Paid leave policies: How does your company stack up to the competition?

FMLA policy
Jared Bilski
by Jared Bilski
2 minute read

Forward-thinking employers are finding a number of creative ways to tweak their paid leave policies to give employees the most from the benefit.
That’s according to the International Foundation’s recent report, “Paid Leave in the Workplace: 2017 Survey Results.”

What your peers are doing

The report gives employers a great opportunity to see how their paid leave benefits stack up against their peers. Of the companies polled by the International Foundation, 64% offer a system with separate vacation time, personal time and/or sick time, and 34% offer a paid-time-off (PTO) bank system.
Just 2% of firms responded “other/none” in response to a question about whether they offered paid leave benefits.
The report also found:

  • 33.9% of employers offer additional paid time off (PTO) to employees on a case-by-case basis
  • 20.1% give the option of taking unpaid leave
  • 10.3% provide additional paid time off based on position
  • 8.7% offer additional paid time off based on relevant experience and skill level, and
  • 2% offer workers the option of purchasing additional time off.

The donation push

The International Foundation’s report also revealed that many employers allow workers to donate their paid leave time.
Specifically:

  • 30% of employers with paid vacation benefits allow workers to donate paid vacation days
  • 28% of employers offering PTO plans allow workers to donate their paid time off, and
  • 22% of companies who provide paid sick leave allow workers to donate sick leave.

Increasing patchwork of local regs

Employers that don’t currently offer paid leave benefits have to be extra careful to keep track of local and state regs.
Reason: A steadily increasing number of states, cities and municipalities have their own laws regulating paid leave.
In September, Rhode Island joined seven additional states (and Washington, DC) that now require employers to provide paid sick leave. A number of cities and municipalities also mandate this leave.
These state and local laws tend to affect even the smallest employers.
Case in point: Rhode Island’s law applies to employers with 18 or more workers.