The Thanksgiving holiday weekend serves as the starter gun for the year-end vacation scramble. With just five weeks remaining in the year, workers tend to fall into two distinct camps: those hustling to fit in remaining vacation days and those wishing they had a few extra days off.
At a handful of Kansas City-area companies, workers can do more than complain about vacation dilemmas. They can choose to “buy” more days off, or “sell” unneeded vacation days.
It’s one of the latest twists in employee benefits, offering some welcome leeway to workers. Employees who want more than the usual vacation allotment are allowed to buy more-generally up to one extra week-and those who can’t find time to take vacation can “sell” back unused days. Buyers must pay for the extra days with payroll deductions, while sellers collect extra pay.
Since July 1, both options have been available at Wilcox Electric Inc., a Kansas City, Mo., maker of aviation navigation aids and systems. Early results show more people among the 700-member work force want to buy time off rather than give it up.
“We anticipated the opposite,” said Bob Warren, vice president of human resources. In previous years, Warren was hit with dozens of requests from workers who couldn’t squeeze in vacations and wanted permission to carry over unused days. But with the addition of a “buy” option within a new flexible benefits program, buyers actually outnumbered sellers.
The experience mirrors that at other companies with similar vacation plans. Time off, often described as the benefit of the ’90s, is what most workers want more of, even if it means less pay.
The Wilcox plan requires workers to decide before July 1 how much vacation they want to add or subtract in the next 12 months. Up to five extra days are available. The advance declarations prevent last-minute schedule changes.
Critics of the plans say they can be administrative headaches and are most costly for companies where vacationing workers must be replaced by temporary hires. The cheapest use is among salaried professionals who tend to cover for their own absences by working extra before and after vacations.
At Wilcox, new software has helped track individual choices smoothly, so far. Through careful vacation scheduling, most work can be covered without hiring temporaries, Warren said.
Another new twist on vacations allows workers who can’t use all their vacation days to donate unused days to a pool that can be tapped by co-workers facing an emergency need for more time.
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