PTO Benefits: Strategies for Paid-time off Programs

PTO Benefits

Organizations do not generally generate revenues when employees are not working and productive, so it is advantageous to keep employees healthy, engaged, and excited about their jobs and their work. Additionally, employees require some type of paid-time off benefit to recharge and reinvigorate their efforts and motivation. Elements you may want to consider include whether you will you give an exact number of days for each individual, whether that number will be based on something else (e.g., job title, time with the company). . Using concepts and theories from this week’s readings, this discussion will help establish a fundamental understanding of the many forms that Paid Time Off benefits can take. Referring to an organization where you have worked or with which you are familiar:

• Discuss 2-3 specific strategies providing a rationale which this organization should adopt to formally program paid-time off to employees while still effectively managing their costs and ensuring that the organization can meet its demands. Remember, revenues generated support benefits to employees in one form or another.
• Analyze what positive and negative impacts your proposed strategies might have on this organization, and
• Identify whether these strategies will improve employee engagement

With these thoughts in mind:

Respond by Day 5 to two or more of your colleagues’ postings in one or more of the following ways:

• Ask a probing question.
• Share an insight from having read your colleagues’ postings.
• Offer and support an opinion.
• Validate an idea with your own experience.
• Make a suggestion.
• Expand on your colleagues’ postings.

Classmate 1 (Machele)

“Strategies for Paid-time off Programs

Many companies are often confronted with the task of evaluating various types of paid time off programs for their employees. Traditional structures separated time-off categories between vacation time, sick days and personal time among other categories. Paid Time Off usually serves as an offer to employees to spend some time away from work that they can use for their needs such as vacation, illness, school, volunteer work, and other activities of their choice. Companies have to employ strategies for Paid Time Off that will keep their employees happy as well as maintaining their revenue levels. A company like Google has about 94,372 employees (Braff, 2018). Therefore, they have to employ a PTO strategy that accounts for all these employees as well as one that keeps employees happy and enables the company to function smoothly. There are various strategies that a company like Google can adopt and still maintain its competitive edge.

Strategies

Banking on Paid Time Off is one essential strategy that they can adopt. This strategy consolidates sickness time, personal time and vacation time into one bank of days thus enabling employees to use it when they want to request for paid time. This policy enables an employee to use his or her pool of days at his or her discretion. What the employee does with his or her PTO is no longer the business of the employer, and this also stops the practice of employees being required to get permission from their supervisors to miss work (Sammer, 2017). One of the advantages of the PTO strategy is that it helps to reduce unscheduled absences, which is a key problem in many companies and has great costs. Employees can plan for their time off in advance, and therefore their work can be covered. A disadvantage of the PTO strategy is that employees may perceive PTO as an incentive thus using it unnecessarily, which would not be the case when their time off was categorized as personal, sick and vacation days (Braff, 2018). Nevertheless, PTO will improve employee engagement because of the flexibility provided to the employees.

Another strategy that a company like Google can adopt is that of floating holidays. Floating holidays are a fixed number of days that employees can use as their personal time which may occur at any time during the year. They provide flexibility and encourage diversity as families are able to choose their preferred holidays by factoring in their family needs. A floating holiday strategy has to communicate the channel for requesting and the use of a holiday to the employees depending on the company’s culture and the type of days the company offers. It also has to reflect the company’s values such as promoting diversity and improving employee’s work and life balance.

A floating holiday strategy has a major advantage of considering employees’ religious traditions as well as their dynamic culture. This creates a sense of choice and flexibility. A company like Google adopting this strategy will be good for their employee reputation and employment brand. Other advantages include improved work and life balance, happier employees, as well as a balance between employees work and culture (Nonaka, 2017). This will immensely improve employee engagement.

Conclusion

A properly designed strategy will generate more attention and enthusiasm from employees for a vital employee benefit. Employing either of the above strategies will enable the company to improve employee retention as well as improve employee engagement. Attridge (2009) states “companies having human capital practices and benefits that emphasized positive mental health, work-life balance and company-wide wellness would in generalhave overwhelmingly positive effects on employee productivity, creativity, commitment, health, recruitment, and retention” (p. 388). Therefore, employers must ensure that they adopt the right strategy for the company and its employees.”

Classmate 2 (Deryl)

“Organizations today are providing as well as rewarding their employee’s time off. These employee’s deserve this time for working hard for a company. Many organizations are offering their employee’s time off such as: Holidays, Vacation, Requested Time-Off (accrued time, donated time). Organizations are offing these options as a way of showing their hard working employee’s that they appreciate them as well keep them as long as they can.

My current job at Lowe’s Hardware believes in managing their cost and making sure the company meet sits demands by scheduling right due to the budget that’s given to them. I believe in the organization PTO, Requested Time-Off (Donated Time).

PTO is paid time off that the employee’s has earned a week off after working for the company after one year or more. This person could put in a request for time off, whether it’s personal, school related, etc. Because the employee deserves it for working so hard for the company. Donated time is another way Lowe’s can manage their cost. Donated time is where Lowe’s allows the employee to get paid to volunteer their work with any organization or charity of their liking and get paid a day’s work (8Hrs.).

The strategies above will help keep Lowe’s on track of managing their budge. Without these strategies, the company will go over budget and have to start by cutting employee’s hours. Which shouldn’t be the case because these strategies should already be in place within an organization, if not some of these organizations should get on board and bring them to the light of the company soon.”

 

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