Donating PTO

[Waffle]

I've never worked anywhere that allowed it. A couple of years ago we had a supervisor who had to go out for back surgery and was going to run out of sick time. Several of us asked if we could donate sick time to her, but the company wouldn't allow it.

[Rocky Mtn Saver]

May 31, 2012 7:35:22 GMT -5 Wisconsin Beth said:

My old job used to do this (Same employer, different dept.) Then stopped and basically said "Use FMLA."

The problem with that statement is that FMLA doesn't pay the employee, it only protects their job. Hence the sharing of leave time so the person can be paid during their difficult time.

[Phoenix84]

As a fed, we can't donate sick time, but we can donate our annual leave. I've never done it or felt inclined to do it. But it hasn't been until this year that I have been able to get any appreceiable amount of leaves as I just started getting 6/hours a pay period in October. So basically I only got 2 weeks of leave a year and I wasn't going to donate it or I'd NEVER take any.

Now, I still don't really feel inclined since it's still vacation time. But if it was getting close to the end of the year and I couldn't take all my leave, I'd consider it.

I'd donate some sick time in a heartbeat as I (probably) have more than I'll ever use. But we can't do that.

[The Walk of the Penguin Mich]

May 31, 2012 7:35:22 GMT -5 Wisconsin Beth said:

My old job used to do this (Same employer, different dept.) Then stopped and basically said "Use FMLA." I inquired about it because a coworker had an extremely premature baby w/issues and she was struggling. I have a vague thought it might be allowed again but havn't thought about it for years.

Mid, Good for you.

FMLA does not replace your salary. You can take all 12 weeks off, but if you only have 2 weeks of banked time, then you only get paid for 2/12 weeks.

[The Walk of the Penguin Mich]

I'd donate some sick time in a heartbeat as I (probably) have more than I'll ever use. But we can't do that.

I wouldn't assume that. The last year, I have killed 18 weeks of sick time and 5 weeks of vacation for a lousy infection. By the time this is over, I will have been out of work for ~65 weeks.

[greenstone]

May 31, 2012 10:54:28 GMT -5 Phoenix84 said:

I'd donate some sick time in a heartbeat as I (probably) have more than I'll ever use. But we can't do that.

You can use it to boost your FERS annuity. It isn't much, but every little bit helps, right?


I can donate leave but never have. The two cases where I knew the individual were for maternity leave. Both mothers and babies were perfectly healthy and both families were able to cover their leave time so while I support long maternity leaves I didn't feel the need to personally pay for theirs by giving up my time off. It has made me a little leery of donating to others in different offices since I don't really know the story.

[Deleted]

can donate leave but never have. The two cases where I knew the individual were for maternity leave. Both mothers and babies were perfectly healthy and both families were able to cover their leave time so while I support long maternity leaves I didn't feel the need to personally pay for theirs by giving up my time off. It has made me a little leery of donating to others in different offices since I don't really know the story.

Actually, this is a pretty common request within our school system. A young teacher with only a couple of years experience gets pregnant and wants to take off the full 12 weeks . . . with pay. So we get a request for donations. It is an even bet that the teacher won't even return after her maternity leave but will choose to be a SAHP.

We roll our eyes at that request. With a few definite exceptions, pregnancy is a choice. Leave past six weeks is definitely a choice. Like I said, these teachers often leave and never return.

I figure I have a responsibility not to become the next poster child.

[Firebird]

I really don't get policies like this. Sick time is meant to cover YOUR absence, period. I understand that it does a lot of people no good just sitting there, but how does it make any difference to anyone if you "give" it to someone else? It just means that you will be in the office more (and you probably would have been anyway, since you had enough stored to feel okay about parting with some) while someone else is in the office a lot less.

I just don't see the logic. I feel like this kind of thing is a way for companies to feel good about themselves for being humanitarian... while at the same time not really making any kind of sacrifice themselves. And also, I could see it creating a bit of a popularity contest vibe. Suzy might have gotten 80 hours donated to her last year when she was getting chemo, but Greg only got 25 donated when his wife was in a car accident because everyone loves Suzy and Greg is kind of a tool.

