STYLETHREAD -- LET'S TALK SHOP!

kenzie · Chanel

Company Benefits

Elle · Hermes

I'd say that sounds about right for a mid-sized company. All the places I've worked (or FH has worked) have had vision and dental as an add-on insurance that you pay for monthly. At his new job, we've opted out of vision insurance because it costs $50 a month and I'm the only one who'd be using it. It's actually less expensive to pay for an exam and new glasses out of pocket for us.

I think that pretty much any workplace that isn't government/state run has bad paid holidays. As for vacation days, IMO it depends on how big the company is as well as how far up your position ranks. I've never gotten paid vacation days anywhere I've ever worked. FH gets them now (he accrues based on how many hours he works) but he also works for one of the largest medical employers on the west coast ...

kenzie · Chanel

Elle wrote:

I'd say that sounds about right for a mid-sized company. All the places I've worked (or FH has worked) have had vision and dental as an add-on insurance that you pay for monthly. At his new job, we've opted out of vision insurance because it costs $50 a month and I'm the only one who'd be using it. It's actually less expensive to pay for an exam and new glasses out of pocket for us. I think that pretty much any workplace that isn't government/state run has bad paid holidays. As for vacation days, IMO it depends on how big the company is as well as how far up your position ranks. I've never gotten paid vacation days anywhere I've ever worked. FH gets them now (he accrues based on how many hours he works) but he also works for one of the largest medical employers on the west coast ...

Hmmm....I guess I'm comparing it to the company I worked at just before (which was actually smaller) and everyone in the company got 24 vacation days and tons of paid holidays. For example, not only did we have off July 4th, but we had off the Friday preceding the Monday of July 4th (since it was a Monday last year).

As for never having paid vacation days-- I've never worked anywhere that I didn't have them. That's unbelievable to me that you never had them! And it sucks! Even when I was a server, I could rack up paid vacation if I worked enough. And I've also never worked anywhere that higher positions get more time off. It was pretty much company policy (as per the handbooks) that every had the same amount of time. The only differentiation was length of employment (which is a no-brainer).

After I hit the year mark, I'll get two weeks paid vacation (and I actually think that they may have changed it to one week at 6 months, too, but I'm not sure). But I can also roll over my vacation time up to two weeks.

Oh, and I should add, I've never worked for any kind of state/government office. These were all regular companies.

Elle · Hermes

24 paid vacation days sounds like a fabulous exception, instead of the standard (although it really should be the standard!).

When I was teaching dance, you didn't come in you didn't get paid. No ifs ands or buts - they had to pay someone to teach in your place instead.

When I was working in an accounting firm (and when I was working in a construction office, actually) the accountants (or project managers, in const.) got much more time off or worked on salary and could come and go as they pleased. The admin/support staff stayed on the 'no work, no pay' system. In both of those places we (I say 'we', but as the receptionist I was the only one who actually stayed until the bitter end, because I was required to) worked an entire day on Christmas Eve.

Actually at the accounting firm I did accrue vacation, but only after I'd been there a year. And they didn't keep any admin person a year. I myself was fired after 10 months for 'not being happy there' before I got to the point where I would have been allowed to take the vacation I'd accrued!

Paid holidays also depends on your industry methinks - if it's heavily customer service oriented and you're working directly with the public, you probably get fewer holidays than a place who works mostly with other companies/vendors in the field. The places I worked in, we had to be as available to our customers/clients as possible which translated into minimal time away from the office.

Aurora · Marc Jacobs

I accrue 10 hours of vacation pay each month. After my second year with the company that will go up to 14.7 hours (or some fraction of an hour). We are allowed to go "negative" with vacation days so long as by the end of the year it evens out so technically I started with 3 weeks of paid vacation. I think we get 10 holidays and then 2 floating holidays to take when ever we want (all paid) and then what ever holidays the firm gives us which is usually the days inbetween a holiday and the weekend such as the monday before the 4th and then the thursday after turkey day. Oh and we usually get the week between christmas and new years off too (paid). A huge firm-wide study (all US branches) was conducted last year before I started and the consensus was that people would rather more vacation/holidays than higher bonus pay (we still get bonuses) which I agree with so the firm is trying to take that in consideration and has started the christmas - new years holiday week off for us.

As far as medical/dental/vision I would say I have a decent plan. ~$100 month for all three for me and it covers pretty much everything. We also have some type of free physical offered to us this year the firm is paying for (probably to figure out stress levels in all of us) so I'll probably schedule that for some time in September or October when I have a minute to breathe.

