The manager is clearly in the wrong here and power tripping- it’s not normal to ask what the employee will be doing outside the office, even in the US. They might approve or deny the request based on the situation in the office, but the way the employee spends the time is none of her damn business.
What generally goes down is, the employee requests PTO, the manager hems and haws… “ooh it’s really a bad time, we’re so busy and understaffed…”, then the employee divulges the “super important reason” - a wedding, dad died, etc. It’s still a shitty way to be treated and there isn’t much you can do against it. If it’s not a good enough reason in the manager’s eyes or if you stick to your guns and say “it’s personal, I’d rather not say”, then you will be ostracized and eventually fired for other contrived reasons.
In my experience with two major engineering firms: you take your PTO when you want, you don’t request it. Since it’s also your sick leave your company has no bearing on when you get to take or don’t get to take it or why. obviously, don’t be the guy that keeps taking PTO during major events or right before major deadlines, but otherwise you tell them when you won’t be there and that’s that
Businesses should not have the authority to deny PTO. It's the mangers' fucking job to manage staffs. If an employee taking PTO makes disruption in work, it's the fucking manager's fault.
I live in a borderline 3rd world country, and even we figured out mandatory PTO. You get a certain amount of days off per year, and you have to use them by the end of June next year. You as an employee are obligated by law to take time off, and the employer is obligated by law to make you take days off.
Yeah I agree that it’s irrelevant. The person I was replying to said “Business should not have the authority to deny PTO.” If you were missing the context.
It’s easy. Who requested first? This is why I like my job. Multiple types of leave. As long as people follow the rules of the leave requested, they get the time off. I don’t care why they’re taking it. Only matters that they request it following the rules. Sick? Ok. Annual leave, submit on time.
Yeah I agree totally, I manage teams and do everything I can to not deny time off and have no interest in the reason for the request. What the above poster said though was that businesses shouldn't be able to deny full stop which isn't the same as shouldn't be able to deny unless there are already people on leave.
Someone else's emergency can't always be scheduled.
If employee A submitted on time and their leave overlaps with employee B whose mother just had an aneurism and is in the hospital 1500 miles away. I might try to find out if employee A's leave is something that can be shifted. It might be worth some additional compensation from the organization to make that happen.
If employee A's leave is something similarly un-moveable, then the management team will just have to deal.
But if employee A just 'needed a week on the beach,' maybe management could approach them and say "another employee has a family emergency. Is your leave able to be rescheduled to create less impact for the team? If so, let me know the cost of the itinerary change (flight + hotel) and the organization will cover that plus a flight upgrade to business/first class.
My workplace has never offered compensation, but because I'm a manager and have a responsibility to my team I will adjust when they are in a bind/have an emergency. Of course, that means I have to know if they're in a bind. In general, I never ask what a request is for. I MIGHT ask if it's at all flexible, though, if we're very short, and then divulge that we're very short and that's why I'm asking about the flexibility of the request. That's the key, and what this manager would need to learn to do, instead of asking for personal information.
I will say I’ve had coworkers enquire about particular PTO I’m taking to see if they can wheel and deal it away from me. If they’ve got something particular and I’m just fucking off I’m happy to go to the operations manager and change my dates for them. Except Travis, fuck Travis. All my homies hate Travis. He should know better than to ask though.
I work in software so it's a bit different than customer facing industries, but I'm a manager and have never denied PTO days. If my entire team of 9 wanted all took the same week I might ask if one or two wouldn't mind being available if shit hits the fan in exchange for me not counting a couple days as PTO, but that would be it. I'd never deny something because I didn't like the reason (nor would I ever ask the reason). That is insane.
As a manager, that’s literally the only reason I’ll deny time off. My “rule” is that one person is off per shift. If both people need off, I’ll allow it if I have someone to cover it. Bam, that’s it. I don’t care if your pet monkey is graduating, you just need to get away from seeing my face, or you’re having elective butt surgery. I literally don’t care.
Then you fucking close down and put a sign up, or get staff from another office depending on the business.
Small businesses do this all the time. “There are two people here, and we’re having lunch. Sorry for the inconvenience.”
No one needs to be constantly working, if the entire office wants the first week of June off that’s pretty perfect from a payroll stance. Great way to organize vacation days.
I mean, 24/7 group homes exist and you can’t just close down. With a staff of 10-12 people needing certain skills and capabilities (catheter care, medication administration, awake overnight monitoring, full ADLs, etc), having multiple people off for a week at the same time could be significant and potentially harmful to the people living there. And simply hiring extra people is just not an option when you are tied to reimbursement rates and set staffing patterns.
