“Best Guy, LLC” is a (fictional) small business with full and part-time employees. Best Guy prides itself on being a fair employer, with generous benefits for its employees. One of those benefits is paid holidays. Best Guy provides its employees with nine paid holidays each year, including Thanksgiving and the day after Thanksgiving. The holiday policy provides that part-time employees are paid on a pro-rated basis.
Jane and John are full time employees (40/week), but Jane works eight hours a day, Monday through Friday, and John works ten hours a day, Monday through Thursday. Jill and Jack each work twenty-hours per week, but Jill works four hours a day, Monday through Friday, and Jack works two ten hour days, Thursday and Friday.
When Best Guy’s accountant makes out the payroll for the week of Thanksgiving, she finds herself in a bit of a quandary. Jane’s check is easy: she receives the same amount of pay that she always gets, with Thursday’s and Friday’s pay being holiday pay. Does John get ten hours for Thursday and nothing for Friday or does he get eight hours for each day because he is a full-time employee? Should he only get eight hours for Thursday and nothing for Friday? Does Jill get her regular pay, with four hours on each of Thursday and Friday as holiday pay, or does she only get a pro-rated amount (two hours) for each of those days? What about Jack? Does he get five hours of vacation each day because that is one-half of his scheduled hours or is vacation calculated on eight hour days, giving him only four hours each day?
These are all good questions, but there is no answer in the law for them. Neither state nor federal law requires employers to give paid holidays, so whatever is provided is determined by the employer’s policy. Employers need to make sure that their paid holiday policies take into consideration all the varying work schedules that their employees have. Employers should consider whether holidays will be paid to individuals who are not normally scheduled to work the day of the holiday and how much holiday pay is given to people whose normal work schedule would result in missing more or less than a standard eight-hour day. Policies also should consider the availability of holiday pay to new employees, the possibility of abuse by an employee who may call in “sick” the day before or the day after the holiday, and alternative benefits for employees who are required to work on the holiday.