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As the year comes to a close, I'm curious about how different companies handle unused vacation time. Policies seem to vary widely:

• Some allow staff to roll over unused time into the next year.
• Others let employees sell back unused vacation for additional pay.
• Some places let you do neither.

For employees, benefits like rolling over or selling back time can be incredibly valuable, whether to maintain a better work-life balance or for financial flexibility.

I understand why limitations may exist on how many days a person can roll over. I do not understand why employers (whose staff bill external clients) impose limits on the amount of days they are allowed to sell back. This strikes me as a lose-lose-lose situation for the employee who may wish to earn more money, the employer who may wish to bill their staff's time, and the client whose project is not being worked on. 

I'd love to hear perspectives from both sides of the table:

• Employees: Which policy do you prefer, and why?
• Employers: What factors go into deciding these policies, and why might limitations on sell-back time exist?

As the year comes to a close, I'm curious about how different companies handle unused vacation time. Policies seem to vary widely:

• Some allow staff to roll over unused time into the next year.
• Others let employees sell back unused vacation for additional pay.
• Some places let you do neither.

For employees, benefits like rolling over or selling back time can be incredibly valuable, whether to maintain a better work-life balance or for financial flexibility.

I understand why limitations may exist on how many days a person can roll over. I do not understand why employers (whose staff bill external clients) impose limits on the amount of days they are allowed to sell back. This strikes me as a lose-lose-lose situation for the employee who may wish to earn more money, the employer who may wish to bill their staff's time, and the client whose project is not being worked on. 

I'd love to hear perspectives from both sides of the table:

• Employees: Which policy do you prefer, and why?
• Employers: What factors go into deciding these policies, and why might limitations on sell-back time exist?

We earn a certain number of hours of PTO each month (3 levels based on tenure). We have a maximum PTO balance of a couple weeks more than you earn in a year. If you hit that limit, you get paid the equivalent hours instead of banking more PTO. There is not change when the year rolls over.

We are asked to give a certain amount of advance notice of proposed PTO use depending on the number of days we will be out, when possible.

One thing I really like for salaried employees is that we can add to our PTO bank instead of getting paid overtime if we want. We have a specific way to enter that time into our timesheets for the hours we want to bank instead of be paid for. I'm always annoyed at the higher tax rates on bonuses for overtime, so I'd usually rather have that time "back" later on. 

I've also known some people to put PTO hours on their timesheet as "overtime" just before the overtime checks are processed to get that extra cash in hand if needed.

Overall, I appreciate that our system is flexible and allows the employees to be adults and decide how they want to best use their PTO options. There have been years when I didn't have as many plans, and I liked that I could save that PTO for a time when I did have plans.

As the year comes to a close, I'm curious about how different companies handle unused vacation time. Policies seem to vary widely:

• Some allow staff to roll over unused time into the next year.
• Others let employees sell back unused vacation for additional pay.
• Some places let you do neither.

For employees, benefits like rolling over or selling back time can be incredibly valuable, whether to maintain a better work-life balance or for financial flexibility.

I understand why limitations may exist on how many days a person can roll over. I do not understand why employers (whose staff bill external clients) impose limits on the amount of days they are allowed to sell back. This strikes me as a lose-lose-lose situation for the employee who may wish to earn more money, the employer who may wish to bill their staff's time, and the client whose project is not being worked on. 

I'd love to hear perspectives from both sides of the table:

• Employees: Which policy do you prefer, and why?
• Employers: What factors go into deciding these policies, and why might limitations on sell-back time exist?

Good discussion topic. I'll offer some perspective from the employer side:

For starters, our firm is pretty flexible regarding PTO. We have a generous maximum: 400 hours (any break more than 10 weeks would be more of a sabbatical than a vacation, with special accommodations for workflow and the assumption of suspended pay). When an employee exceeds 400 hours in a year, they are paid out at the end of the year back to 400. For salaried employees that work overtime and take PTO within the same bimonthly pay period, they can choose to either use the overtime to offset time out of the office or get paid the overtime and use their PTO for out-of-office days. It's not quite as flexible as being able to bank or cash in PTO among different pay periods, but it does allow you the flexibility to maximize your days out of the office by working extra before and after your vacation to offset the hours OR maximize your paycheck for overtime hours if you have plenty of PTO.

As for what factors are important to consider when setting PTO policies, as an employer, it's important to ensure that you have a steady flow of work output potential as well as cash flow in and out of the company coffers. Steady flow is important and makes things run smoothly on the business side. If you have multiple key employees taking long blocks of PTO at the same time, particularly for smaller companies, it can really disrupt your ability to deliver on projects. It can result in missed deadlines or even decisions not to pursue certain favorable work due to forseen future staffing shortages.

When setting a company budget, a consistent budget item for payroll expense is important to make sure there is enough money in the bank to make payroll and other expenses. Yes, when everyone is busy and logging lots of time, it means the company is billing at a higher rate, but bear in mind that there can be a significant lag between when the hours are worked (and compensated by the company) and when the money from that work arrives in the company bank account. We engineers are often sub-contractors to a prime consultant. We bill our client for the previous month's work, after we have already paid employees for doing the work, including overtime. Our client will then bill their client in the following month for that invoice. Most of our contracts are set up as "pay when paid", very standard across our industry, meaning our client doesn't pay us until their client pays them for that invoice, which often takes at least another month. Any hangup in that process adds months. So there is often a quarter of a year of business operation that occurs from the time we cut checks to our employees to when the company gets paid for that work in the best case scenario.

