Human Resource Blog

Vacation Pay Amounts

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I am operating a new company in Utah and am planning on hiring an operations manager to handle the growth of my company. Are there standards on vacation pay? And what are they?

Thanks

According to the FAQs from the Utah Labor Commission, state law does not require employers to offer fringe benefits such as paid vacation, paid sick time or paid holidays. However, when the employer has a written policy regarding these benefits, the Utah Labor Commission will hold the employer to that policy.

 

Federal law also does not require any paid vacation or other time off.

But state and federal law are not the only considerations here. This position is very important to the future of your company. In order to attract and keep a good candidate, you’ll want to offer a competitive benefits package…including vacation time.

This informative article includes results of a nationwide study on the number of vacation days that employees in the US average, based on years with the employer. The average is 9 days for employees with less than 1 year of service, and 21 days for employees who have been at the employer more than 15 years.

Keep in mind that in many companies, salaried employees are giving more vacation time than hourly workers. The thought process is that top managers are under more stress, and function better with frequent breaks.

Also realize that employees may not use all their vacation time. In fact, a recent survey at IBM found that just 23% of employees used all their vacation time.

One trend in the workplace is to offer employees PTO or paid time off, instead of vacation time, sick time and holidays.

The  article also includes national averages for the total number of PTO days for workers in 2004 from the Society of Human Resource Management, of SHRM. The average, based on years of service, ranges from 14 days for employees with less than 1 year with the company, to 27 days for those with more than 15 years of service.