How about this - if someone's got a catastrophic emergency, LET THEM TAKE OFF AS MUCH TIME AS THEY NEED AND WORK IT OUT WITH THEM LATER. Do not get other people involved.

[The Walk of the Penguin Mich]

May 31, 2012 18:20:24 GMT -5 Firebird said:

I really don't get policies like this. Sick time is meant to cover YOUR absence, period. I understand that it does a lot of people no good just sitting there, but how does it make any difference to anyone if you "give" it to someone else? It just means that you will be in the office more (and you probably would have been anyway, since you had enough stored to feel okay about parting with some) while someone else is in the office a lot less.

I just don't see the logic. I feel like this kind of thing is a way for companies to feel good about themselves for being humanitarian... while at the same time not really making any kind of sacrifice themselves. And also, I could see it creating a bit of a popularity contest vibe. Suzy might have gotten 80 hours donated to her last year when she was getting chemo, but Greg only got 25 donated when his wife was in a car accident because everyone loves Suzy and Greg is kind of a tool.

How about this - if someone's got a catastrophic emergency, LET THEM TAKE OFF AS MUCH TIME AS THEY NEED AND WORK IT OUT WITH THEM LATER. Do not get other people involved.

The problem comes in when the paycheck goes away. Happened to me.

I had 10 weeks of accrued sick time and 5 of vacation. I have been off of work since 12/12/11 and will likely be out the rest of this year.......and part of next year. I stopped receiving a paycheck 4/30/11.

If my second hip had not been infected, I could have been back at work about 2 weeks from now......which means that I would have needed roughly 6 weeks out of the sick leave pool. However, since I knew that my problem was going to last far longer than that, I have applied for LTD.

A friend of mine caught the respiratory bug that knocked some of us for a few days. But for her, it put her on a ventilator. She was out of work from March through July, and also managed to get some sick leave pool. She had a lot of sick leave accrued, but it was not sufficient to get her past her illness.

Shit happens and this is one way of retaining a paycheck while you're trying to get better.

[Firebird]

Shit happens and this is one way of retaining a paycheck while you're trying to get better.

Mich, I totally understand the benefit to the SICK person. What I can't understand is why this makes any sense whatsoever from the perspective of the company.

Especially if there's a wild disparity in pay. Let's say Sick Person A makes $12/hour. One day of sick time for her, then, will cost the company approximately $96.

Nice Person B, who makes $15/hour, decides to donate three days of sick time. Which would have cost the company $360 had Nice Person B decided to take them herself, but since the time is actually going to Sick Person A, it will only cost them $288. Hooray, says the company, Sick Person A gets three extra days, Nice Person B gets to feel good about herself, and we save a little money plus we look good doing it.

But what if Nice Persons C-G make $8/hour? Suddenly their sick time just got a lot more expensive. Financially it doesn't make sense - and from a work-product perspective, it means that their more valuable $12/hour employee won't be adding value but WILL be getting paid for an extended period of time.

[The Walk of the Penguin Mich]

I suspect it evens out in the end.

I work at a company that has employees that make $10/hour to those that make $160k/year, or more.

Everyone has the same benefits, gets the same amount of sick and vacation time. But there are a lot more people who make on the lower end of the scale than the upper end - which means that the likelihood of a higher salary person needing leave pool is less.

At least, where I work you contribute to a pool and draw from the pool of time available. I can't tell you as to what happens when those contribute directly to another person's time since I have never been in the situation.

As to the benefit of the company, I know that my employer wants to retain good employees, if they can. I was given many options when I ran out of time, but most of it was dependent upon the amount of time I thought I would need.

For instance, I could have used the sick leave pool and could have gotten a few weeks more of sick time. That was not sufficient. Next, I could appeal for a 'leave with/out pay'. They would pay my salary for a couple months, then nothing until I could come back to work. They would continue to pay my health insurance though. Limit for this would have been 6 months.....not quite enough.

Finally, I had LTD available. I had 6 months from the time I went out to apply and I waited until the last possible minute to do so, hoping that things would improve faster. Realistically, I knew it was impossible.

