Hi, this is more of a worker's rights question than anything and I'm not sure if I'll get the relevant answers here but I wanted to try and get some perspective.
My company sent out an e-mail today saying that salaried employees are eligible to switch to FTO (free time-off) vs the original PTO. FTO is, essentially, unlimited time off, but I wonder if this form of time-off compensation takes anything away from employees that the structure of PTO provides.
The e-mail says FTO employees will stop accruing PTO time and FTO employees no longer have to worry about the amount of hours they are taking off (as it is unlimited). I imagine this would obviously be within reason at the discretion of your manager.
They are saying they are moving to this because they trust salaried employees to get their work done (most salaried employees work from home and there isn't a ton of individual supervision) and because it helps to attract/retain talent in an industry where employees are poached by other companies often by being offered better benefits, higher salary, etc. Taking FTO, as far as I can tell, wouldn't change pay or anything like that, but I might need to read between the lines more on that.
They don't give out overtime for salaried employees anyways (who does?) but our contract states an 8-5 workday in your local time and I am very adamant about sticking to that, so I don't work 'free overtime' either.
My question really is if I should make the switch. Honestly, since I started working here, I never thought about running out of PTO, and my management team is very adamant that we take our PTO and don't let it max out (since once it's maxed it stops accruing) because they know the team morale is better when we actually do take our time off. I don't think I have ever ran out of PTO. Since I WFH, if I need to take a day off for something urgent and it's a slow week, I usually just stay connected on my phone and catch up the next day. I don't really have a large amount of meetings on the day to day so this is possible for me if I need it.
My worry with FTO is that it will become a weird company culture thing to not take large chunks of time off just because you are on the FTO plan, or they might use it as an excuse to get us to work more hours. I really like my where I work and the culture is good, but a big company is a big company at the end of the day. It isn't google or amazon big but it is a larger company, especially locally.
I am leaning towards switching because it wouldn't change much for me, and also allow me to take longer chunks of time off if I need it without having to worry about 'saving up' those hours. My industry is very much weighted in the favor of the employee over the company because talent and knowledge in my field is hard to find and it's very very easy to pivot to a different company that might pay you more or offer you better benefits
If anyone has experience being on FTO or knows how your rights as an employee change if your company pivots to it, let me know.