Paid Time Off Benefits

Essentially, many organizations have converted vacation, sick time, and personal time into a policy known as “paid time off” (PTO) (Martocchio, 2013). PTO is also referred to as “personal time off” (Tobin, 2015). In general, PTO hours are used to pay compensation to employees, when they are not at work to perform their job functions (Martocchio, 2013). Nevertheless, it is imperative that the configuration of the organization’s PTO policy is created to meet its business needs (Tobin, 2015). Subsequently, the PTO policy allows employers to offer a benefit that would aid in reducing employee occurrences of unscheduled time off. Nonetheless, there are several benefits to employers offering PTO to their employees (Korotin, 2011). In this …show more content…
Therefore, management is not placed in the position to oversee employee usage of PTO or required to judge whether the employee’s time off falls under sick or vacation (Korotin, 2011). For many organizations, the PTO policy allows the employee to have freedom to schedule time off without requiring them to give reason to their employer (Korotin, 2011). On the other hand, there are some organizations that do require knowledge of why the employee is submitting the time off. However, it is mostly needed to ensure that staffing needs are met (Korotin, 2011). Needless to say, this freedom helps in reducing unplanned absences, which can eliminate disruptive behavior from employees (Korotin, 2011). It is also considered to be more convenient for the employees. Research shows that organizations that utilize a PTO policy have found that employees utilize fewer days for sick; thus, have more time remaining for to use for vacation, which encourages healthy behavior (Tobin, 2015). In fact, the PTO policies have been recognized to aid in supporting work-life balance and flexibility (Korotin,