2.03 – Paid Time Off and Holiday Pay

Vacation and Sick Time:

Full-time employees working a minimum of 30 hours per week are eligible for paid time off as defined below. 

General Information Regarding Paid Time Off Procedures:

• During an approved leave of absence, all employees are required exhaust their earned paid time. Please refer to the Leave of Absence policies.
• Sick and vacation time may only be used in 15-minute increments.
• If a holiday falls within a scheduled vacation period, it is not counted as a vacation day.  The employee will receive holiday pay in accordance with (see 2.03.3 – Holidays).
• In the event an employee calls off for a scheduled shift, the employee will automatically be paid from his or her bank of sick time. If there is no sick time available, the employee will be paid from his or her vacation bank.  If no paid time off is available, the employee will receive no pay and will receive notice that they are not meeting employment status criteria.  (see 2.08)
• If the employee calls off for a scheduled shift, the employee will be paid from his or her sick or vacation bank up to a total of 40 hours of pay for the work week.
• NOTE: Employees that wish to take prescheduled time off between November 20th and January 5th must submit their leave form prior to November 1st. Requests submitted after November 1st will not be considered unless for extraordinary circumstances as approved by the Executive Director or Chief Operations Director. Vacation and sick time may not be used for call offs when regularly scheduled to work on a holiday.
• The employee is permitted to carry over a maximum of 40 hours of vacation and 375 hours of sick time each benefits accrual anniversary. Any hours in the employee’s bank over the cap is paid to the employee as a “Buy Out” in the subsequent pay period(s) following the employee’s benefits accrual anniversary.

Sick Time:

Upon hire or upon change of status to a full-time employee (working over 30 hours per week), employees will earn paid sick time at a rate of 2.00 hours for every 80 hours worked.

Sick time may be used for the following reasons:

• An illness or injury of the employee or the employee’s immediate family member (includes employee’s spouse, child, stepchild, mother, father, stepmother, stepfather, legal guardian).
• Any approved, documented absence covered under the Family and Medical Leave Act or Medical Leave.
• Medical, dental, or optical examination or treatment of the employee or the employee’s immediate family member. Employees who wish to request PRESCHEDULED sick time must give a minimum of one (1) weeks’ notice.
• An illness or injury suffered by an employee while performing work.

Vacation Time:

The vacation year is defined as the 12-month period following the full-time employee’s hire date or benefits eligibility date-based change of status to full-time (whichever is applicable).

Employees classified as full-time must work a total of 1,680 hours at the anniversary 12-month lookback period in order to be eligible to receive vacation (NOTE: this equates to working average of 30 hours per week for the year). Those not meeting this requirement, will not be eligible for earning vacation time for that anniversary date.  

Vacation is earned based on how many hours per year the employee works and calculated as follows based on years of service:

Management reserves the right to negotiate additional paid vacation at the discretion of the Executive Director.

Earned vacation becomes available for use annually on the full-time employee’s anniversary or the annual anniversary of becoming a benefits-eligible employee.

Vacation time can be requested for any reason as long as its use is pre-approved. To utilize prescheduled vacation time, all employees must give a minimum of two (2) weeks’ notice by using the Leave Form through the Open Door online employee hub. The request must be approved by the employee’s supervisor and/or department scheduler. (NOTE: no vacation time may be authorized after employee submits resignation)

Buy Backs of Paid Time Off:

Employees are eligible to apply for buy back of their unused but earned vacation and sick time. The employee must complete the Buyback Request form through online Open Door employee hub and have it approved by the Executive Director and/or Finance Director. Buybacks are typically ONLY processed with the bi-weekly payroll submission dates. 

Vacation and Sick Time Buy Back (as of pay date 9/1/2023):

• Employees may buy back vacation or sick time (limited to 40 hours per pay period). NOTE: Employees may only buy back those hours over 40 hours in respective paid time off “banks”
• Buy backs of paid time off are hour for hour and based on the employee’s current rate of pay.
• Employees must buy back time at at total minimum of 12 hours.

Paid Time Procedures – Employment Separation:

Employees are eligible to have the balance of their earned, but unused vacation bank paid to them upon separation of employment provided that the employee provides a two-week notice and works the notice out to its entirety (not missing any time in last two weeks). Any Employee who fails to work out the entire two-week notice, quit without notice, or are terminated at will or for cause are not eligible to receive the sick or vacation time buy-out.

As of 9/1/2023: Employees resigning or retiring who have been continuously employed for over 15 years (provided proper notice and resignation period are worked) will be eligible for sick time to be paid out for hours over 100 hours in their accumulated sick time bank.

