My employer provides us 4 hours of volunteer PTO each year, and in previous years there was no expectation that those hours have to be used. This year my department made volunteer work one of our yearly operational goals and my manager has notified our team multiple times about volunteer opportunities, reminding us that is one of our goals. The volunteer work must be for a non-profit and approved in advance by our manager, and would replace 4 hours of standard work so that we do not go overtime. We would also get paid by our company the same amount as our normal hours.
When they notified us of this goal in the Spring, I already had a volunteer experience lined up, however it did not meet their non-profit requirement (it was volunteering to work at a convention) so it wasn't approved for VTO and I used PTO for it instead.
Today, after another reminder about this goal, I asked for clarification. I asked “if it is part of our department goals, does that make it mandatory for us to use our volunteer PTO?” The response from my manager was that it is not mandatory but “highly encouraged” since it is a department goal.
My thinking is that this implies that it is actually mandatory in all but using the word, and that it would be detrimental to the team's end of the year stats should we choose not to participate. If it is part of our goals then it isn't volunteer.
Am I way off base here or do I have a good argument?