Vacation and Holiday tracking

Why do we need to do this?

Vacation and Holiday tracking are ways to monitor paid time off accumulated and consumed in those areas. Being an additional benefit to the salary, it is advisable to keep track of them very exactly so that we can benefit from them. For a clear record, a vacation tracker and a holiday tracker can be used.

Who is responsible for the tracking?

Vacation and Holiday tracking are necessary when the comprehensive employee benefits package offered by the employer includes paid time off (PTO). Those responsible for the full consumption of the accumulated paid time off are employees. If this is your case, we provide you with a simple and efficient vacation tracker and holiday tracker.

Of course, requests must be made that require the approval of superiors, but the employee is fully responsible for consuming all the accumulated paid time off hours.

Apart from Vacation and Holiday tracking, it is possible to also follow other types of paid time off. This can happen because among other benefits offered by companies to their employees can be included as well:

• paid sick days
  In March 2019, 76% of civilian workers, a category that includes workers in private industry and state and local government, had access to Paid sick leave.²
• paid personal days
  In December 2017, an estimate of 16%of civilian workers, including workers in private industry and state and local government, had access to paid personal leave.³
• paid bereavement leave

Why do Vacation and Holiday tracking?

Under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) there is no requirement to grant payment for the time that an employee has not worked. Therefore, there are none for Vacation and Holiday tracking either.
However, these benefits are often granted by employers to reduce unscheduled absences. To avoid any kind of misunderstandings, companies use written PTO policies that clearly establish the terms and conditions for obtaining and using these paid times off from work.

You can download a free tracker if you need a Vacation tracking or Holiday track.

In traditional models, companies distribute paid time off between the categories listed above. For example, the employee may benefit annually from:

• 10 days of paid holidays
• 14 days of paid vacation
• 8 days of sick leave
• 2 days of personal leave

But there is also the option in which these paid times off can be allocated as a fixed number of days per year, or as a number of hours which accumulates in relation to the time worked. In fact, these options are the ones preferred by employees. If they do not need to use paid time off as sick leave, then they have the chance to use it as supplementary vacation time.

Vacation and Holiday tracking become a mandatory thing in these situations. For this reason, you can download PlanArty's free tracker. To emphasize this fact, it is worth mentioning that if not consumed in time, they can be lost.

An Employee Benefits Survey conducted by the Bureau of Labor Statistics conducted on a number of 139,805,300⁴ civilian workers shows us that 76% of them had access to paid vacation in March 2019. It should be mentioned that this number also includes workers in private industry and state and local government.

The number of annual days of paid vacation by service requirement March 2019⁵

1. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, The Economics Daily, Workers in the private industry received an average of 8 paid holidays in 2017 (visited June 08, 2020).
2. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Employee Benefits in the United States – March 2019, (visited June 08, 2020).
3. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Access to paid personal leave. March 2018, (visited June 08, 2020).
4. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Employee Benefits Survey Appendix table 2. The number of workers represented March 2019 (visited June 08, 2020).
5. U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Paid vacations: Number of annual days by service requirement, civilian workers, March 2019

Mariana Holostenco

Contributor at PlanArty

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Economist with a degree in Marketing and International Economic Affairs. Mariana is passionate about efficient time management in business. Therefore, she shares with our readers and our team members her knowledge and experience in this domain.