511 - Personal Holidays
Subject: Personal Holidays
Section: U511
Date: July, 2018
Purpose:
To provide eligible staff employees with paid time off (personal holidays) and to establish guidelines for personal holiday accrual and use.
Who is Governed by this Policy:
This policy applies to all benefits eligible staff employees.
Policy:
1. Benefits eligible staff employees begin accruing personal holidays at their most recent date of benefits eligibility. It is intended that employees take the annual personal holidays to which they are entitled each year. All usage of personal holiday time is subject to supervisory approval.
2. An employee accrues personal holiday time as follows:
- January 1st - 2 days;
- April 1st - 1 day;
- July 1st - 1 day; and
- September 1st - 1 day
3. Personal holidays accrue at a rate equivalent to one-fifth (1/5) the employee's average scheduled workweek.
- Example #1: An employee with a standard workweek of 37.5 hours per week will accrue 7:30 hours for each credited personal holiday. To calculate: 37.5 hours per week x 1/5 = 7:30 hours per personal holiday.
- Example #2: An employee with a standard workweek of 30 hours will accrue 6.0 hours for each credited personal holiday. To calculate: 30 hours per week x 1/5 = 6 hours per personal holiday.
- Example #3: An employee with a standard workweek of 20 hours will accrue 4.0 hours for each credited personal holiday. To calculate: 20 hours per week x 1/5 = 4 hours per personal holiday.
4. Personal holiday time should be requested and approved in advance by the staff employee's supervisor following unit time off request procedures. Employees must record personal holidays that are taken on the appropriate time off calendar.
5. Exempt employees may only use personal holiday time in full day increments, which are calculated based on the employee's average scheduled hours per day. Absences of less than a full day may not be charged to the accrued personal holiday time or deducted from the pay of exempt staff employees.
- Example #1: An employee who works a five-day, 37.5-hour standard workweek will have 7:30 hours deducted from his/her personal holiday accrual balance for each personal holiday taken. To calculate: 37.5 hours per week / 5 days per week = 7:30 hours per personal holiday.
- Example #2: An employee who works a four-day, 30-hour standard workweek will have 7:30 hours deducted from his/her personal holiday accrual balance for each personal holiday taken. To calculate: 30 hours per week·/ 4 days per week = 7:30 hours per personal holiday.
- Example #3: An employee who works a four-day, 20-hour standard workweek will have 5.0 hours deducted from his/her personal holiday accrual balance for each personal holiday taken. To calculate: 20 hours per week / 4 days per week = 5.0 hours per personal holiday
6. Non-exempt employees may use personal holiday time for time off for durations of 30 minutes or more.
7. An employee’s accrued personal holiday balance expires each calendar year. An employee who fails to request accrued personal holidays during the calendar year following unit guidelines is not entitled to carry over personal holidays into the next calendar year
8. An employee will not accrue personal holidays while they are in an out-of-pay status (i.e., on leave of absence), on Workers' Compensation, or on Short-Term or Long-Term Disability.
9. It is intended that each employee take the annual personal holidays to which they are entitled each year. An employee may be reimbursed in lieu of taking personal holidays if the unit requests the employee to forego all or any part of their personal holidays and the employee has previously requested to take a personal holiday according to unit guidelines.
10. Pay for personal holidays will be at the employee's regular base rate of pay when personal holiday time is used. Bonuses and other variable compensation are not included in calculating personal holiday pay. Personal holiday hours are not considered hours worked in calculating overtime.
11. At an employee's request, and upon the exhaustion of all sick leave, absence due to non-work-related illness or injury may be taken as a personal holiday. (See Policy U512 Sick Leave.)
12. When an employee is absent due to personal reasons and personal holiday accruals are exhausted, the employee is in out-of-pay status unless they elect to use accrued vacation time and have received supervisory approval to do so. (See Policy U509 Vacation.)
13. Personal holidays must not be used as compensatory time off in lieu of overtime pay. (See U222 Compensable Time, Record-Keeping, and Tracking Absences.)
14. Upon termination of employment, an employee is to be paid for any unused personal holidays accrued within the calendar year.
Roles and Responsibilities:
| Governed Party | Roles and Responsibilities |
| Employee | The Employee is responsible for following the Supervisor's time off request procedures. |
| Supervisor | The Supervisor is responsible for setting time off request procedures, ensuring they are followed, verifying the use of time off is appropriate, and approving time off use in the time off calendar. |
Related Information:
Policy U222 Compensable Time, Record-Keeping and Tracking Absences