Physicians Practice - June 2008 - (Page 71) THE ADMINISTRATOR’S DESK DEALING WITH PTO TIME MANAGERS OFTEN HAVE TO MAINTAIN A DIFFICULT BALANCE BETWEEN OFFERING FLEXIBILITY AND KEEPING THE OFFICE SUFFICIENTLY STAFFED B Y S H E L LY K . S C H WA R T Z At Palmetto Surgery Associates in Seneca, S.C., rewarding employees with paid time off isn’t just about granting them a few weeks leave each year for holidays and illnesses. It’s about giving them choices. During their first two years of service, the twelve employees at the practice begin with five days of annual vacation and six days of sick replacing the age-old system of earmarking a specific number of days for vacation, personal, and sick leave with a collective PTO bank that employees can use at their discretion. The number of PTO days given are generally based on years of service. “PTO policies are a very positive trend because they give the It’s wise to encourage employees to keep at least five days of PTO in their bank at all times, giving them a reserve to draw from should they suddenly fall ill. REASONABLE RATIONING leave. At year three, they keep the same number of sick days but double their vacation time. “We really just add them all together so if the employee is not sick they can use those days for more vacation,” says practice administrator Melinda Paluzzi. “It gives them a lot more flexibility. We never ask for a doctor’s note if they call in.” Like Palmetto Surgery Associates, practices across the country are building flexibility into their paid time off (PTO) policies. Many are WWW.PHYSICIANSPRACTICE.COM employee more say in how their time is used,” says Dan Zuhlke, vice president of human resources at Intermountain Healthcare in Salt Lake City and vice president of the American Society for Healthcare Human Resources Administration. “Historically in healthcare, we had banks designated for vacation and sick time, and what we found is that sometimes mothers with young children would have to lie to take a day off because they didn’t have a bank of time for that.” There are also advantages of opting for PTO policies from a business perspective. First, they eliminate the administrative chore of having to track the reasons for employee absences. They also help minimize unscheduled absences — a major drain on productivity — since employees are no longer forced to call in sick to attend to personal matters. A 2007 survey on employee absence across all industries for CCH, a human resource and employment law firm based in Riverwoods, Ill., found that personal illness accounts for just 34 percent of unscheduled absences, while 66 percent are due to other reasons, including family issues (22 percent), personal needs (18 percent), stress (13 percent), and entitlement mentality (13 percent). The survey also found that most people perceive paid leave banks to be the most effective absence control program. But PTO plans are not a silver bullet. They can also create problems that require careful oversight by practice administrators. Some employees, for example, have trouble managing their paid days off, blowing through them in the first half of the year and setting nothing aside for the flu season in September or the holidays in December. That forces you to provide additional days off when they get ill (albeit unpaid), which affects coworkers and office productivity. Zuhlke says it’s wise to encourage employees to keep at least five days of PTO in their bank at all times, giving them a reserve to draw from should they suddenly fall ill. “Even though their vacation and sick time is all rolled into one, this is still a JUNE 2008 | PHYSICIANS PRACTICE | 71 http://WWW.PHYSICIANSPRACTICE.COM
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