Managing employee time off for vacation and holidays as well as sick time

As an employer one of the nicer benefits that you can give to your employees is vacation time, holidays or even sick leave. But the biggest problem with this kind of benefit is trying to manage the time off so that your employees don't take advantage of it.

Here are some tips to keep in mind when it comes to giving your employees time off for vacation, holidays and sick time and how you can manage the time off so it doesn't get out of control.

Tip one:
The first thing that you want to think about is the fact that by law you are not required to provide your employees with any paid time off. This means that you do not need to pay your employees for any time that they take off of work, including vacation, holidays or sick days. So basically it is up to you whether you decide to pay your employees for any time that they are taking off, either willingly or because of holidays. But something else that you need to think about is that the Family and Medical Leave Act could apply to your place of business so you want to look into that law when developing your policy.

Tip two:
Another thing that you want to make sure that you do when developing paid time off policies to include exactly what you expect from your employees in the policy. Basically you want to spell out exactly what they can and can't do when it comes to taking time off. You also want to make sure that they are clear about the difference between sick leave and vacation. But in the policy you are also going to want to include if you are going to pay them for any sick time they take off, what they have to do in order to take sick leave, whether they have to provide doctor's notes, etc. You want the employees to know what they need to do in order to qualify for sick leave.

Tip three:
Not only do you want the employees to know what they can expect if they take time off you are also going to want to be specific on what is going to happen if they abuse the policy. Basically you want to include any disciplinary measures that you are going to take if the policy is abused or if the rules aren't followed. This can include write ups, verbal warnings, termination, whatever you deem appropriate for the offense. But you are also going to want to include what is going to happen the first time, the second time, etc. You want to make sure that this is clear to your employees so it helps lower the chance of people abusing the policies.

Tip four:
The last thing that you want to do is to make sure that you enforce the consequences on what will happen if the employees take advantage of the vacation, holiday or sick leave policies. This is the only way that your employees will know that you are serious about these policies.

Tip five:
The best thing that you can do to help manage the employees' time off is to have each employee fill out a request form if they want to take vacation time. When it comes to holidays you can either give them certain holidays off or you can let them swap days and work on the holidays and request a different day off with a request form. But these forms are the best way to keep track of who is taking off and when they are taking the time off, not to mention why they are taking the time off. Also keep in mind that you are going to want to keep these forms in their employee file for at least six years, if not longer.