Benefits Package Decision Making Series: Want to Downsize Your Work Year? Work Part-Time Work-Life Balance

Part-Time Professionals with Benefits: Paid Time Off (PTO)

Part-Time Professionals with Benefits: Paid Time Off (PTO)
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Employee uses of paid time off vary widely from travel to caregiving to medical appointments, and you should know that part-time professionals may qualify for this valued employee benefit too. Photo by Carol.

Welcome to part four in my series Want to Downsize Your Work Year? Links to all articles in this series are provided at the end of this post.

Are you transitioning toward retirement? Financially independent but still enjoy working to engage your brain? Wanting more time at home with your kids? Looking to devote more time to travels and adventures?

Reducing your full-time career to one with a part-time schedule will gain you additional free time each week, possibly even long weekends if you structure your new schedule well. Unless you’re starting a second job or side hustle, those newly freed up hours will be unpaid. How would you like to continue earning paid time off (PTO), also known as paid vacation time?

This article starts to address the benefits you may qualify for when you are employed in a professional job with part-time status. I’ll start with PTO because who doesn’t love getting paid while off duty?

Disclaimer:  I am not a human resources/benefits specialist or labor law attorney. For more than two decades, my career has comprised part-time work for three different employers. On this website, I share those experiences to inspire others who may want to voluntarily downsize their work-year as they seek their own ideal work-life balance. You should seek legal and professional advice from appropriate subject matter experts as needed for your situation.

I’ve often heard in general terms that workers in other countries have it ( paid vacation time) so much better, but I didn’t realize the US is in the minority because paid time off is treated like a perk instead of a right. Did you know others refer to the US as the No Vacation Nation1?

I learned so much while working on this content, including that paid time off is not mandated by the United States (US) Department of Labor (DOL). Go read that employee rights poster that you’ve ignored in your employer’s break room or common space. The only time off it addresses is probably unpaid time off via the Family and Medical Leave Act.

Check this out:


This block of text is copied from the US DOL website:

Many companies offer leave benefits that allow employees to take time off from work for various reasons. Leave benefits whether paid, unpaid or partially paid are generally an agreement between the employer and employee, or employees representative (such as a union).

Family and Medical Leave Act The Family and Medical Leave Act provides certain employees with up to 12 weeks of unpaid, job-protected leave per year. It also requires that their group health benefits be maintained during the leave.

Fair Labor Standards Act While certain types of leave are required by law, other types are voluntary incentives provided by employers. There is a common misconception that Department of Labor regulates leave benefits through the Fair Labor Standards Act. But, the FLSA only covers certain types of leave.

In fact, there are a number of employment practices which FLSA does not regulate. For example, it does not require:

  • Vacation, holiday, severance, or sick pay
  • Meal or rest periods, holidays off, or vacations
  • Premium pay for weekend or holiday work
  • Pay raises or fringe benefits
  • Discharge notice, reason for discharge, or immediate payment of final wages to terminated employees.

I’ve worked for the federal government, which offers a generous paid time off benefit in the form of vacation time, sick leave, and federal holidays. I knew different companies offer different benefit packages, and I guess I figured some minimal level of paid time off was mandated in some regulation somewhere. Wrong.

The bottom line is this:  your paid time off will be dependent on your employer’s policies.

If that is true for an employer’s full-time workforce, that dependency on their policies will likely be even more applicable for their part-time employees and it will likely depend on the minimum number of hours you commit to working each week. Check your company’s employee handbook if you are already employed and want to reduce your schedule.

If you are seeking part-time employment, you will have to ask outright about the benefits package or perhaps seek it online or from an internal source. Perhaps you can negotiate additional vacation time if the company is unwilling to increase the offered salary.

Employers are wise to offer PTO because it is a key form of compensation that benefits their employees in many, many ways, including 1) time off to refresh their mind and body, and 2) time off to tend to personal and family needs.

Be Encouraged, PTO Policies for Part-Time Professionals Do Exist

I have worked multiple part-time schedules in my professional office-based career for various employers. The benefit of paid time off has been different with each one.

If you’re considering part-time work, let these be an example of what options might be out there for you.

Permanent Part-Time and Job Sharing 

When I first reduced my work schedule, I was a civilian in the federal government workforce. I switched from full-time status (40 hours per week) to half time (20 hours per week), and my benefits were pro-rated accordingly.

My job-share partner and I shared the personnel slot equally. Since we both worked half time (20 hours per week), we were both working a 50 percent schedule. Thus, my benefits were prorated by 50 percent.

  • Annual leave (also known as vacation days): Instead of accruing at the rate of some number (#) hours per pay period, I earned half the amount (#/2 hours per period).
  • Sick Leave: Again, the accrual rate was reduced by 50 percent.
  • Paid Holidays: Ten federal holidays – New Year’s Day, Martin Luther King Day, Presidents Day, Memorial Day, 4th of July, Labor Day, Columbus Day, Veterans Day, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. I was paid for the number of hours on my official payroll schedule and only if it was a scheduled work day.

The Good and the Bad:

  • Good: I earned 50 percent less PTO, but I needed 50 percent less because my work schedule was reduced.
  • Bad (annoying): The payroll employees were vocal sticklers about me sticking to my exact schedule.

Initially, I worked eight hours on Monday, eight hours on Tuesday, and four hours on Wednesday, and my timecard was templated to accommodate that schedule.

  • If a holiday fell on a Thursday or Friday, I didn’t get any holiday pay because it wasn’t my scheduled work day.
  • If my child was sick and couldn’t go to daycare on a Monday, my boss was understanding. I’d stay home with my baby and my boss would let me make up the day on Thursday or Friday. The payroll clerks did not like this and thought I should sign for PTO on Monday.

