PAID TIME OFF Some employers have abandoned the various forms of voluntary leave—such as vacation, sick leave, emergency leave, bereavement leave, hazard leave, and personal leave—and replaced them with a paid-time-off (PTO) plan.
Suppose, for example, that a company’s policy grants 10 days of paid vacation per year, 5 days of paid sick leave per year, 3 days of leave without pay for a death in the immediate family, 3 days of per- sonal leave without pay, and up to 3 days of hazard leave with pay for weather-related absences. Keeping track of all these categories is an administrative nightmare for the company. Worse, determining in which category a particular day off falls imposes a substantial burden on supervisors and may engender hard feelings among employees.