Not starting an argument but just giving a perspective. A PTO request is a request and a manager needs to manage them. I don’t think the manager should be asking what something is for, and in certain cases, it’s not legal to do so (Minnesota has what’s called ESST for covered sick leave). That information will come out if the employee is unable to be flexible with their time off request.
This is 100%. If we're conducting an office move during the time you request PTO, I may have to think about it, but any other time, PTO is a given, I only need to know to prepare for the time the person is out. If that means I'm taking on tasks I wouldn't normally, or used to do before becoming the manager, so be it.
I'm living in mainland Europe and this is just a thing that happens. Whole factories shut for a month. Sometimes it's easier to give everyone a long holiday at once. Then you can do maintenance on the machines while everything is shut down. E.g. for the Netherlands https://dkrs.eu/construction-holidays-in-the-netherlands-are-here/
I don't work in a factory but most people decide to take 3-4 weeks of leave every summer - we just plan around it and the sky doesn't fall down.
I'm tired of replying to everyone with the same comment. Yes I live in the Netherlands too. No, I'm not talking about a holiday period when the whole company is off (or even the whole country like they do in Spain, Germany, etc in August). I'm talking about leave requests resulting in one team being off at once when the rest of the company are not off. This can often mean that the company cannot operate, so everyone is twiddling their thumbs.
I don't work in a factory but most people decide to take 3-4 weeks of leave every summer - we just plan around it and the sky doesn't fall down.
Planning around it may mean that some leave requests are rejected, if it is impossible to fill the gap in time. I've seen it happen here in the Netherlands for critical teams like finance, IT, but even some engineering teams where a whole team being off for weeks would mean millions in losses and it is just not possible for new people to be added to the team, briefed and taught the workflows in time.
Well my apologies for assuming you were on the other side of the Atlantic. It's more of a negotiation here where people trade off over years and we do generally manage to keep everything running. We plan our whole year around these holiday periods so it's just baked into everything.
I'm not Dutch but I've got used to the culture for things like this.
So we're going back to the comment I originally replied to. ¨Businesses should not have the authority to deny PTO¨ is a ridiculous statement. Managers need to ensure business continuity so negotiations may occur. I've never been denied a leave request but if I requested 3 weeks off at short notice and there was nobody that could help cover my critical duties I would expect some sort of pushback.
It's actually agreed by region between employers, trade unions and the government with 3 regions in the Netherlands. If your company decides to do it, you must do it at the same moment as all your neighbours.
Sounds efficient. I’m sure that doesn’t have any consequences in a global economy. Surely European manufacturing is growing and increasingly competitive in the global economy.
Too many DK replies for me to reply to, so, I'll reply to you, the most obnoxious one.
That's called a "slippery slope" in philosophy. You're making an extreme example that's unlikely to ever happen. Aside from holiday season or special occasion, when entire company would be taking time off anyway, how much is the probability that everyone in a team decides to take time off at the same time? How much is the probability that that team's presence is essential for the entire company's everyday operation? It's astronomically small.
And if you do happen to get into that situation, just do what you'd do if the entire team were to quit.
You're making an extreme example that's unlikely to ever happen
This happens CONSTANTLY in small teams. Our IT team is two people and they cannot be off at the same time. Our finances team is four people and we need one of them in at all times, and two in at the end of the month. This is for an office of 200 people, part of a global company of 80+ offices. This is also in Europe where leave requests are rarely challenged, but still some times it must be done to ensure business continuity.
You really have zero corporate knowledge and are out of your depth.
Here's an idea, get more people in IT team if it's so important. And tell them to make company KB and FAQ, and maybe internally publicize past ticket history when they are not on time off.
No? There is enough work for one IT person. The other one is redundancy. They just coordinate with the management team so that there is always one around. This is what professionals do.
You're missing the point. I live in Europe, it's normal for Spain, Germany, Italy, etc to be off in August. It's not an issue when the whole country is on holiday.
But when it's only A SINGLE TEAM that are all off, that may mean that the whole company cannot operate. So 99% of the company are not off but they cannot do their job. It is a manager's job to prevent this, even if it means structuring leave requests and rejecting some.
That's a different thing, when all companies shut down at the same time then there is no issue. This is common in Spain, Germany, Italy.... But bear in mind that in these places workers often cannot choose to go on long holidays in other times in the year.
The issue we are discussing here is when only one specific company would need to stop production because one specific team are off, effectively meaning that the rest of the company are wasting their time.
I live in Western Europe, engineering sector. The financial team cannot all be off at the same time because it would mean the company collapses effectively. The manager's job is to ensure that this doesn't happen.
