How can I encourage employees to use their PTO? - HR Insights

How can I encourage employees to use their PTO?

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Question:

We are struggling with our employees not taking PTO and banking it, which is creating a large liability. Accounting has come to me asking how we can fix the issue. How can I encourage employees to use their PTO?

Answer:

PTO hours can’t be forced. It’s an earned benefit that the employee can choose to use at their own discretion, however we can create a company culture and policies where employees feel more motivated to use their earned hours for time off rather than saving them up.

Long Answer

There are many reasons people may not want to use their PTO hours, maybe they are saving them incase they get sick, maybe they are worried their projects will fall apart while they are gone, or maybe they are hoping for the perfect attendance award! Either way there are things we can do to alleviate their concerns and encourage them to use their hours.

Many employers use their PTO policies for both vacation and sick time. This can put employees in a position where they feel like they need to always maintain a week or two of time off just in case they end up having a medical issue. Creating separate policies for sick time and vacation time can prevent this. Many states are requiring at least 48 hours of paid sick time per year but PTO often doesn’t have a minimum requirement so you can split these benefits without spending additional funds on benefits. Your 120 hours of PTO accruals can become 48 hours of sick and 72 hours of PTO. Sick leave isn’t usually paid out when someone separates so splitting these benefits will reduce the liability whether the PTO gets used or not.

People in very busy or mission critical roles often struggle with taking time off. After taking time off, they come back to find their clients in distress, their projects behind, and now they are playing catch-up just to get back into their normal routine. It’s important to make sure every task or client or project has a backup person who can cover these responsibilities while someone is taking time off. Cross training, job shadowing, and having good communication between teams can be useful tools to ensure everyone has a backup. Are there areas in your business where one employee is the only person who knows how to perform a task or use a software? Who could be cross trained to take over their duties if they are out of office? Not only can this help encourage PTO use, but this will contribute to good succession planning for when those high value employees eventually retire.

Accrual caps can be another useful tool to encourage PTO use. An accrual cap will only let employees accrue up to a set amount of hours. Once an employee hits that accrual cap they have to start using those hours in order to continue accruing. This is a common practice among many businesses that prevents the PTO balances from getting too large.

There are many other ways to create a workplace where people are more interested in using their PTO. Separate sick leave policies, having backups in place, and fostering an environment where time off is welcomed can help to alleviate the financial concerns of big PTO banks. Employees who take time off have higher morale, more loyalty, and are more likely to stay which is a win/win scenario.

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How can I encourage employees to use their PTO?

Please note: This information is not legal advice and may not reflect specific state or local requirements.