This issue is related to the other thread I made but I don’t think it fits under the same. This issue is concerning what our company’s policy states vs what they actually do. It’s a little complicated but I’ll be as clear as possible.
The issue is specifically concerning their PTO carryover policy. When I started, a few months ago, I noticed a couple policies. They had a general policy which stated that team members are permitted to carry over up to 40 hours PTO usable by march 31st, and any unused PTO by then would be forfeited unless such forfeiture was prohibited by state law.
There is, however, another policy specific to California. One of the primary differences is sick leave because in other states they don’t provide that. But concerning carryover there they had a section called cap and carryover where we are permitted to carry over ANY unused PTO hours into the following year and the only restriction is a cap at 1.5 times the annual accrual rate.
I thought this was just fine, but talking to employees and my manager they all claimed the carryover policy resembles the general policy rather than the CA policy. They said the policy was modified such that the deadline was doubled so it ends on June 31st because of COVID. I thought I wouldn’t have any problems either way because I didn’t accrue more than 40 hours anyways. Turns out in the middle of January they deducted all the hours carried over. I contacted HR about it and they said it was deducted because of a pending payout. Confused, I asked why. They told me to contact my HR business partner. When I did, he told me that they had some sort of memo that was released which changed the policy to the opposite. They pay out hours at or below 40 and carry over the rest. I had not heard of the memo, but I was told they did something similar going into year 2019 from one of the other employees, and that the memo simply wasn’t communicated properly. I asked whether this is supposed to preside over the CA policy, and he said he didn’t know. It’s been a week since he said he’d get back to me.
What I found more troubling is the fact that the CA policy stated it was effective Jan 1, 2020. I asked around to see if carryover was ever enforced in the manner written in the policy (where any PTO is carried over) and all of them said it’s never been that way. As it seems, the policy was written but never enforced, and they said how they do it seems to change every year between carrying over up to 40 and just paying out below it.
It’s a bit frustrating how they’re doing it because I can’t count on any sort of consistency for how to carry over PTO. From what I can tell it doesn’t violate the law for them to do carryover like this since they are paying us for the PTO they deduct. The problem I see is that they aren’t following the policy and they have no consistent or transparent standard. They have a written policy on how carryover should work, but they’ve never done it that way. I was wondering if there is some sort of recourse available for this type of situation. A friend of mine suggested going to the department of labor and ask for their intervention. When I raised skepticism on whether they would be willing the get involved, she assured me that in CA they almost always take the employee’s side. My optimal solution is that they follow a consistent and transparent policy from now on, I just don’t know what I can do to make it happen.
The issue is specifically concerning their PTO carryover policy. When I started, a few months ago, I noticed a couple policies. They had a general policy which stated that team members are permitted to carry over up to 40 hours PTO usable by march 31st, and any unused PTO by then would be forfeited unless such forfeiture was prohibited by state law.
There is, however, another policy specific to California. One of the primary differences is sick leave because in other states they don’t provide that. But concerning carryover there they had a section called cap and carryover where we are permitted to carry over ANY unused PTO hours into the following year and the only restriction is a cap at 1.5 times the annual accrual rate.
I thought this was just fine, but talking to employees and my manager they all claimed the carryover policy resembles the general policy rather than the CA policy. They said the policy was modified such that the deadline was doubled so it ends on June 31st because of COVID. I thought I wouldn’t have any problems either way because I didn’t accrue more than 40 hours anyways. Turns out in the middle of January they deducted all the hours carried over. I contacted HR about it and they said it was deducted because of a pending payout. Confused, I asked why. They told me to contact my HR business partner. When I did, he told me that they had some sort of memo that was released which changed the policy to the opposite. They pay out hours at or below 40 and carry over the rest. I had not heard of the memo, but I was told they did something similar going into year 2019 from one of the other employees, and that the memo simply wasn’t communicated properly. I asked whether this is supposed to preside over the CA policy, and he said he didn’t know. It’s been a week since he said he’d get back to me.
What I found more troubling is the fact that the CA policy stated it was effective Jan 1, 2020. I asked around to see if carryover was ever enforced in the manner written in the policy (where any PTO is carried over) and all of them said it’s never been that way. As it seems, the policy was written but never enforced, and they said how they do it seems to change every year between carrying over up to 40 and just paying out below it.
It’s a bit frustrating how they’re doing it because I can’t count on any sort of consistency for how to carry over PTO. From what I can tell it doesn’t violate the law for them to do carryover like this since they are paying us for the PTO they deduct. The problem I see is that they aren’t following the policy and they have no consistent or transparent standard. They have a written policy on how carryover should work, but they’ve never done it that way. I was wondering if there is some sort of recourse available for this type of situation. A friend of mine suggested going to the department of labor and ask for their intervention. When I raised skepticism on whether they would be willing the get involved, she assured me that in CA they almost always take the employee’s side. My optimal solution is that they follow a consistent and transparent policy from now on, I just don’t know what I can do to make it happen.