Bereavement Time:

Upon hire, part-time employees are eligible to take time off without pay and without attendance penalty for a maximum of forty (40) hours for loss of designated immediate or extended family member. Upon hire, full-time employees may be provided with a maximum of 12 hours off per occurrence for bereavement pay (for loss of designated immediate or extended family member). 

Designated immediate and extended family members for bereavement include:
Spouse, parent or legal guardian (includes stepmother, stepfather, mother-in-law, father-in-law), grandparents or great grandparents (includes employee spouse’s grandparents or great-grandparents or step grandparents), children (daughter, son, step daughter or son, daughter-in-law, son-in-law), grandchildren (includes step), siblings (brother, sister, brother-in-law, sister-in law, step sister, step brother).

Additionally, full-time employees are permitted to take an additional consecutive 28 hours off without receiving any attendance occurrences. The employee must use accrued paid time off for these additional hours (sick or vacation time). If the employee has no accrued time off, they can take the time off without pay. Any time off after 40 hours will be subject to the attendance policy. 

It is the employee’s responsibility to submit the approved Leave Form through online Open Door employee hub receive the correct pay. In order not to have the time off counted as a violation under the attendance policy, a copy of the obituary will be required with submittal of leave form. The time off will need the approval of the Executive Director.

Holiday Pay:

Open Door recognizes the following holidays (for this policy):

• New Year’s Day (January 1)
• Independence Day (July 4)
• Thanksgiving (Last Thursday in November)
• Christmas (December 25)

All full time and part time nonexempt employees will be paid at a rate two times their base rate of pay (double time) for all hours worked on a recognized holiday. 

If the hours worked on a holiday will create overtime for the employee, the hours will still be paid at “double time” and not the standard overtime rate of time and a half.

All exempt and full-time nonexempt employees who are not scheduled to work on a holiday (i.e., it is not regularly scheduled workday or the employee requested the day off) may be eligible for pay for that day. Employees who do not work the holiday will receive holiday pay equivalent to a normally scheduled shift not to exceed 12 hours. For example, if the employee typically works eight (8) hours per day, then the employee would receive eight (8) hours of holiday pay.

If the employee would typically be scheduled to work on the holiday and he or she wishes to have the holiday off, the employee must complete the Leave Form through online Open Door employee hub at least two weeks in advance. NOTE: If the employee is requesting Thanksgiving, Christmas and/or New Year’s Day off, the Leave Form must be completed through online Open Door employee hub and submitted by November 1st. The Executive Director may approve exceptions for extraordinary circumstances. 

Limitations on Holiday Pay:

Nonexempt employees will forfeit their holiday pay if they call off for the scheduled shift before, on, or following the holiday.  If the employee leaves early or arrives tardy, he or she will still receive holiday pay.

Employees on pre-approved vacation leave will be eligible for holiday pay according to the policy.

Employees on paid or unpaid medical leave, including qualifying FMLA leave, will not be eligible for holiday pay. Employees on paid medical leave, including qualifying FMLA leave, may use their accrued sick or vacation time for the holiday.

If an employee is administratively pulled from the schedule for an investigation, the employee will not be eligible for holiday pay if the investigation is substantiated resulting in a disciplinary action.

Vacation and sick time may not be used for call offs on holidays unless otherwise approved by Executive Director.

Additional Employee Designated Paid Days off:

As of 1/1/2024, the following will be implemented:

The following dates will be considered Office/ADS Closure days (Memorial Day, Labor Day, and Day after Thanksgiving each year). For ANY office, administrative, corporate employees, and ADS staff (working at ODAS, CAC, UCO) these will be considered their additional employee designated paid days off totaling 24 hours at regular rate of pay.

For all residential staff, (working in FULL-TIME direct care or nursing positions at ICF or Supported living homes), they will receive an additional 24 hours of Employee Designated Paid Time off (at regular rate of pay) per calendar year. The intention is that employees use these days to honor their own religious observances or other interests. In order to use these additional days off, the employee must submit a leave form requesting Personally Designated Paid time off giving at least a three-week notice of the intent to take the paid time off. The leave form must be reviewed for approval by supervisor or scheduling personnel. NOTE: These days cannot be used for days already designated as holidays as per above. These days cannot be carried over and are not eligible for paid buybacks.

If transferring to a different department, the employee’s usage of time will be carried forward.  (For example, if transferring from residential to ADS or office, if employee already used their 24 hours of personally designated time, the employee would not get the designated office closure days off and would have to pick up shifts in residential locations to be paid for those days.)

Last Revised: 8/1/2023