Paid Time Off Comparison to Other Employers

Paid Time Off Comparison to Other EmployersPaid Time Off Comparison to Other EmployersWant to benchmark your paid time off with that of other employers? Holiday weeks are popular times for employees to use their PTO days or take paid vacation days. Summers are also a challenge for employers because most employees take vacation days- and if your employees dont use up all of their paid time off- know that they should. Their use of paid time off helps both their outlook and productivity, both of which are desirable for the employer. In the knowledge industries, employees can balance vacation with the demands of their jobs. In industries such as retail, manufacturing, food service and hospitality, though, having an employee on-site to serve customers is critical. This requires that managers carefully balance the number of employees using paid time off versus the employees who are on-the-job. Would you like to mora effectively work with employee paid time off? This is how managers and sup ervisors can manage vacation downtime and here are tips about how to handle unscheduled absences, the bane of customer-facing service industries. You can become a better manager of employee paid time off with the tools and software programs now available that help you schedule and track employee time. PTO Comparison You can compare your PTO or sick leave program and paid holidays for full-time employees with other companies. In a May 2010 study, WorldatWork.com differentiated between employers who provide traditional leave benefits that are divided by type of day off (vacation days, sick days, etc.) and employers who provide PTO. The study found that PTO use by employers is increasing. In 2002, 71percent of employers offered traditional paid time off days, in 2006, 63 percent, and in 2010, 54 percent. So, the use of a PTO system has reached over 40percent of employers, and if the study is correct, the percentage of employers is increasing. Very large organizations dominate in th e use of traditional paid time off approaches. The study also found that the most common categories of leave under a traditional system are vacation (98 percent of employers), jury duty (90 percent of employers), bereavement (89 percent of employers), sick leave (87 percent of employers) and paid holidays (83 percent of employers). They also found that both groups of employers offer around 9 paid holidays a year. Traditional paid time off plans offers a marginally greater average number of paid holidays in a year (nine) versus PTO bank-type plans at 8.7. Overall, paid holiday leave is most common for secular holidays. Paid Holidays Are Voluntary by Employers All of the employer paid time off that appears in an employee benefits package is voluntary. Did you know that no Federal law in the United States requires an employer to provide time off, paid or otherwise, to employees on nationally recognized holidays? Holiday pay practices are completely up to the employer. If you are pa id for Labor Day and have the day off, it is a benefit your employer provides. Unfortunately, paid holidays have become an employee entitlement and few people stop to think about their place in a complete employee reward and recognition system. Many employees think that their employer has to give them PTO and paid holidays this, unfortunately, contributes to the sense of entitlement many employees feel. In most locations, employers are not required by law to give employees paid time off. Consequently, for your employee paid time off benefits to be meaningful for employees, you have the need and potential payoff of educating employees about the worth of their benefits from their employers. This need has never been greater with the coming skills shortage. This fact cannot be emphasized enough it is becoming increasingly necessary for employers to become employers of choice to attract and retain talent.