Once my job-share partner was hired, she chose a four 5-hour day schedule, Monday through Thursday. That seemed to work well for her, so I eventually switched to that schedule.

If federal holidays landed on Monday through Thursday, I received pro-rated holiday pay (5/8 of a day’s wages). If a holiday landed on a Friday, I didn’t get holiday pay.

  • Good: With both of those schedules, I always had Fridays free, which meant one less day of commuting, childcare, and office time, and one more day of life on my terms.

 

Temporary Status with a Corporation

Recall from this article (add link) that I was on staff with a corporation and worked when two conditions were met: they had work for me and I had availability for them. I was on the corporate payroll and not working through a temporary staff agency.

If I had all my old paystubs, I would graph the hours per week that I worked to illustrate the constantly changing hours per week during my years with them. It was very steady at times, and then I’d sometimes go weeks without working at all.

With this setup, paid time off was non-existent.

  • Paid Time Off: None. That’s right. Like I said, I worked when they had project work and I had availability. If I was off-duty, it was 100 percent without pay.
  • Sick Leave: None
  • Paid Holidays: None

Despite the lack of any paid time off, the arrangement worked quite well.

The Good and the Bad:

  • Good: Families typically have plenty happening on the home front and ours was no exception. When I wasn’t working, I was busy with family and household management, home projects, foster care responsibilities, travels, and family time.
  • Bad: During the busy periods at work, when I was practically full-time, a holiday would come and go. Everyone at work got paid for those holidays except for me.

 

Regular Part-time Schedule with a Corporation

At this job, I worked a schedule of 30 hours per week, which is 75 percent of standard 40-hour week. This company required a commitment of 30 hours per week to earn PTO benefits. You could work fewer hours per week, but you would not earn any PTO or be eligible for health insurance benefits (to be address in part six of this series).

  • PTO: This company bundled vacation and sick leave under one PTO category. I accrued 75 percent of the full-time accrual rate. I still earned four weeks of PTO, but it was four weeks of 6-hour days rather than four weeks of 8-hour days.
  • Sick Leave: No separate accrual, it was included in PTO.
  • Paid Holidays: Prorated holiday pay for seven federal holidays – New Years, Memorial Day, 4th of July, Labor Day, Thanksgiving (two days), and Christmas.

The Good and the Bad:

  • Good: A reduced schedule of four 7.5-hour days yielded one day off per week and, if I chose Mondays or Fridays, resulted in three-day weekends. A schedule of five 6-hour days matched my child’s school hours and provided daily flexibility.
  • Bad: None. It was a good set-up.

 

Input from Successful Part-time Professionals I Know

Angela at Tread Lightly, Retire Early also works part-time. Her PTO must be used by the day, no taking a few hours here or there, so it works out to be the same number of days that her full-time coworkers earn.

Remember New-in-Town Mom from this blog post? She works part-time and gets 80 hours of PTO, which equates to 2 2/3 weeks of paid leave. Most important to her is that her employer is flexible and lets her use PTO by the hour, as needed, instead of requiring she use it by the day. She greatly appreciates that flexibility.

My friend Stephanie, a nurse practitioner, typically works three days per week. Like mine, her PTO is prorated. She earns four weeks of PTO per year. With her part-time schedule, that means 12 days of PTO.

In Closing

Employers who recognize that the demographics and the expectations of the US workforce are continually changing are wise. The scenario of working one’s entire career for the same company occurs much less often than it used to. Millennials have different expectations about work-life balance than older generations had.

Remember, though, it is the employer who establishes the paid time off policy. A commitment to work a minimum number of hours per week may be required for part-time workers. Employees, however, should remain informed and advocate for changes that provide win-win benefits to both employer and employees.


 

Links to all articles in the series: Want to Downsize Your Work Year?

Article #1: Read These Non-Monetary Considerations

Article #2: Why Your Employer Might Say Yes!

Article #3: Four Ways I’ve Balanced Career and Family Life by Working Part-time

Article #4: This post

 


How about you? What kind of PTO benefits do you get? How do those translate for the part-time employees in your organization? If you live outside the US, which country and what has been your experience? Let’s talk about it in the comments below!

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4 Comments

  1. Angela @ Tread Lightly Retire Early

    It’s interesting just how many different options there are for part time work out there. As much as I sometimes think I’d like to work longer days and just fewer of them, working a set M-F schedule makes the benefits side of thing really simple. The biggest part of finding these jobs is flexibility – if you don’t NEED the money or the job, you’d be surprised how many employers will be flexible if you’re a great employee.

    1. When I worked Monday, Tuesday, and half of Wednesday, it did seem like a long time to be away from my projects until I returned to the office the following Monday. I hope we hear of more and more examples of employers accommodating their employees who want flexibility and reduced hours. It can be such a win-win for both!

  2. I love your examples of how you continued to grow your career while working various part-time schedules. Working something like 75-80% sounds great to me, and may be something I pursue in a few years.

    In retrospect, if I had known my interest in having more flexibility, I might have considered other career paths that would have made it easier…my current employer (and my field in general) has very few part-time employees.

    1. Hi, JP! Thanks for visiting! I’ll have to check out your site as well. When you’re in the 18- to 22-year old range, the typical college years, it’s difficult to know what you want your future years to look like, for sure. I never considered a part-time schedule/career UNTIL my first child was born. I know not all are able to negotiate reduced hours but exploring the idea is what I plan to continue addressing on this site. Again, thanks for stopping by!

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