PTO: The New Currency in Job Offers

In recent years we’ve seen Paid Time Off (PTO) rise in importance to candidates considering a job change– not far behind compensation. The days of candidates automatically accepting whatever is offered are fading fast– including the archaic rule of making a new employee re-wind vacation time based on tenure with the company. The latter was always open for discussion when recruiting executives with 20+ years of experience but seemed to be a constant point of contention with middle management recruits. There’s now a greater willingness by employer to grandfather tenure from prior experience into the PTO allocation.

Here are some other PTO trends we’re seeing…

• PTO and “sick days” rolled into one bundled allocation.  

• A shift from ten to fifteen PTO days for employees with at least 3-5 years prior work experience.

• A buy-back program that allows employees to sell back unused PTO time year-end or…

• A roll-over of unused PTO into the next year– when it must be used or it expires.  

• How important is to candidates? Last week we had a candidate volunteer to accept a lower base salary in return for three additional PTO days.   

Want to learn more? In 2018 we conducted a PTO survey with data submitted from nine Builders/Developers.  See the full report here