I wound up going with LTD and bypassing the rest because they'd be a drop in the bucket for the amount of time (probably another 9 months) that I'd need to take off.

[Firebird]

Okay, that makes sense. It's pretty much the opposite at my company (very top-heavy, almost no one in junior roles). But even at your company, although the likelihood would be lower that it would actually happen, in the event that a high earner DID need to go out for a long time and the lower-earning people were all to generously donate their leave, the senior person could be out for quite a long time at great expense to the company - not only because of the pay differential but also for the simple fact that their more valuable employee is out while their less valuable employees are not.

Maybe it's worth it from the company's perspective to keep the higher earner on with pay despite the money it's costing them. It just doesn't seem to make a lot of sense to me.

[Firebird]

Unless I'm just completely misunderstanding the way the whole thing works, which could easily be the case. I'm not in HR.

[shanendoah]

My company has combined vacation/sick - it's all just PTO. We do allow donations, but generally in only very extreme circumstances. Best one I can think of was a lady in our department whose 7y/o developed terminal brain cancer and was given less than a year to live. She worked some, but when your child has less than a year to live, you obviously want to spend as much time as possible with said child and the rest of your family.
Short term disability is ONLY for when you yourself are sick, so she couldn't use that. FMLA protects up to 12 weeks (but doesn't pay you). Because I work for a healthcare company, this woman was not going to lose her job over taking time off to be with her sick child and then time to recover from the loss of her child.
HR sent out a request for people to donate PTO to this woman. I know a number of people did- including some director level folks (woman was an admin) who were in danger of losing their PTO anyway.

And, it's really important in situations like this, because if the company isn't paying you, they aren't paying your health benefits either- being off work with no pay for any significant amount of time actually costs you money, as you have to pay your full insurance costs if you want to keep your insurance active, which obviously, someone with a very sick child does.

True, Firebird, there's no benefit to the company, but there's no benefit to the company offering a STD package, either, or a floating holiday, or any holiday beyond what is required by the government. There is a benefit to the employees though, so the shared PTO is really part of the employee benefit package.

[Deleted]

May 31, 2012 19:10:16 GMT -5 Firebird said:

Unless I'm just completely misunderstanding the way the whole thing works, which could easily be the case. I'm not in HR.

It isn't a benefit for the company but for the employees. It does create a sense of community and that attract and keep talent.

[midjd]

I guess I never really thought about the issues with pay disparity. The highest-paid person in our agency makes $125K, but I'd say a good 85% of us make $35-$70K, so it's probably not a huge issue. And the donation has to be approved on an individual basis - I can only remember 1 other request in the almost 3 years I've worked here. Both that request and this one were $55K earners (being able to Google your coworkers' salaries is a wonderful and terrible thing! ) so maybe that has something to do with the approval.

Our sick time rolls over with no limit, but is worthless upon retirement or termination of employment, so there's no real incentive to the employee to hoard it (past the 20ish days you need for STD to kick in, or in a situation like Shane described with a sick child). I don't even think you're allowed to keep it if you transfer over to another agency.

What I can't understand is why this makes any sense whatsoever from the perspective of the company.

Seems to be a morale thing. Both the leave requests I've seen are for very, very tragic and worthy situations, and both employees have been hard workers (and beloved by everyone). I think we all feel awful and want to do anything we can to help. If there were leave requests sent out every couple of months, or were for employees who had squandered all their PTO on stupid stuff, it would probably be different.

[NastyWoman]

Firebird some of this is pretty simple: for example you earn $50/hr and I earn $25/hr. We each donate 10hrs to the pool. The pool now has $750. Along comes Johnny who needs more time off than he has for cancer treatments. Johnny earns $30/hr, so the pool will be enough to give him 25hrs extra time off. However, were my efforts got bogged down was in how to treat this from an income tax point of view: who pays what and how do you account for it?

On our company's balance sheet earned time off is treated as a liability and it is reflected in $$$, not hours. Sicktime/PTO on the other hand is allotted on an annual basis and any time not used reverts back to the company at the end of the year. Hence their unwillingness to let us donate that time. as it is I have "given back" close to a full year worth of unused time in the last 12 years. Oh well, I'd rather be healthy than having to use my sick time. On the other hand, in Mich's situation I would almost be able to cover my entire time off (I also have a chunk of vaca) if we were allowed to accrue sick time.

