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?
Technically speaking I’d be inclined to say he’s used his vacation time when he was laid up. But as the other commenter said, if he doesn’t see it your way you’ll have a cancer on the crew. He obviously doesn’t understand the time off policy and it doesn’t sound like it’s been crystal clear either. I’d probably try visiting with him and coming to an agreement on it- a reasonable person wouldn’t expect to be out of work laid up and just get paid for 3 weeks.