401k isn't bad for us. They match up to 6% of our pay and then we have a separate account that they put money in for us. I just hate that 5 year vesting rule because it is tough for people to make it in my company. So I'm keeping my fingers crossed I can survive that long.

Kitty · Hermes

Here's what I get:

3 weeks of vacation (rolls over if you don't use them)
12 sick days a year (roll over if you don't use them)
3 personal days (don't roll over)
11 paid holidays

- 403b (this is the non-profit version of 401k) my employer contributes 5% no matter what and matches up to 5% on top of that - so total 10% contribution
- Health insurance
- Dental insurance
- express scripts (this is some type of prescription insurance)
- vision insurance (you get one eye exam a year and one set of frames equally $150)
- $800 for training (per year)
- $5000 tuition reibursement if you enter into a master's degree program (per year)

-- Edited by Kitty at 15:33, 2006-07-15

lynnie · Chanel

just to clarify- does 3 weeks vacation mean 21 days or 15 days?

I dont get any paid holidays- they gave me fourth of july off though, and i'm going to push for christmas and thanksgiving day themselves off, maybe labor day too. I would love to have maybe 5 or 6 paid holidays a year. I do though get 28 days of vacation a year- which is fabulous- if i had some holidays off too. sucks that i have to hoard days for christmas and thanksgiving- i feel like i couldn't work those if i wanted to- no one else would be in and my fam would kill me.

i dont get any health benefits or 401K or anything.

cc · Marc Jacobs

My company has about 4500 employees in the US. Our benefits are:

-24 vacation days after the first year. I can't remember how many days they give people in the first year but after 15 years you get an additional 5 days.
-5 unscheduled days (sick or personal time)
-usual holidays off (New Year's, Christmas, Thanksgiving, Memorial, Independence and Labor days etc. )
-2-3 floating holidays (Veteran's, Columbus days etc.)

-up to 6% of our annual salary matched in a savings/retirement plan. We can request to withdraw money from it and the only penalty is that the company won't add money for a period of 6 months. In certain situations like if you are buying a home you can apply for a "hardship withdrawal" and there will be no penalty.
-some kind of small pension. I've never really looked into it so I'm not sure what the particulars are.
-We have to put money in for insurance. How much depends on age, size of family, time at the company. We can choose from a few different health and dental plans. I have the basic HMO plan for both and haven't had any problems with the coverage. There is also a vision plan and I don't know if it just sucks or if my doctor screwed up because I wound up paying a lot of money the last time I had an exam.
-optional things like discounted transit cards paid for with pre-tax deductions, flexible savings accounts for health care use
-tuition reimbursement - 100% of directly job-related course costs, 50% of costs for classes that are somewhat related. There is a cap though, so my grad school tuition wasn't totally covered.

Kitty · Hermes

lynnie wrote:

just to clarify- does 3 weeks vacation mean 21 days or 15 days?

It's 15 days the first 2 or three years (I can't remember) and then it goes up every year after that. I've only been at my company for 1.5 years, so its 15 days.

We also shut down for two weeks in December - but its unpaid.

erin · Chanel

where i was working had the shittiest health care/vacation/etc i've ever seen.

thankfully, my husband has good health insurance, so i didn't have to use it..but the vacation pay was like this: your first year, you get 30% of what you would approximately make in a week, second year 40%, etc. it was seriously a joke. no paid holidays, and when you did work holidays, you didn't get time and a half.

a coworker and i used to joke that we were "volunteers" instead of employees.

Aurora · Marc Jacobs

for us 3 weeks of vacation= 15 working days.

We also get unlimited sick days during the year within reason but if its more than a certain amount in a row (I think more than 5 days out in a row) it turns into short term disability time I think except with maturnity leave.

Kitty · Hermes

erin wrote:

where i was working had the shittiest health care/vacation/etc i've ever seen.

thankfully, my husband has good health insurance, so i didn't have to use it..but the vacation pay was like this: your first year, you get 30% of what you would approximately make in a week, second year 40%, etc. it was seriously a joke. no paid holidays, and when you did work holidays, you didn't get time and a half.

a coworker and i used to joke that we were "volunteers" instead of employees.

That's how it was at my last job, it sucked. We only got three sick days a year. I had a HORRIBLE flu thing one year and I used all my sick time on that - so then I had none left for doctors appointments, dentist appointments, or any other time I didn't feel well. It was ridiculous.

