Do you have a mandatory 5 or 10 consecutive day vacation leave requirement? How well is it enforced? What do you do to employees that refuse to take the leave?

Every job I have held in this industry over the past 30 years has and we never questioned it. We understood that our health and well being was important and that the financial institution needs to have us out of the office periodically for obvious security/audit reasons. It was policy and you followed it.

I know, hand them a pink slip.

My current bank does not have such a policy. I've been in banking for over 20 years and have never worked for a bank that did have such a policy.

Most employees at my current bank do take at least one full week per year, even without a policy. However, there are always special circumstances and the bank is willing to be flexible by using other methods to ensure proper controls.

We have an employee with only two weeks of vacation per year. Her family supports an elderly uncle. Since FMLA and the bank's sick leave policy don't apply to aunts & uncles, this employee must use vacation time for his medical issues. If she were forced to take five or ten vacation days consecutively, she would have to take unpaid leave for his medical issues. Not a great way to treat a valued employee in my opinion.

Basket Lady, don't know how your employers got around this. Our examiners look at it every time they're here. We recently got it approved to change to five consecutive days rather than six.This thread discusses it and my post on it links to another thread.

To the original poster, it should be in your employee handbook. Most people get 2 weeks a year so there's enough to take a week and still have single days left to use here and there.

1 credit union, and 2 banks in 14 years....never heard of these rules, or had any examiners mention lack of them, until I started checking out this site.

Our initial policy was to take 10 consecutive days. This has recently been revised to 5 consecutive days AND duties reassigned.

There is no issue with employees as most want to take a week and the regulators are satisfied due to the reassignment of duties.

Enforcement is simply having it in the policy book. One bank I worked for required vacations be complete by November 15th. The deparment manager was responsible for tracking vacation and working with the employee to schedule it by Nov 15 if a request hadn't been made by October 1.

My bank is flexible by using other methods to ensure proper controls. Most employees take at least a week of leave at a time. Supervisors are responsible for monitoring and will temporary reassign or alter duties for the few who can't. It has the same effect which is probably why we haven't been criticized (knock on wood).

We require employees to take one vacation week in consecutive days, and the rest may be taken however they choose (subject to supervisor approval). Most of our employees only get 2 weeks, and the maximum is 3 weeks.

In special circumstances, an exception to the 5 consecutive day rule may be allowed. To my knowledge, no examiner has ever criticized or even commented on our practice.

You are lucky. Ours makes us take 10 days, even for the staff that only gets 2 weeks vacation, they have to take all 10 at one time. I think it stinks. I wouldn't mind 5 but some get NO other vacation other than their 2 weeks!

I am surprised to hear there are examiners still out there who require 10 consecutive days. It was a common exam question about 15 years ago but I don't recall an examiner requiring it in the last 10 years. Where I work, we are required to be away from our duties for 5 consecutive work days. So if a person goes to a 3 day seminar and takes the next 2 days off, that counts.

We just require that the employee be 'out of her/his normal job' for 5 consecutive days. This can be accomplished by having workers swap jobs, go to school/training for a week, or vacation.

I have only worked at 2 banks, but both required the 5 day vacation policy. This is simply because if an employee is committing fraud, having 5 consecutive days of not being at work may trigger a discovery of the fraudster. Most people who commit fraud never like to take time off of work.

Employees here are required to take two consective weeks of vacation time. There is an exception that the Board of Directors may waive such a requirement (down to one week), but the waiver can't occur for two consecutive years. The employee must address a letter to the Board requesting a "split" vacation and approval will be noted in the Board minutes.