I hate working on my birthday. I always have. Year after year, I am tempted to take the day off but ultimately decide against it. It seems a bit self-indulgent and not a little unprofessional. Plus, when I was in a position where I had to request time off, I never knew what box to check- vacation? personal? “sick” (of working on my birthday)? There didn’t seem to be an appropriate category. So, every year I grumble through it, swearing the next year will be different.
When I went out on my own, I looked forward to the perk of taking my birthday off but was stuck in the mentality that it was not professional to do so. Convincing myself that the meeting was just too important to reschedule or that the speaking engagement was just too good to turn down, excuses rather than reasons.
I was just so concerned with the perception of it all. How would it sound to other people if I said, “I’m sorry I can’t, it’s my birthday”? So, every year I have continued to grumble my way through my working birthdays, including this one. This post will go up on my birthday, when I will be working as if it were any other day. Work I love doing, to be clear. But work I would rather not be doing on my birthday.
I need a new PTO policy.
Every organization I have ever worked for has had fairly consistent PTO policies. Two weeks vacation, two weeks sick, all federal holidays, maybe a personal day or a bereavement day here or there. I never did come across one that gave a day off for birthdays.
Some PTO I was able to access immediately, and others accrued over time. Sometimes I had to request it weeks ahead, other times just a few days. The policies varied slightly from place to place, and they were all unnecessarily restrictive, both in my role as an employee and in my role as a supervisor of other employees’ PTO. It remains one of the most absurd and least favorite job responsibilities I have ever had. Is a doctor’s note required for a 2-day absence or is it three? Do personal days need to be requested ahead of time? How much notice is needed for a vacation day?
These policies never made sense to me- not when I was told that my uncle’s death didn’t qualify as being worthy of bereavement, not when I was told I could use my personal day for any reason, no questions asked, but then was asked why I was requesting one, and not on the 1 day in 4 years that I called in sick and was asked if I had planned to be sick (yes, really) since that required a different code in the system.
What a colossal waste of time and energy.
In an attempt to get ahead of any possible situation, these policies have not only become burdensome on the administrative side, but they have also failed to meet the various and diverse needs of the employees they are ostensibly designed to serve. Employees trying to navigate dentist appointments, large service windows (“sometime between 8:00-5:00”), out of town funerals, unexpected jury duty (I just got called- again!), and yes, birthdays.
As a response to “the great resignation” of 2021, some companies are finally, albeit slowly trying to adjust and create more appealing PTO policies, providing options such as floating holidays and mental health days. This is a start and should be considered as such. There is much more we need to do.
A small number of companies- about 6%, SHRM found– have gone a step further by providing unlimited PTO, a perk that is as appealing in theory as it is complicated in practice. Some studies have shown great benefit to this and other studies have shown that employees in companies with unlimited PTO actually take less time off than those in companies without it.
There are several reasons for the different results, almost all of which can be attributed to company culture. Companies with a strong, positive culture have strong, positive policies- PTO or otherwise- that benefit staff in practice as well as on paper. Companies with a weak, negative culture may have positive policies on paper but neglect the practice part. The implementation- like with all policies- determines its impact.
What impact does your organization’s PTO policies have on your staff? What impact does it have on you? Where is there opportunity to make it better?
Not everyone wants to take their birthday off, but everybody should have the chance to if they want. This can be accomplished easily by simply providing PTO and an ample amount of it (we all know how far behind we are the rest of the world in the amount of PTO we get, right?) No designations, no asterisks, no fine print. Staff get time off sans categories to use as they see fit to accommodate their unique needs and lives like the professionals and adults that they are.
Organizations and their managers are absolved from the arbitrary responsibility of having to decide what is worthy of time off and what is not, whose death is deemed mourn-worthy and whose is not, what constitutes being sick and what does not.
Employees have the agency to determine this for themselves by simply taking time off when they need to take time off for any reason whatsoever, reasons that never have been and never should be the company’s business. This not only makes life easier for staff, it also frees up administrative time for management while creating a culture of trust within a work environment that supports its employees.
I am not taking my birthday off this year. But I am going to next year. It is already blocked off in my calendar as an annual recurring appointment with no Outlook end date selected. It took me nearly five years to feel comfortable doing this, stuck in a bureaucratic mindset of what is considered a valid excuse to miss work. It should not have taken me 5 years to get here. I should not have had to go out on my own to make this happen for myself. I should have been able to and I should continue to be able to take off any day I want for any reason I want, and you and your staff should too. I hope that you do.
