Paid time off (PTO) beyond any government mandated leave is a precious gift. A recent survey by the Pew Research Center confirmed that 89% of people agree and acknowledge the importance of this benefit. Unfortunately, according to the same 2023 survey, 46% of U.S. workers don’t use all of their annual PTO allotment.

Survey results revealed that more highly educated and upper-income employees tended to leave PTO on the table each year. Justifications included employees not wanting to fall behind on work; concern of adding to co-workers’ workloads; fear of not being considered for a promotion; and fear of losing their job altogether. And for those employees who did take vacations, 49% of employees reported working at least 1 hour each day, while 24% reported working 3 or more hours each day.

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that private employees typically receive between 11-20 days of paid leave per year, depending on their length of employment, which means each year about half of this is being left on the table and not going into employees’ pockets.

Most companies have also moved to an annual use-it-or-lose it PTO policy, so each December 31^st employees wave goodbye to any unused leave if they don’t plan accordingly.

Given that 37.2% of employees like when they’re encouraged to take a break if they haven’t done so in a while, now is an ideal time to acknowledge their contributions and remind them to plan for and use any accrued time during December. And if employees push back and say they’re too busy, you can consider opening a window during the first quarter in 2024 to allow them to roll-over and use their 2023 time as an unexpected yearend holiday gift.  

Happy Holidays and for questions about your PTO policy, please contact an RKW employment lawyer.

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