[TheOtherMe]

May 30, 2012 16:36:23 GMT -5 8 Bit WWBG said:

...:::"The feds do it.":::...

We can and I've never been significantly swayed by any of the e-mails that came out. If I knew for a fact that a person fell on hard times and was facing dire consequences, I would consider donating leave.

If the person was asking for PTO because he/she had taken too much "slick leave", I would not donate.

I never had enough leave to do because of my own illnesses. I do know people who helped a single mom with cancer and she was able to return to work.

[Firebird]

Firebird some of this is pretty simple: for example you earn $50/hr and I earn $25/hr. We each donate 10hrs to the pool. The pool now has $750. Along comes Johnny who needs more time off than he has for cancer treatments. Johnny earns $30/hr, so the pool will be enough to give him 25hrs extra time off.

Ah, I see. That makes more sense than what I was suggesting yesterday.

And I do understand the benefit of having a swap program just for the sake of morale but it seems like (though this might be my specific company culture talking) it would just be simpler for the manager in charge to work with the employee on an individual basis.

When DH's mom died suddenly, I did go into the office that day - it was on my way to the airport anyhow - and as soon as my boss walked in, I asked him for a minute and explained the situation. He told me to go and take as much time as I needed. No questions asked. And when I needed to extend my trip longer than I originally thought, no problem there either. I think I was out for nearly three weeks, which would never have been permitted under normal circumstances. He was great about it, and I'm still very grateful for that, but it never occurred to me that anyone else would need to get involved.

But we have only PTO, no designated sick time, and a pretty generous allotment at that. So I don't have much experience with sick time at all, let alone some kind of swap situation.

[Phoenix84]

"Actually, this is a pretty common request within our school system. A young teacher with only a couple of years experience gets pregnant and wants to take off the full 12 weeks . . . with pay. So we get a request for donations. It is an even bet that the teacher won't even return after her maternity leave but will choose to be a SAHP."

yeah, I'd never donate for maternanity leave. I'm not going to donate my good leave since you had a baby.

Since you brought it up, I also don't agree with taking a bunch of paid leave then quitting either. If you're going to quit just quit, don't sring your employer/co workers on for 6 months then just quit.

"You can use it to boost your FERS annuity. It isn't much, but every little bit helps, right?"

Yes. It's a moot point anyway since you can't donate sick leave. I'm not too inclined to donate annual leave though.

[wvugurl26]

I'm not really sure how they account for differences in salaries. We could in theory have issues with the liability without donating leave. We can bank unlimited sick leave. If you have been here 20 years or so and are a 15 or SES level person, there's a good chance you have thousands of hours of sick leave and that some of it was earned when you were making a much lower salary.

We can also carry over 240 hours annual leave. SES level and professional science can carry over like 720 hours. Again same issue, earned at a lower pay rate.

I've had my issues in the past year with being sick and doctor's appointments so I don't have much sick leave built up. I move up a grade on 6/20. I'll have about 50 hours or so of annual leave then that I earned making $5 less per hour. I'm sure they have some way to account for it.

And for us, it'd be the same accounting issue if someone transferred between cities that had a big difference in locality adjustment.

[share88]

We are not allowed to do that.

[kgb18]

yeah, I'd never donate for maternity leave. I'm not going to donate my good leave since you had a baby.

I would not either. That is quite different than someone who goes through a catastrophic event (like an accident where they are critically injured) or some sort of an illness like cancer. I would donate in those kinds of circumstances.

No one has asked about donating leave, but we have a co-worker who is out going through cancer treatments right now. We've had a lot of fundraisers for her though.

[Happy prose]

I've donated and I've collected. It has to be a catastrophic illness. Having a baby wouldn't count. In my case, I would not have requested it and just went no-pay status, but my health benefits would have stopped. There is a maximum of 10 days you can donate, and a max of 180 days you can receive. I has to deplete all my banked time first. What I found odd was when I came back, I had accrued about three weeks vacation because they considered me working.