Benefits

Purpose of Process:

To provide employees with a paid time-off program that is attractive (to applicants as well as employees), is cost effective, and minimizes disruption to employees. Also, time off is conducive to the health and well-being of the employee, and therefore is beneficial to both the employee and the company.

Recommended Steps in the Process:

1. Assess the paid time-off benefits offered by companies in your location or industry. There are usually surveys available to provide this information. Contact the Human Resources department of your competitors to determine in which surveys they participate. Paid time off includes:
   • Vacation
   • Sick (Sometimes combined with vacation and called Paid Time Off)
   • Holiday
   • Other paid time off (Includes Bereavement, Military leave, Jury duty, etc.)
     
     
2. Select the paid time off benefits levels and obtain management approval.
   
   
3. Create policies to document these benefits. The following sample policies include typical paid time-off benefit levels:
   • Vacation
   • Sick
   • Holiday
   • Bereavement
   • Military leave
   • Jury duty
   • On-Call and Report-In Pay
     
     
4. Inform employees of the paid time-off benefits.
   
   
5. Publicize the paid-time off benefits periodically to employees so that employees can appreciate the value of the benefits that the company is providing. Issuing annual benefits statements is one way to publicize the benefits.

Process Tips:

Paid time-off benefits are highly valued by employees. Therefore, offering a competitive paid time-off package can be very attractive to employees and applicants. In addition to paid time-off benefits, flexible work schedules are attractive and valued by employees and applicants.

Sabbaticals are offered by a few companies. A typical sabbatical is 5 weeks of paid time off (in addition to regular vacation time) after completing five years of service.

Accrued vacation in many states (such as California) is an accrued benefit and is reported as a liability on the company's balance statement. To manage this liability, many companies establish a maximum vacation accrual amount (see sample vacation policy).

How HRnetSource™ Can Help:

HRSource™ and SelfSource™ help administer paid time off in several ways:

• Employees can view their vacation, sick, and other leave usage and balance in SelfSource™.
  
• Employees can request time off using SelfSource™. Managers can approve or disapprove the request.  Upon approval, the leave is recorded in HRSource automatically.
  
• Paid time off can be electronically transmitted to payroll via the HRSource™ payroll interface.
  
• HRSource™ can generate employee benefit statements that itemize benefits including paid time off, display the value of paid time off, and tally the value to calculate total compensation.
• HRSource™ can automatically adjust the accrual rates upon employees reaching threshold length of service, and stop accruals for employees who have reached the maximum.