So although my company does not allow employees to voluntarily cash in PTO, I can see why companies would want to limit or disallow that practice. Again, one employee cashing in some PTO is probably not going to throw things out of balance, but a significant cash out from multiple employees simultaneously could create a problematic dip in the cash flow curve. The last thing a company would want to do is pay out employees cashing in PTO and then struggle to make payroll, especially if income is dipping at the same time. From an accounting standpoint, consistency of money flowing in and out is key.

We earn a certain number of hours of PTO each month (3 levels based on tenure). We have a maximum PTO balance of a couple weeks more than you earn in a year. If you hit that limit, you get paid the equivalent hours instead of banking more PTO. There is not change when the year rolls over.

We are asked to give a certain amount of advance notice of proposed PTO use depending on the number of days we will be out, when possible.

One thing I really like for salaried employees is that we can add to our PTO bank instead of getting paid overtime if we want. We have a specific way to enter that time into our timesheets for the hours we want to bank instead of be paid for. I'm always annoyed at the higher tax rates on bonuses for overtime, so I'd usually rather have that time "back" later on. 

I've also known some people to put PTO hours on their timesheet as "overtime" just before the overtime checks are processed to get that extra cash in hand if needed.

Overall, I appreciate that our system is flexible and allows the employees to be adults and decide how they want to best use their PTO options. There have been years when I didn't have as many plans, and I liked that I could save that PTO for a time when I did have plans.

As the year comes to a close, I'm curious about how different companies handle unused vacation time. Policies seem to vary widely:

• Some allow staff to roll over unused time into the next year.
• Others let employees sell back unused vacation for additional pay.
• Some places let you do neither.

For employees, benefits like rolling over or selling back time can be incredibly valuable, whether to maintain a better work-life balance or for financial flexibility.

I understand why limitations may exist on how many days a person can roll over. I do not understand why employers (whose staff bill external clients) impose limits on the amount of days they are allowed to sell back. This strikes me as a lose-lose-lose situation for the employee who may wish to earn more money, the employer who may wish to bill their staff's time, and the client whose project is not being worked on. 

I'd love to hear perspectives from both sides of the table:

• Employees: Which policy do you prefer, and why?
• Employers: What factors go into deciding these policies, and why might limitations on sell-back time exist?

As the year comes to a close, I'm curious about how different companies handle unused vacation time. Policies seem to vary widely:

• Some allow staff to roll over unused time into the next year.
• Others let employees sell back unused vacation for additional pay.
• Some places let you do neither.

For employees, benefits like rolling over or selling back time can be incredibly valuable, whether to maintain a better work-life balance or for financial flexibility.

I understand why limitations may exist on how many days a person can roll over. I do not understand why employers (whose staff bill external clients) impose limits on the amount of days they are allowed to sell back. This strikes me as a lose-lose-lose situation for the employee who may wish to earn more money, the employer who may wish to bill their staff's time, and the client whose project is not being worked on. 

I'd love to hear perspectives from both sides of the table:

• Employees: Which policy do you prefer, and why?
• Employers: What factors go into deciding these policies, and why might limitations on sell-back time exist?

As the year comes to a close, I'm curious about how different companies handle unused vacation time. Policies seem to vary widely:

• Some allow staff to roll over unused time into the next year.
• Others let employees sell back unused vacation for additional pay.
• Some places let you do neither.

For employees, benefits like rolling over or selling back time can be incredibly valuable, whether to maintain a better work-life balance or for financial flexibility.

I understand why limitations may exist on how many days a person can roll over. I do not understand why employers (whose staff bill external clients) impose limits on the amount of days they are allowed to sell back. This strikes me as a lose-lose-lose situation for the employee who may wish to earn more money, the employer who may wish to bill their staff's time, and the client whose project is not being worked on. 

I'd love to hear perspectives from both sides of the table:

• Employees: Which policy do you prefer, and why?
• Employers: What factors go into deciding these policies, and why might limitations on sell-back time exist?

As the year comes to a close, I'm curious about how different companies handle unused vacation time. Policies seem to vary widely:

• Some allow staff to roll over unused time into the next year.
• Others let employees sell back unused vacation for additional pay.
• Some places let you do neither.

For employees, benefits like rolling over or selling back time can be incredibly valuable, whether to maintain a better work-life balance or for financial flexibility.

I understand why limitations may exist on how many days a person can roll over. I do not understand why employers (whose staff bill external clients) impose limits on the amount of days they are allowed to sell back. This strikes me as a lose-lose-lose situation for the employee who may wish to earn more money, the employer who may wish to bill their staff's time, and the client whose project is not being worked on. 

I'd love to hear perspectives from both sides of the table:

• Employees: Which policy do you prefer, and why?
• Employers: What factors go into deciding these policies, and why might limitations on sell-back time exist?

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Christopher Seigel P.E., M.ASCE
Civil Engineer
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As the year comes to a close, I'm curious about how different companies handle unused vacation time. Policies seem to vary widely:

• Some allow staff to roll over unused time into the next year.
• Others let employees sell back unused vacation for additional pay.
• Some places let you do neither.

For employees, benefits like rolling over or selling back time can be incredibly valuable, whether to maintain a better work-life balance or for financial flexibility.

I understand why limitations may exist on how many days a person can roll over. I do not understand why employers (whose staff bill external clients) impose limits on the amount of days they are allowed to sell back. This strikes me as a lose-lose-lose situation for the employee who may wish to earn more money, the employer who may wish to bill their staff's time, and the client whose project is not being worked on. 

I'd love to hear perspectives from both sides of the table:

• Employees: Which policy do you prefer, and why?
• Employers: What factors go into deciding these policies, and why might limitations on sell-back time exist?