may decide to change the holidays from year to year, but usually you will need to maintain the same number. Must employees work the day before and the day after a holiday in order to receive holiday pay? You don’t need to pay part-time employees for holidays, even if full-time employees receive them. If you decide to close the office on a particular day and not pay employees, you should give them notice in advance.
- Sick time/Personal Days
Most small offices find it a great burden to pay employees for additional time off, both in terms of staffing and financial cost. You may want to give employees a limited number of paid personal/sick days a year, knowing they will probably take them, whether they need them or not. You may want to designate these days collectively as “personal” days, including sick days; don’t make people lie about being sick to get a day off. Do not allow employees to carry over these days to another year; use them or lose them. Can employees take ½ days or a certain number of hours, rather than a full day? Part-time employees are usually not eligible for sick time. Describe the procedure for requesting personal/sick days.
- Jury Duty
You are required to give employees time off if an employee receives a summons for jury duty. How will you handle this? Will you pay them during this time? Will you require them to turn in their jury duty pay or may they keep it? When must they report back to work (“when court is not in session” is common)? Be sure you consider the “worst case” scenario in this section.
- Leaves of Absence
Although you do not have to provide unpaid leave, you may want to consider this provision, particularly for valuable employees. What is the maximum time that someone can take unpaid leave and still be assured of a position upon his/her return to work? If you provide insurance, can the person continue this insurance if he/she pays the premiums? What happens when the employee returns; does he/she receive the former position?
- Military leave
The 1994 Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act requires employers to make a reasonable effort to retrain or upgrade skills of employees returning fro military duty. What about employees who go to summer camp or to other short-term military obligations? How will their return be handled?
When you have completed this section, you are almost ready to show it to employees. But before you do that, take it to your attorney or an attorney who is an expert in employment law for review.