We also only like 10 days vacation and we had to work on Christmas Eve.

erin · Chanel

yeah i worked xmas eve + new year's eve two years in a row, which is why i took leave in the middle of december.

my boss was like "you'll be back!" and i thought, "to hair, sure. to this rathole? i don't think so." (cue to probably a year from now when i go back there begrudgingly)

NCshopper · Hermes

At my company, the first six months, you get 1/2 a day of vacation a month, until your sixth month when you get 10 days. After your first year, we get 12 vacation days, then the second year, we get 15. Every employee gets 2 personal days. We have a fairly generous paid holiday schedule: 3 days for Thanksgiving and Christmas, one day each for New Years, MLK, Good Friday, Memorial Day, 4th of July, Labor Day and maybe 1 or 2 more I'm forgetting.

Our retirement benefits suck. We're not eligible for a 401(k) until we've been there three years.

As far as health benefits go, my employer pays 100% of the premium, including eyes and dental and the employees cover the copay.

We have less than a dozen employees, which probably explains why we're able to get such a good health policy.

I think the bottom line is that benefits definitely vary from company to company due to a variety of factors.

kenzie · Chanel

NCshopper wrote:

I think the bottom line is that benefits definitely vary from company to company due to a variety of factors.

I agree, but I'm just trying to get a general idea of what else is out there and how my company compares.

Dizzy · Marc Jacobs

Um, yeah, that sounds about right. And from what I've read, the trend is toward taking the cost off businesses and putting it on the "consumer" even more - like healthcare is a luxury that people shouldn't overuse. It's partly because we have to compete in a global marketplace with companies overseas that don't pay benefits, and partly because healthcare costs have risen 73 percent in the last five years!

At my last employer, they changed the healthcare plan three times in five years, trying to lower costs. And it got worse every time. By the end, I didn't have vision or dental, and had a 30 percent copay sort of thing no matter what.

And I had 10 days of "personal days" that I could use as a vacation, but that was all the time off we had, so if you actually took a vacation, and then got sick, you were screwed.

-- Edited by Dizzy at 17:10, 2006-07-15

Lilykind · Hermes

I work for a mid-sized established company, but we're growing like crazy.

Health insurance: You have 6 options for healthcare (4 HMO, 2 PPO). I pay $200 a month to have the PPO (Blue Cross). I haven't seen any docs yet though.

Dental insurance: 3 choices (2 HMO, 1 PPO). Again, I chose the PPO (CIGNA). I got to see a dentist who was strongly recommended to me by a lot of friends, he was great, and my checkup was completely covered. I pay about $40 a month for this.

Vision: VSP is free. We get one exam a year, and $120 towards glasses or contacts every 2 years (I think...)

401k - you have to be 21 to contribute, but company will match 25% of your contribution, 33% if you've been working 8-12 yrs, and 50% if you've been working 13 yrs. or longer, as long as your contribution is under 15k.

Vacation/sick days: We have 16 paid vacation/sick days. However, my boss is wonderful and if there's a break in between shows, she'll totally let a lead accountant take a vacation and not tell HR.

-- Edited by Lilykind at 02:41, 2006-07-16

halleybird · Hermes

I have a crappy salary but the benefits are OK. We get a lot of paid holidays, plus 2 weeks at Christmas and 1 week in the spring. Medical, dental and vision are all paid for, but the medical insurance isn't fantastic, so I pay a little more for that. We get 4 personal days and 8 sick days per year. BUT we have no 401k (can't b/c it's a state agency) and miniscule raises (if at all). No paid maternity leave, either.

My husband gets very few holidays (I think he only gets July 4, Labor Day, Christmas, New Year's Day and Memorial Day). His days off accumulate based on how many days he works. I think he gets 1.5 per 4 weeks or something like that. He does have a 401k that his employer matches, and they pay half of his medical/dental/vision. He works for a pretty large insurance provider.

-- Edited by halleybird at 01:52, 2006-07-16

kenzie · Chanel

halleybird, we don't get maternity leave either. It's called, use your ten days of vacation time.

-- Edited by kenzie at 09:33, 2006-07-16

Kitty · Hermes

kenzie wrote:

halleybird, we don't get maternity leave either. It's called, use your ten days of vacation time. -- Edited by kenzie at 09:33, 2006-07-16

Wow, that's awful :(