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?
If you didn’t make your policy clear that’s on you and I guess you’ll have to eat it. However it does sound like if in his contract he has three weeks off and he’s already taken those three weeks he doesn’t have any PTO left. I would just carefully review the contract and let him know that he has taken three weeks paid off this year already and as outlined in his contract that is the total amount of time that he gets. If you’re willing offer to let him take off the additional week unpaid.