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Human Resource Management
Time-Off Policies
Name
Institution
Work versus Vacation Policies
The King’s Company wishes to develop cost-effective strategies in the current situation of declining sales, to survive the turbulence in the industry and market. For an effective strategy, the company must change its organizational structure, culture, practices, and policies. One main issue is on time-off policies, how it is implemented and used, yet avoiding litigation. Successful implementation of time-off policies assumes an open and transparent organizational culture, clear communication channels, and working as a team.
Organizations offer paid time-off as an employee benefit which is in the comprehensive employee compensation packages. In the past couple of years, highly skilled employees are now demanding to have paid vacation days included in their compensation packages (Tissen, Lekanne Deprez, Burgers, & Van Montfort, 2010). Traditionally, employers offered their staff separate paid time-off benefits which included sick leave, attending to personal matters, and paid vacation. However, in the recent times, many companies are shifting to offer a more flexible Paid Time-Off (PTO) benefit policy. For instance, Netflix has adopted the Paid-Time-Off policy, which allows its own employees to schedule and manage their time-off. Virgin, VMware, and LinkedIn are the other three companies that have also adopted the PTO policy. The King’s Company can benefit from this policy by reducing unscheduled absences and gaining competitive advantage by attracting and retaining highly skilled employees.

Adopting PTO policy is beneficial to the company, as the employer will receive notice about the schedule vacations on time and thus, plan adequately for a shift in work schedules. The employees do not have an incentive to lie about having a doctor’s appointment or being sick. There is a lot more transparency creating trust between the employers and employees. Another advantage of adopting PTO policy is that it eases management work as they no longer have the added work of tracking accumulated hours of sick days, personal days and vacation. And lastly, employees value the new PTO policy which allows them time-off to relax and refresh themselves in readiness to tackle work assignments.
In the case of the King’s Company and as the new director I would recommend a single Paid -Time-Off policy plan for all the employees. Adopting the policy will boost staff morale and ease the tensions accruing in the production department after the crude way that Lyle Jones was fired and left the company or the case of Tonia Putt in CAD design, whereby her approved family medical leave was treated as a termination case. And it will also show that the company values its employees as an important resource.
For effective implementation of the PTO benefits policy, the company management must openly and clearly communicate to the employees the new benefits plan, what it means and its implementation process. The human resources department through its development and the compensation and benefits division should plan for an all-day training session to inform employees on the new PTO policy, its reasons and technicalities. The HR can also do one big email announcing the changes, do both formal and informal discussions, and have question and answer sessions to fully equip the employees with all the necessary information.
Some companies tried the PTO policy and failed; such is the case of Tribune Publishing and Kickstarter. These two companies rescinded on the PTO program due to a variety of reasons, such as employees’ failure to clearly understand the policy, some felt that their vacation days were taken away and some workers did not take their time-offs for fear of reprisal. While crowdfunding stopped the program for lack of clear guidelines to its employees on when to take time-off and confusion on what is believed as acceptable by the top management. With such examples, then the King Company must communicate effectively to the employees on the PTO policy and respond to any queries to make the policy adoption a success.
Paid Time-Off benefits policy also encourages innovation and creativity. Harris, Rivera and Bougae (2014) stated that: “the more rested a person is, the higher their creativity and energies which make them work harder.” This will enable the staff to relax and work hard with a boost in self-confidence, even amid the shift to cost-cutting and staff number reductions in the company.
From the e-mails shared between different sections of the company, the management is pulling at each other, instead of working together. This is an indication of the high-stress levels shown by the shouting match at the production department, and most likely it was over a petty issue that is easy to resolve. And yet it led to Lyle Jones losing his job and the ensuing employment lawsuit that he has filed. Similarly, if the Tonia Putt case is not resolved, she is likely to sue the company for her accumulated overdraft fees leading to poor credit scores and mortgage. Any yet, all these issues and others are easily solved by allowing the staffs to rest and relax using the paid time-off, which will leave them rejuvenated and cut work conflicts (Milkman & Appelbaum, 2013).
All the management staff and departmental heads should encourage their junior staffs to take time-off from work either in singular days like jury duty or doctor’s appointments and multiple days off to vacation and visit friends and family members. This will reduce the chances of ligation like the court case of Roseland v. Strategic Staff Management, where four employees voluntarily agreed to resign and demanded payment for their unused vacation time. The company policy stated that an employee gains one week after working for a year, two weeks for two years and three weeks for working over five years. But after the four employees resigned, the employer refused to pay them citing the employee handbook showing that after termination employees will not be paid unused vacation time. The courts agreed with the four employees and stated that the employer pays them.
And from the 2010 PayFlex case where two employees separated their employment and demanded their accrued PTO hours while PayFlex company policy states that “PTO will NOT be paid upon separation of employment. “The court ruled in favor of the two employees, demanding that PayFlex should pay them. It is possible for employees to use all their PTO hours as vacation days and hence paid at the point of termination of their employment. For the King’s company, it means that the managers must encourage their subordinates to take time-off work to avoid legal cases but more important to boost morale and to create a conducive working environment.
References
Harris, K. J., Rivera, G. L., & Bougae, C. (2014) Gimme’A Break: Offering Sabbaticals as an Optional Leave Benefit in the Lodging Industry. Hospitality Review, 31(3), 2.
Milkman, R., & Appelbaum, E. (2013) Unfinished business: Paid family leave in California and the future of US work-family policy. Cornell University Press
Tissen, R. J., Lekanne Deprez, F. R. E., Burgers, R. G. B. M., & Van Montfort, K. (2010). ‘Change or hold: reexamining HRM to meet new challenges and demands’: the future of people at work: a reflection on diverging human resource management policies and practices in Dutch organizations. The International Journal of Human Resource Management, 21(5), 637-652.