I have been working at company B for almost 2 years now. At my previous place of employment, company A, we were offered unlimited PTO and I organized a three week trip to Europe for that upcoming summer. I was looking to leave that job for various reasons and received an offer from company B. Company B’s offer included a standard 15 days PTO. Since I was fortunate enough to be in a stable position at company A, I was transparent with Company B about my upcoming trip and asked if I could have more PTO days than the customary 15 to accommodate this.
They were more than happy to accommodate, offering me 5 extra days per year plus 3 days just for that year. So 23 days just in 2021 and 20 days in 2022, 2023, etc. These negotiations happened in writing, over email and the hiring agent said that rather than putting it in my contract (because of “logistics”), her emails would be my proof of the negotiated benefits.
During my time at company B, my time off in the computer system has been in the negatives ever since I took that vacation two years ago. I knew that my negotiated days were never inserted into their system, but it didn’t matter much to me and no one had reached out to me about the negative days being an issue. I knew I had proof of my extra days should I need it.
Well flash forward to now, if we have 5 days left over from 2023 (fiscal year) we can roll them over until September or they will disappear. I haven’t even taken the standard 15 days in 2023 and am still in the negatives so I knew this was the time to reach out.
I reached out to HR with the receipts about having 20 days per year negotiated into my contract. Their response was “I am pleased to inform you that we will be overriding your vacation roll over to five days. However, we won’t be able to allow the 20 days as 15 is our standard accrual rate for your job level and tenure”
This is a straight up breach of what I negotiated when I was hired. I am seeing now that I should’ve insisted this info be written into my contract.
I am glad to get the 5 rollover days dont get me wrong, but the five extra days a year was a huge pull to me accepting this job in the first place. I feel deceived and lied to. It doesn’t help that my hiring agent no longer works at the company. I havent replied back to HR yet.