First, I think any employee should be able to take off 4 weeks per year of unpaid vacation. Beyond that it should be negotiable. I've always been of the opinion that everything you get including your salary is part of a compensation package. Let's say you have a job that pays $208,000 per year. Every week of vacation costs the employee $4,000. So, 4 weeks of vacation would be $16,000 of his salary. In reality it would be far less than $16K as a good part of it would have been paid in federal and state (maybe) income taxes. Dose the employee want health insurance? We have a real nice group healthcare plan that you can buy with pretax dollars for $10,000. So, we'll take $26,000 off your salary for healthcare and vacation time. Before you say I'm a cold cruel employer, has is it any different than offering the job for $182,000 and it comes with free healthcare and 4 weeks of paid vacation?
Frankly, the whole notion of paid sick leave, personal days, maternity leave, paid vacation, and any other excuse for being paid and not showing up for work is absurd. If you follow the simple notion that if an employee is not there, the boss has to pay someone else to do that job. An astute employer has to calculate that cost and factor it in when determining what the employee can be paid. IMO, it seems far more reasonable to tell an employee what time off costs, and let them take what they want. Have a friend who use to work for Dupont at the research facility. The Job came with 2 weeks of vacation. The employee could purchase 2 more weeks each year, simple and straight forward. Maybe I'm over estimating the intelligence of the average employee, but when the company says, "you've been with us 10 years, we're going to give you an extra 2 weeks of vacation this year". Maybe the employer should say it will cost us $8,000 to cover your position for the 2 weeks, would you prefer the money instead?
Ted