Paid Time Off

We believe that regular periods of time off from work are necessary in order for employees to rest, recharge their energy, and spend time with family. For that reason, all full-time employees are eligible to accrue PTO (Paid Time Off).

PTO is taken by the non-exempt employee for any reason that the employee will be absent from work during their normally scheduled hours, including personal or family illness, vacation, medical appointments or treatments, and any absence for personal reasons. Pre-planned PTO can be taken in 1-hour increments. PTO used to cover partial day absences due to illness for non-exempt employees can be taken in smaller increments to make up an 8-hour day.

Exempt employees are required to use PTO to cover partial day absences for personal reasons of 4 hours or more, with the exception of time away for medical reasons (illness, medical appointments, or treatments) in which case time will only be charged if the absence spans a full day.

PTO hours are measured by the number of hours that are taken away from the standard schedule. For example, if an employee is normally scheduled to work until 6:30pm and leaves at 1:30pm, that is equivalent to taking 5 hours of PTO. If the employee leaves before taking a lunch period then that 30 minutes is deducted from the total PTO hours used.

The official lunch period is from 12:00pm to 3:00pm for employees who arrive at 10:00am. If you leave after the official lunch period (at 3:00pm or later), then the PTO taken will be counted as if a 30-minute lunch was taken.

WHO IS ELIGIBLE

All regular full-time employees are eligible to accrue PTO. Part time, temporary, flexible schedule, or contract employees are not eligible to accrue PTO. Any new employee or rehired former employee will begin to accrue PTO immediately and will be eligible to take PTO as it accrues.

ACCRUAL RATES

The accrual rate increases are based on the employee’s length of service and occur on the employment anniversary date. Accrual rates are as follows:

• 1st year of employment the accrual rate = 80 hours (10 days)
  • starts at month 0 – accruing .03846 per hour/ 1.54 per week
• 2nd year of employment the accrual rate = 96 hours (12 days)
  • starts at month 13 – accruing .04615 per hour/ 1.85 per week
• 3rd year of employment the accrual rate = 112 hours (14 days)
  • starts at month 25 – accruing .05384 per hour/ 2.15 per week
• 4th year of employment the accrual rate = 128 hours (16 days)
  • starts at month 37 – accruing .06153 per hour/ 2.46 per week
• 5th year of employment the accrual rate = 144 hours (18 days)
  • starts at month 49 – accruing .06923 per hour/ 2.77 per week

PTO is accrued weekly with the payroll cycle and for non-exempt employees is based on the number of hours worked in that week. For example during the first year of employment, PTO is accrued at the rate of 1.54 hours per 40 hours of work. That works out to 80 hours or 2 weeks per year if the employee has worked a full year. If fewer than 40 hours are worked in a week (including PTO hours taken), then the accrual will be fewer than 1.54 hours for that week.

Employees will earn PTO for scheduled hours when absent from work in connection with paid time away from work: PTO, holidays, paid leave of absence, bereavement leave, and jury duty. Employees will not earn PTO for scheduled hours when absent from work in connection with: excused or unexcused absences without pay, including unpaid leaves of absence, worker’s compensation leaves, or long-term disability leaves.

PTO accrual is capped at a maximum of 250 hours; once the cap is reached, no more PTO will accrue until enough hours are taken to reduce the accrued hours under the cap. We offer no provision for cashing out accrued PTO hours with the exception of employees that are terminating their employment with the company.

PTO IS A PRIVILEGE

PTO is a privilege and not an absolute right; be sure to follow the proper procedure for requesting time off before assuming it will be granted. See “PTO CSW for Time Off” policy for information on how to request PTO.

PTO COMMISSION

Unless otherwise modified, commission-paid employees including estate buyers will be paid 8 hours of base pay (if any) plus one day of commission calculated on the previous year’s average daily commissions, for each day of PTO that is taken while currently employed on a full time basis. For salespeople, the average is calculated on the period excluding Christmas (Thanksgiving to Dec 31). If there is no previous year data then the average will be calculated using year-to-date commissions. No average commission is paid for unpaid time off or for paid holiday hours. No average commission is paid for terminating employees who are having PTO balance paid out as part of final check. PTO commission is a perk that is awarded by the company and is not earned money.

FORMER EMPLOYEES

Former employees who are being hired again must complete the 90-day introductory period before accrual begins but once that period is complete, their previous time of service will be used to determine their accrual rate going forward. For example if an employee had worked here for 3 years at some time in the past, they would start accruing at the 96-hours-per-year rate immediately.

UNPAID LEAVE NOT ALLOWED

Because the above PTO accruals should be enough to handle any leave that you need to take during the year, unpaid time off is generally not allowed. Taking off more time than what is defined for each employee even when unpaid, causes additional cost to the company because someone else has to cover that position during the employee’s absence.

However, non-exempt employees are allowed to use up to 2 hours of make-up time per month in lieu of using accrued PTO for preplanned and approved personal absences, except for during the month of December. If you have accrued PTO but wish to do make-up time in lieu of using your PTO, indicate that on your CSW for PTO request.

New hires may be allowed unpaid time off for vacation plans that are already in place when the job is accepted. These plans must be communicated to HR at the time of hire and cannot be granted at a later date. In any case, unpaid time off will only be granted during the first 90 days of employment.

The Company may allow unpaid time off as bereavement leave; see bereavement section of your Employee Handbook. The Company currently allows up to 4 days of unpaid time off to be taken during the 3 months following Christmas. If an employee is out sick during that time and does not have PTO to cover the days out sick, some or all of these 4 unpaid days will be taken to cover the days out sick. The Company may choose to offer unpaid time off during other specific periods of time and the parameters for taking unpaid time off will be announced for each occasion.

