Last month, we talked about the importance of approving PTO for your team. You can re-read that newsletter HERE. This month, I want to talk about how to structure PTO for your team.
When I was hired as the new Executive Pastor of my church in 2018, each employee had one PTO policy for all of their PTO. It didn’t matter why they missed work (family vacations, sickness, etc.), it all was charged to the same PTO policy. The thought behind this is that it would reward people who don’t get sick often (because they would have more PTO available for personal things) However, in order for this to work properly, each employee needed to always save some PTO for unplanned illnesses.
In theory, this sounds like a nice benefit. But, after trying it for a year, it wasn’t working out. Rather than people enjoying extra PTO when they were healthy, what we experienced was that people were coming to the office when they were sick. Time after time, people would come to the office sick, and I would have to ask them to go home so that they didn’t pass their illness to the rest of the team. And their response was always the same. They would explain that they had already scheduled out all of their PTO for fun things with their family, and they didn’t leave themselves with enough PTO for sick time.
After about the third or fourth time that this happened in my first year as the Executive Pastor, I knew that it was time to make a change. If our employees weren’t going to set aside PTO for unplanned illnesses, then I would have to do it for them. So, what I did was I gave everyone a second PTO policy, and the purpose of this policy was for anything health-related. After this change, each employee had two PTO policies. One policy for personal time, and one policy for sick time.
Personal Time PTO can be used for anything personal. They can use this time for family vacations, trips to see extended family, Spring Break with their kids, or if they just want to sit at home and watch movies on Netflix all day. Honestly, I don’t really care how they use this time. It’s their time to use however they want. But, once it is out, it’s out. And, if someone still needs more time off after exhausting this bank of time, it would only be considered on a case-by-case basis, and if approved, it would be unpaid.
Sick Time PTO can be used for anything health-related. We call it Sick Time because the majority of the time, it is used when an employee is sick. But, we allow our employees to use their Sick Time PTO for anything health-related, even if they are not actually sick (such as a yearly physical, dentist appointment, blood work, eye exam, etc.). And, they can use their Sick Time PTO to take care of an immediate family member who is sick or has a doctor’s appointment as well.
By providing two separate PTO policies, we no longer have employees coming to the office sick. Now, when they are sick, they use their Sick Time PTO, and it doesn’t affect anything that they already have scheduled with their Personal Time PTO (such as an upcoming family vacation). This has been an excellent solution for our team, and it has completely solved the issue that we were facing in 2018.
How do you do things at your church? I would love to hear how you structured PTO for your team.
