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Recent Update to Personal Time Off Policy
Recently, the Chancellor announced the granting of a fifth personal day for full-time employees (this includes both staff as well as residential faculty) to celebrate cultural heritage and diversity. The availability of a fifth personal day will become effective on January 1, 2024. The Staff Policy Manual (SPM) and the Residential Faculty Agreement (RFA) will be updated accordingly to reflect this change.
Personal Time Off Policy Details
Personal Time Off was designed to allow eligible employees to use part of their sick leave balance in each calendar year for personal reasons outlined in the policy. For calendar year 2023, full-time staff and residential faculty could use up to four (4) days of their sick leave for personal reasons. (The actual amount of hours constituting a day differs based on employment category, so see either Staff Policy Manual B-6 or Residential Faculty Agreement 12.2 for the hourly amounts due to you.) As of January 1, 2024, You may use up to five (5) days of your sick leave for personal reasons outlined in the policy. Since this time comes from your sick leave balance, you must have sufficient accrued sick leave available in order to use Personal Time Off. Personal Time Off does not require approval. This means that, although you must still request the absence request in HCM, the absence request will be automatically approved. Employees requiring personal time off should notify the employee’s immediate supervisor or other designated contact person/phone number as soon as possible. Your Personal leave balance, shown at the bottom right corner of your pay stub, does not accumulate from year to year. It is time that you may use that comes from your sick leave balance; thus, your sick leave balance will decrease at the same time that your Personal Time Off absence request is processed. In addition, if you submit a Personal Time Off absence request and do not have enough sick time to cover the amount you are submitting, whatever is not covered from your sick leave balance will be indicated on your pay stub as "Leave without pay," and your paycheck will be short by that amount.
When the new calendar year starts, the available personal leave balance resets and you may use up to five (5) days of your sick leave for personal reasons in the new year. Since personal time is still dependent on how many hours you have available in your sick leave balance, the amount reset at the beginning of each new year can vary. For example if you only have 8 hours of sick available on January 1, you would only be granted 8 hours of personal time as of that date. As your sick leave balance accrues, your personal leave balance will accrue until you reach your five (5) day total in both. Your Personal leave balance is not a separate bucket of time but simply reflects the number of hours of sick time that you are permitted to use, or have used, for personal reasons throughout the calendar year. More details can be found in the respective policies links below.
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