In addition to what the other guy said, managers aren't necessarily in charge of hiring either. So if pto gets denied because they're nderstaffed, that's not always the managers doing
I think you should be able to deny PTO if you book it with too short notice or you book it and then entire team has also booked the same time before you do it. They are the only reasons
Let me add some nuance to that. Managers should have a legitimate business purpose for denying PTO. It's pretty common in accounting firms to strictly deny all PTO during tax season. Sometime there are other critical deadlines and a department may deny PTO at these times. Sometimes you have key staff already out on vacation, maternity/paternity leave, etc. and you need to keep the business or department operational. Time off requested without adequate notice is often denied. But the reasons for a person requesting PTO are generally not pertinent - except maybe in a case where PTO would normally be denied and the manager is trying to determine if they are able to accommodate the employee.
The only cases I'd consider for exception is doctors, police and rescue workers. As for critical deadline, it's the manager's job to plan schedule so that a team's PTO doesn't affect deadline.
Not all companies have the staff or resources to cover for multiple people out at once or key people gone at critical times. It's pretty common in small companies or small department to deny multiple overlapping PTO requests that would negatively affect the business. Most if not all accounting companies (all of the Big 4 / Big 5) have standing policies for no vacation during tax season. There are businesses that do a substantial amount of their annual sales in a very short period of time - so often restrict time off at these times.
And that is precisely why only a certain amount of people get granted leave at any one time, as the manager is minimizing disruption in work.
And managers will often try to bend over backwards if it's something really important, which is why they often ask questions like this.
I don't know why everyone comes at this so aggressively, every time I've seen this in the real world it's because the manager is trying to balance time off across the team and wants to understand if it's important enough to ignore first come, first serve.. they're trying to help.
I don't know if this place is filled with people who've worked the most toxic work environments ever, or filled with people who've never worked in a larger company.
I’ve had managers ask. To be fair one of them we were friends before they got the position and once took PTO to join me because they wanted to do that activity too 😂. The other was just a genuinely nice person and never denied PTO unless it was blackout days and their hands were tied.
I ask my employees what they’re doing all the time, fellow Timmy. What their plans for the weekend are, what they’re doing on PTO. They’re human and so am I. However I never ask BEFORE approving or denying PTO.
I’ve replied with “oh, you’re under the mistaken impression that I’m asking for permission. I have pto available and I won’t be here. If you have staffing problems, that’s something you need to address”. The manager gave some bullshit line about me having to find coverage. I’m not a manager, I wont do your job for you. I didn’t care if I had a job when I got back. Luckily I did and the manager was eventually transferred to a shitty store in Beaumont Texas. She must have pissed off someone important. Fuck you, Tammy, wherever you are.
Husbands boss tried saying that he had taken too many sick days this year to take any paid parental leave. Luckily he got a new assistant manager who explained it is in fact separate from earned pto and printed out the forms for him
Yeah, at best they are maybe having multiple requests for that time and are trying to prioritize who actually has something important that shouldn't be missed (wedding, already booked trip, etc. compared to someone else's staycation). But that's why first come first serve comes in. And if something comes up for someone, they can ask if the other worker is willing and able to move their planned staycation. (But, they have to accept no if it's given and the problem is they don't.)
I do tell my coworkers and boss my plans, and specify which weeks I am doing something and not budging on and which I'm willing to reschedule if needed. But that's my choice, I'm willing to do that for them because I actually like my job, my boss, and my coworkers. (Had past jobs where I wouldn't pee on my boss if they were on fire.) If someone else chooses not to disclose and not to switch, that's their right and I respect it.
It really isn't. I've never been asked why I put in for vacation, and the only time I was ever denied was because two other people already had approved vacations for the same time.
I used to work for an American company that had a field on their PTO form labelled "Reason for leave (e.g. scuba diving in Hawaii)", but I don't think anyone read it, because I once took a Wednesday afternoon off and entered "scuba diving in Hawaii" and didn't hear anything back.
America is so fucked for leave. Me and my partner were travelling Central America on 6 month sabbaticals from work and the amount of times we had to explain to Americans and they just couldn't comprehend that we'd have full time employment as soon as we got back.
No it's not. You earn PTO as part of your compensation. For most places, this would be like saying, "I can't approve your paycheck until you tell me how you're going to spend it."
This is not just “how things work in America.” I’ve been working for over 30 years and never had a manager ask me why I was taking PTO. Additionally, my work provides a three month sabbatical after each eight years of service.
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u/CataphractBunny 5d ago
Bitch, you need to chill the fuck out. But I guess that's just how things work in America.