More Companies Allow Workers to Buy and Sell Vacation Time

A new survey showed that more companies are looking at their employee’s vacation time differently. The poll made by the Society for Human Resource Management indicated more employers changed the way they see their workers’ vacations. 9 percent of companies give their workers the option of buying more vacation time from their co-worker or selling their own. Five percent of companies allow workers to purchase more vacation time via payroll deduction. Vacation

Now workers can sell their vacation time for extra cash. People who want to have extended vacation time can buy more days from a co-worker. But there are people who think the idea will not work in the nation’s culture because most Americans are overworked. They believe that everybody deserves some time off.

Seven out of 10 companies allow workers to donate vacation time to a general pool that can be used by others. Companies use this option so that they can make sure that there’s somebody working on any given day.

The survey by the Society for Human Resource Management found out that workers in one of 10 companies can cash-out their unused vacation time.

One of the companies that allow all of its 9,000 workers to buy and sell vacation time is the USG Corp of Chicago. The company allow up to a week of vacation time to be bought or sold each year per employee.

Kimberly Clark has been using a flexible vacation program for 15 years. Around half of the company’s workers can buy five extra vacation days per year. The company said that its employees are not allowed to sell their vacation days but they can carry extra days over into the next year.

The number of companies with comprehensive plans that combine sick leave, personal days, and vacation time has increased from42 percent in 2009 to 52 percent in 2013. This is according to the Society for Human Resource Management.