In certain extreme circumstances, the Company may allow an extended period of unpaid leave of absence, approved on a case-by-case basis.

Any absence, if not allowed by the bereavement policy and not during specific periods when unpaid time off is offered to all employees by the Company, will be paid by using available accrued PTO, whether the time off was previously arranged as PTO or was not. If an employee does not have any accrued PTO available and is absent due to unforeseen and uncontrollable circumstances such as illness, that time will necessarily be unpaid. For exempt employees that applies to absences of a full day or more.

If an employee already has approved PTO scheduled and then must use PTO pay for unforeseen circumstances (such as being out sick) and doesn’t have enough left to cover the pre-scheduled time off, the time off can still be taken, but it will be unpaid time off.

Unpaid absences may accumulate incidents; see “Tardiness and Absenteeism” policy for details. Paid absences do not accumulate incidents and no doctor’s report is necessary for days missed due to illness that are taken as PTO.

Any employee that is on unpaid leave of any kind is not eligible to earn or be paid any bonuses that are a part of the incentive pay for that department, such as the estate buyers’ bonus.

MAKE-UP TIME FOR PERSONAL ABSENCES

If a new non-exempt employee or any non-exempt employee does not have accrued PTO but wishes to take personal time off, then make-up time must be done in the same amount. In other words, they need to make-up for the time they will be gone by coming in early, staying late, or coming in on a Monday. Work may also be done at home, but it must be easily quantifiable so that it can be determined how much work must be accomplished to equal the number of hours required.

By law make-up time can only be done during the same workweek as the time that is being taken off. Our workweek runs Friday through Thursday. For example, if an employee wants to take off 2 hours on Saturday, he or she must make up that time by working additional hours between Friday and Thursday. The make-up time can be done before and/or after the time taken off.

If an employee wishes to request time off and has no PTO accrued, the CSW request for time off must include a schedule of make-up time to be worked to cover the amount of time requested off. The requested time off cannot be granted if make-up time is not arranged within the same workweek.

If make-up time is not possible, you can only use the PTO that you have available. You cannot take unpaid time off and just “take the incident.” Incidents are not exchangeable for time off. Anyone taking time off that was disapproved is insubordinate and subject to disciplinary actions ranging from earning additional incidents to suspension without pay and up to and including termination.

Make-up time only applies to non-exempt hourly employees. Exempt employees are not eligible for make-up time. Make-up time is for preplanned and approved absences only and does not apply to unexpected absence due to illness or any other reason.

Non-exempt employees are allowed to use up to 2 hours of make-up time per month in lieu of using accrued PTO for preplanned and approved personal absences, except for during the month of December. If you have accrued PTO but wish to do make-up time in lieu of using your PTO, indicate that on your CSW for PTO request.

PTO REQUESTS

Submit PTO requests in writing as far in advance as possible, not more than 1 year in advance, but a minimum of one week in advance, to your supervisor, who will route them to the Human Resources department. PTO requests are granted when possible, taking into account operating requirements. Length of employment may determine priority in scheduling PTO.

If your time off is not approved, you cannot take the time off anyway and just “take the incident.” Incidents are not exchangeable for time off. Anyone taking time off that was disapproved is insubordinate and subject to disciplinary actions ranging from earning additional incidents to suspension without pay and up to and including termination.

If an employee is unable to report to work on their scheduled day back from PTO leave, they must call or text to tell their supervisor that they will be back later than planned. The employee will earn 1 incident per the Tardiness and Absenteeism policy because it is an inconvenience for the Company to cover that employee’s post while they are out additional days. Repeated incidents of coming back on a later day than scheduled may result in disciplinary actions ranging from earning additional incidents to suspension without pay and up to and including termination. Not returning on the scheduled day and not notifying their supervisor for two days it is assumed that they have voluntarily terminated their position with the Company.

NO PTO IN DECEMBER

Because December is such a busy month, PTO or any time off will generally not be approved during this time. Exceptions may be made in case of medical issues; please CSW to inquire.

NO PTO FOR SALESPEOPLE FOR 2 WEEKS BEFORE THANKSGIVING THROUGH CHRISTMAS EVE

Black Friday kicks off our Christmas season. We spend a lot of money and effort promoting our Black Friday event. An important part of that promotion is to have the salespeople calling and emailing customers to come in. Taking PTO during those crucial two weeks before Thanksgiving will cause us to miss sales that could otherwise have been made.

It’s also our policy that the total contacts targets should peak six weeks before Christmas and then remain at that high level until Christmas Eve, or until the salespeople are so busy helping customers all day that they can factually no longer make contacts. So the two weeks before Thanksgiving all the way through December are a crucial time for making as many contacts as possible.

It would behoove the salespeople to stay late as necessary to make their targets and increase their outflow in those crucial ten weeks before Christmas to maximize their personal sales and the store’s sales during the busy two weeks before Christmas.

BONUS OF $100 FOR PERFECT ATTENDANCE

If you are not absent due to illness even one day during any entire anniversary year (from your date of hire through the next 365 days, then from that one-year anniversary through the next 365 days, etc.), you will earn a $100 bonus. In addition, for each consecutive year that you are not absent due to illness for even one day, the bonus will increase by $50. So, the second year would be $150, and the third year would be $200, etc.

Submit a CSW to HR to receive the bonus. Note that if you come to work and then leave early because you are sick, then you are absent due to illness and are not eligible for this bonus.