Paid time off and your business

Recently the City of Austin passed an ordinance concerning paid time off. I had a meeting with a friend of mine that runs an HR company. She told me that a lot of her clients were very upset about the new regulations, mainly because they didn't understand them. As she was talking, I was reminded of a conversation that my father had with my grandfather more than 30 years ago. My grandfather was lamenting about the sad state of affairs in this country. My father replied:"The players change, the game remains the same." It is the "job" of government to extract as much money as they can from business owners. It is the job of business owners to develop new tactics to remain profitable.

For those of you who may need a refresher, if you have an employee that does any kind of work in the city of Austin, you must provide 1 hour of paid time off for every 30 hours worked. If you have 15 employees or less, the number of accrued hours that can be accumulated is 48. Business over 15 employees are capped at 64 hours. Earned sick time carries over to the following year. However, an employer is not required to allow an employee to use more than the annual cap (either 48 or 64 hours, depending on employer size) per year. The ordinance does not apply to commissioned employees, interns, contractors, or any employees that work 80 hours a month or less.

Is this a game changer for your business? It doesn't have to be. When the legislature comes back into session, that PTO will be a high priority, and likely overturned. Even if it isn't, I believe that business owners will soon develop tactics that will lessen the impact. A good coach can help you come up with a strategy to deal with this and other contingencies that might arise in your business. Until then, keep in mind that the players change but the game remains the same.