3 Resume Formatting Mistakes Youre Probably Making

3 Resume Formatting Mistakes Youre Probably Making3 Resume Formatting Mistakes Youre Probably MakingWhen it comes to resume revision, most people focus on substance. Certainly the content is mora important than how it looks, right? Well, not always. behauptung days, its easy to discount design and formatting. After all, much of the time youre probably uploading your resume to an online application system anyway. Formatting is often stripped and the information is parsed out into the database, which you, inevitably, have to go through in meticulous detail to fix. See The 8 Stages of a Winning Job Search.However, there are still plenty of times when your resume is seen in its original form. You probably take it with you to networking events and in-person interviews. You (hopefully) schmelzglas it to associates who can connect you with interesting opportunities and hand it to friends and family to pass along to their contacts. In short, design and format still matter. If the document is hard to read or doesnt make a positive impression on the surface, people are less likely to read it (and more likely to disregard it). There are several common formatting mistakes that appear even on the best resumes. It seems most people are guilty of at least one of these things. Take a look at the list of violations below. Then, pull out your resume and see where you might be able to improve. See How to Follow Up On a Job Application Without Being Annoying.Not Enough White Space White space is a term that was originally used in web development but has caught on in the general design world. It just means empty space on the page. The more white space there is, the easier a document is to read. White space helps direct the eye and focus attention where it should be. Unfortunately, when it comes to resumes, white space is sorely lacking. Most people want to squeeze as much information onto the page as possible and they find all kinds of creative ways to do that. But this strategy is counterproductive. Its much more effective to reduce the amount of information and allow for more white space probably much more than you want. What that means is that you have to really focus in on whats most important and get rid of everything else. Also, include plenty of line breaks and bullets to help break up the text. Basically, you want to display only the best information and do it in the cleanest possible way. Minimalism is powerful, whether youre viewing the document on paper or on a computer screen. See The 10 Most Common Interview Questions.Over Styling Another problem is overuse of styling tools such as italics, underline and bolded text. These things are useful for steering the eye in a certain direction, but when overdone they look sloppy. Italics, in particular, can be difficult to read. Use these tools thoughtfully and only to mark specific things you want to call attention to, such as section headers. Inconsistency This is perhaps the biggest design issue with r esumes inconsistent formatting. It requires some serious attention to detail. Its one of those things thats highly noticeable to others viewing the document for the first time, but which you, the creator, can easily miss. If youre going to use bold text to mark one section header, you need to do it for all section headers. If youre going to put a line break between the company name and the position you held, you need that same line break beneath each company name. If youre going to indent one list of bulleted accomplishments by a quarter inch, you need that same indent for each list of bulleted accomplishments. You get the idea. Look at the entire document and check to make sure every design choice is consistent throughout. Good design takes a while to get right. Dont discount its importance. When in doubt, remember less is more. Let your experience and accomplishments pop off the page. Dont crowd them with formattingThe 25 Best Jobs of 2016

How to (politely) tell your coworker to stop chewing gum loudly

How to (politely) tell your coworker to stop chewing gum loudlyHow to (politely) tell your coworker to stop chewing gum loudlyOffices are plagued with annoyingly noisy coworkers who chew gum too loudly, use their outdoor voice for indoor conversations, and keep you distracted from getting your actual work done. Its an epidemic that strikes nearly all of us - one study found that the lack of sound privacy was the biggest frustration for employees in open cubicles.Even though these noises drive us crazy, we may choose to suffer in silence, because we know it can be socially inappropriate to start an office war over gum chewing. But theres anotlageher way.Alison Greens new Ask a Manager podcast wants you to stop suffering in silence and address these noises distractions with grace and equanimity. Heres how you can walk the fine line between telling your coworkers off and politely asking for them to lower their voiceMake the request light and casualBefore you bring this up with the lip- smacking, gum-chewing offender, take some perspective on your request. Recognize that this may be a tricky conversation, but it should not be an aggressive or mean one. You are asking someone to change their behavior for you. Respect what you are asking of them, and do not make a big deal of the behavior itself. This is a request, not a battle.When Green role plays an employee asking her coworker to lower their voice, she keeps her voice breezy. She even adds in a laugh to make her tone slightly self-deprecating when she says, I know this is weird.The sound of gum being chewed is like nails on a blackboard to me. Is there any chance I can ask you to try to chew it more quietly?Green says that the laughingly casual tone shows that you are not taking the behavior too seriously, because gum chewing does not merit a serious tone. It signals that you havent lost perspective.You realize that you might be being nitpicky.You could even make it all about yourself, sort of about your own neur oses, she advises.For some of us, being annoyed by gum-chewing is a part of our neuroses. Medically, its calledmisophonia, a selective sound sensitivity syndromethat triggers a fight-or-flight response to certain noises. For those who have it, the sound of gum-chewing fills them with rage. Even the sound of a banana being eaten can make them see red. Unfortunately, offices are filled with triggers like this.If you are dealing with misophonia, you can use Greens tips to keep yourself cool in your request even as your body is telling you to act out.