I’ve had my business for almost 20 years and I haven’t come across this yet. I have an employee who’s been with me for about five years. For the most part he is good. He is a salaried employee and gets three weeks of paid vacation.
He recently injured himself outside of work and wasn’t able to perform the physical tasks that his job requires. He took three weeks off to rest, attend doctors appointments and physical therapy. He also took one of his vacation weeks earlier in the year. I had given him a full salary throughout the time he was unable to work. Now he has two weeks of vacation left and has put in a request for one of them.
Do you think it’s unreasonable to ask that he give up one or both of those weeks considering I paid him for the three weeks he wasn’t here?
What you haven’t stated whether it’s “vacation” or “PTO”.
15 days of PTO at 5 years is pretty slim especially if you don’t have separate sick time.
It’s also wrong for you to try to go back on him, that was a conversation that needed to occur at the event, not a month/six months after.
He gets the 15 days plus we don’t have a specific time off policy. Anytime somebody needs a day they take it and they get paid for it. I will also say that the five days a week that he does work two of them are from home and he maybe works 30 hours a week. The reason it wasn’t discussed because at first we thought he’d be out a few days then it turned into a week and he had it looked at, and it turned into three weeks. When he finally did come back, I modified his role to make it less physical, and also had another employee help. I’m going to try and negotiate with him and see what he thinks is fair. If anything, I can stretch it out and give him a few extra days next year. We are very busy during the holidays, so I like to have all hands on deck.
we don’t have a specific time off policy
Now is the time to implement and and consider a lesson learned. Going back on an employee is wrong no matter how you justify it to yourself and is a quick way to lose an employee (or more if they also feel you screw him over).