Human Resource Blog

Change of Vacation Policy Adding 5 more days

How do we grandfather an increase in vacation time for our zero through 4 years for all existing employees?We now state that 10 days off is .88 days per month. Also,what kind of clause can we add that would require a year of service to fully vest these 10 days to prevent people quitting before the year and expecting full vacation time.

Thanks!

This is implementing a new policy. Usually grandfathering occurs when you implement a reduction in vacation, but allow employees with more tenure to remain covered under the old policy.

If we understand correctly, you want to implement a more generous vacation policy for all employees, regardless of hire date. The simpliest way to do so would be to pick a date such as August 1, 2011 and change the policy on that date. The new accrual rate would apply to all employees, including long-term employees, beginning on that date.

If you wanted to, you could award long-term employees an additional 5 days of vacation on a one-time basis. Then, instead of earning 10 days of vacation this year to use next year, they would have 10 days of vacation to use this year and another 10 to use next year.

Avoid confusion with a statement like: Earned vacation time is fully vested on the employees one-year anniversary. For employees who resign or are terminated with less than one year of service, vacation will not be prorated.