{"id":4680,"date":"2017-07-20T09:34:55","date_gmt":"2017-07-20T13:34:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gtm.com\/business\/?p=4680"},"modified":"2024-08-30T11:13:12","modified_gmt":"2024-08-30T15:13:12","slug":"can-employer-make-employees-use-vacation-hours","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gtm.com\/business\/can-employer-make-employees-use-vacation-hours\/","title":{"rendered":"Can an Employer Make Employees Use Vacation Hours?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-4681 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/gtm.com\/business\/wp-content\/uploads\/9234684027_be9e9182b4_b.jpg\" alt=\"Can an employer make employees use vacation hours\" width=\"1024\" height=\"768\" srcset=\"https:\/\/gtm.com\/business\/wp-content\/uploads\/9234684027_be9e9182b4_b.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/gtm.com\/business\/wp-content\/uploads\/9234684027_be9e9182b4_b-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/gtm.com\/business\/wp-content\/uploads\/9234684027_be9e9182b4_b-510x382.jpg 510w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/>Q:<\/strong>\u00a0<strong>Can an employer legally make their employees use their accumulated vacation hours?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>A:<\/strong> Yes. An employer can tell an employee that they need to take time off. However, that rarely bodes well for the morale of the employee if they don\u2019t want to take the time off.<\/p>\n<p>Some employers have a \u201cuse-it-or-lose-it\u201d policy where any remaining vacation time is lost if unused by a certain date. But these kinds of policies are not legal in all states*. If your state doesn\u2019t allow use-it-or-lose-it, or the employee isn\u2019t willing or able to take off as much time as you would like, you could instead pay them for the hours they\u2019re unable to use. This option is acceptable in every state and reduces the potential for low morale.<\/p>\n<p>* In New York,\u00a0employers can implement a \u201cuse-it-or-lose-it\u201d\u009d policy that requires employees to use their leave by a certain date or lose the leave, provided that employees are given prior notice of the policy.<\/p>\n<p>If you\u2019d prefer that employees use up the time, it\u2019s best to give them at least three months\u2019 notice (even more is better) so they can plan for what they\u2019ll do with their free time and coordinate with friends and family.<\/p>\n<p>Be sure that you\u2019re applying these policies and practices consistently across the organization. And if you\u2019re introducing a new standard like use-it-or-lose-it, or payout on December 31st, make sure that employees are made aware of the policy in writing.<\/p>\n<p>For more information on how GTM helps clients manage HR responsibilities, <a href=\"https:\/\/gtm.com\/business\/contact-gtm\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">contact us<\/a> at (518) 373-4111.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>An employer can tell an employee that they need to take time off. However, that rarely bodes well for the morale of the employee if they don\u2019t want to take the time off.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[266],"tags":[18,43],"post_folder":[],"class_list":["post-4680","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-consulting-services","tag-employer-policies","tag-vacation"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gtm.com\/business\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4680","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gtm.com\/business\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gtm.com\/business\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gtm.com\/business\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gtm.com\/business\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4680"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gtm.com\/business\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4680\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4682,"href":"https:\/\/gtm.com\/business\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4680\/revisions\/4682"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gtm.com\/business\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4680"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gtm.com\/business\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4680"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gtm.com\/business\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4680"},{"taxonomy":"post_folder","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gtm.com\/business\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/post_folder?post=4680"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}