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Vacation

Many employees are provided time off to take vacation. The length and timing of an employee's vacation time is usually decided by the employer.

• Paid vacation time
• Timing of vacations
• Limits on accumulated vacation time
• "Use it or lose it"
• Breaks
• Sick Time
  

Paid vacation time

There is no federal law that requires you to give vacation time - paid or unpaid - to your employees. However, if you do agree to give vacation, there are some restrictions you may place on your employees' vacation time.

Timing of vacations

Generally, you may decide when your employees may take vacation. For example, if your company is a gift shop, your employees might not be allowed to take vacation during a busy holiday season.

Also, if your vacation policy says that all vacation time must be approved in advance, that's probably legal.

Limits on accumulated vacation time

You probably can put "reasonable" limits on how much vacation time an employee builds up. In fact, some employers put a "cap" on the amount of vacation time employees can build up, so that there aren't too many people trying to take long vacations at one time.

"Use it or lose it"

Some states have specific laws that say employers cannot have a "use it or lose it" vacation time policy. That's because those states think of vacation time as wages: once an employee earns the time, the employer can't take it away. If your business is in one of those states, once the employee has earned vacation time, it cannot be lost just because the employee doesn't have time to take it or you won't let the employee take it. Call the state agency that deals with wage and hour problems to see if your company is in a state that has a law prohibiting "use it or lose it" policies.

Payment for unused vacation time

In some states, if an employee quits or gets fired, the employee should be paid for any unused vacation time. Call your state agency that deals with wage and hour problems to see if you have to pay for your employees' vacation time when they leave the job.