Sample Employee Handbook doc

Vacation Options: There are innumerable variables regarding vacation. You may wish to specify that employees earn so many hours or days of vacation each month or each pay period, and prohibit use of vacation not yet accrued.


The vacation time suggested here is a minimum. There is much to be said for giving employees three to four weeks of vacation early on in their job tenure, allowing them to go perhaps as high as six weeks if they are with you for many years. It is common for managers to earn more vacation than non-managerial employees. In fact, managers may often be able to negotiate variations in vacation time at the time of hire. It is wise to address benefits unique to managers in a separate handbook or in a supplement to this one.


Some employers prefer to give employees a specified number of days annually to use for vacation, illness, personal needs, etc. Such a policy may reduce employee abuse of sick leave. The downside of such a policy, however, is that sick employees may come to work in order to avoid losing vacation time and infect other employees. Similarly, an employee who suffers a serious injury or illness may have no time left for vacation.

Holiday Pay

Employees are entitled to the following paid holidays:¹⁶

New Year’s Day

Birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr.
Washington’s Birthday
Memorial Day
Independence Day
Labor Day
[Columbus Day]
[Veterans Day]
Thanksgiving Day
[Day after Thanksgiving]
Christmas Day

Personal Leave

Personal leave may be used for the following:

• 
  Medical and dental appointments for yourself or family members;
  
• 
  Your personal illness, or that of a member of your family; or
  
• 
  Personal business that cannot be tended to outside of work hours, e.g., a house closing.
  

You are not required to give any specific reason for using your personal/sick time. However, when you do take personal/sick time you should give your immediate supervisor as much advance notice as possible.

You will accrue four [(4) hours] of personal leave each month, up to a total of [six (6) days] per 12-month period. You may carry over personal leave from year to year and accumulate a maximum of [480 hours of leave] for full-time employees and [240 hours] for part-time employees.