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In this month’s HR Guru column, a company representative wrote to say her company had a new employee who told management that their company policies were behind the times. Read on for advice from the HR Guru.
Dear HR Guru:
Our employees receive two weeks paid holidays per year during their first five years of employment. During, and only during, their first year, their holidays are pro-rated, for example, if they have been with us for three months they have "earned" about 2.5 holiday days. At about six months, they have "earned" about a week’s worth of holidays.
What this basically means is that an employee can't start with the company and take their two weeks holidays the next week, or the next month (unless obviously it was condition of their hiring (i.e. they had a holiday planned prior to accepting employment...). After the first year of their employment, they may take their two weeks whenever they like.
Our knowledge of this has been that companies don't usually offer holiday time to employees in their first year of employment and we thought we were doing well at offering it to them in this manner. Are we doing something wrong? What has your experience been?
Signed,
Christie
Dear Employer:
You are certainly not doing anything wrong! I am in full agreement with how you are handling your holiday entitlement. Very few companies do not pro-rate first year holidays. Some companies still have the policy of no holidays in the first year. I personally don't agree with the "no holiday option," as many times people leave one company to go to a new role and usually the new company wants the person as soon as possible so there is often no opportunity to take a break in between.
The only comment I would make as far as reviewing your holiday policy is the possibility of increasing the time prior to the five-year mark. Two weeks is not an exuberant amount of time off (most people like to have a two-week vacation plus a few days). Five years can be a long time to wait to feel really rested.
If your company does not partake in extra "perks" such as flex days, the occasional Friday afternoon off etc., you may want to consider the possibility of increasing holidays to three weeks after two years of service. In my experience, sick days tend to go down once someone is "entitled" to three weeks a year plus holidays.
Dear HR Guru:
Our company’s work hours are 8:30 am to 5:00 pm. Staff get two fifteen-minute breaks and a half hour unpaid lunch — so if they want to, they can combine those breaks and take an hour for lunch and minimize their breaks during the rest of the day.
A new employee is suggesting that we should give staff an hour break AND two fifteen-minute breaks. Are we wrong in what we are currently offering? Is this against the norm? Our staff are all salary based if that makes any difference).
Signed,
Christie
Dear Employer:
While you are not doing anything wrong here either, your new staff member seems to have come from a company that focused on the area of employee satisfaction. I think the "norm" depends on the company profile, i.e. government vs. public sector, non-profit, vs. for-profit and industry. I believe it also extends to the calibre of team members an organization is looking to attract. Certainly companies that are on the leading edge put a high emphasis on "employee satisfaction." While not all companies can afford to have that translate into top salaries and/or benefits there are other things they can do, such as recognition, holiday entitlement, paid, and sick, personal and bereavement days, 35 vs. 40 hour work week, flex days, flexible working arrangements including telecommuting and part-time, daycare, parking and other "perks" that do not necessarily cost a company a lot of money but add greatly to the overall employee satisfaction.
My suggestion would be to perform an Employee Satisfaction Survey to determine how well you are doing as a company in this area and whether or not you see the need to improve in order to maintain your current staff or to attract new talent.
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