” This is a pain, ” said Sara. ” And it doesn’t make any sense. ” ” What doesn’t make sense? ” replied Dave Berger, the owner of the Golden Rose, the restaurant where Sara had begun working full time, splitting her duties between that of part – time accounting clerk and part – time HR assistant.
In her accounting role, Sara ‘ s job was to prepare the checks needed to pay the restaurant ‘ s bills, verify credit card receipts, and make cash deposits. In her role as HR assistant, her job was to total employee time cards and prepare the biweekly payroll, as well as to keep track of each employee ‘ s use of sick time, holiday, and vacation pay. Even though she was new, Sara was very good, very bright, and cared deeply about the restaurant and its employees. Because of that, Dave increasingly had come to value the talent she brought to her position, as well as the insightful opinions she was certainly not afraid to share. ” Full – time employees accrue two weeks of vacation per year, and part – time employees accrue about one week. Is that right? ” asked Sara. ” That ‘ s right, ” said Dave. ” I have always thought that part – timers who work regularly and who stay with the company should earn some vacation time also.
It’s in the manual. ” ” Right, ” said Sara. ” It’s right here.
It says: ” A regular employee who works one – half time or more but less than full – time shall accrue vacation/annual leave prorated on the basis of their actual number of hours worked. An employee who is employed less than ten hours per week shall not be eligible to accrue vacation/annual leave.” ” So, if I work 20 hours per week, I earn one week a year. And I use it or lose it. That is, employees are not allowed to carry vacation forward to the next year. Right? ” asked Sara. ” That ‘ s right, ” said Dave. ” I decided that would be our policy when I started the restaurant, because the idea is that an employee’s vacation should be a time to relax and refresh. So it just makes sense to me that if we are going to give employees vacation time, they should take it every year. ” ” So, does the part – time person earn one week of 40 hours pay, or one week of 20 hours pay? ” asked Sara.
” Well, they should be getting one of their regular weeks in my opinion. That is, if they only work 20 hours per week, they should only get paid for a 20 – hour vacation week. If they average 30 hours, they should get a 30 – hour paid vacation. ”
” That would make sense, ” replied Sara, ” but your old accounting clerk wasn’t doing that. She was recording 3.07 hours for each full – timer per pay period worked and 1.54 hours for each part – time employee. ” ” 3.07 hours and 1.54 hours? Why? ” asked Dave. ” Well, ” replied Sara, ” with 26 pay periods per year, and 10 days, or 80 hours vacation accrual, it works out to 3.07 hours per pay period. One week a year is half that — 1.535 technically. But rounding to 1.54 is darn close. ” ” Sounds like she took a shortcut and treated all of the part – timers the same, ” replied Dave. ” We should be able to fix that. ”
” You could, but that’s the problem, ” said Sara. ” You have 52 full – time employees and 38 part – timers. Not all part – timers work every week, and not all of them work 20 hours. You want them to accrue time based on the hours actually worked, but your current record keeping doesn’t match the policy. Your current system treats all part – timers as if they worked the same amount of time. To calculate each employee’s actual time each week would be insane. Even worse, if they work less than ten hours one week, but 20 the next, you have a whole different problem. That’s probably why the old accounting clerk did it this way. ” “Well, ” replied Dave, “let’s just change the way we record it. Make it more accurate.”
” Dave, ” said Sara, ” it already will take me nearly two hours every pay period just to update the vacation records on our 90 employees. That’s 52 hours, or more than a week per year, just to have me track employee vacation time the way you do it now. Tracking it even more accurately would likely double the time, not to mention the time it already takes to record the employee’s sick days earned and used, and their paid holidays. There’s got to be a more efficient way to do this! ”
Question:
Dimension: Workforce Enhancement
1. How do you think the restaurant’s policy affects each of the following HR functional areas?
a. Staffing the operation
b. Developing staff
c. Motivating staff
d. Maintaining staff
Dimension: Record keeping/Documentation
3. What role could advanced technology play in helping solve this problem? (Hint: Google “vacation records soft-ware: employees” and record your findings.)
Dimension: Policy Development
3. Draft a procedures summary that details how your operation will document granting employee vacation time requests in a manner designed to minimize any charges of bias or unfairness by your employees
