What kind of benefits package does your job offer?

[wakemewhenitsover]

I'm considering a job where there are 19 personal days off per year, but no 401k, and you pick your own medical plan (the company pays for it). What is considered a good amount of vacation time per year?

I've been self-employed, so I have no basis of comparison, and I would love any feedback regarding what
a really good company offers.

If you're employed by a company that has decent benefits and could give me some sense of what to expect benefit-wise if I keep looking, especially regarding vacations, I'd really appreciate it.

[opiate69]

1. Probably not gonna get too many serious replies tonight, but I'll chime in..

19 personal days sounds good.. no 401k kinda sucks, but if you'll be making enough to start your own retirement account then no biggie.. I think 2 weeks vacation after 1 year is standard, with some good companies adding a week each successive year. And defnitely look for good medical/dental.. my company's dental pays a whopping $1000 per year.. I need one root canal done, and that wipes out my entire year's benefits..

[wakemewhenitsover]

3. As if a root canal isn't painful enough. Thanks for filling me in... npi.

[EstimatedProphet]

2. I do have a 401K but not much PTO

4hrs a pay period, so if I get sick I'm screwn.

[wakemewhenitsover]

4. How much does the pto average per year? Thanks.

[EstimatedProphet]

6. It works out to 13 days per year. That's sick leave/vacation.

[wakemewhenitsover]

7. Any idea what the so-called "best companies to work for" offer?

[Omphaloskepsis]

8. It varies..

[EstimatedProphet]

10. Nope

Mine is supposed to be pretty good though.

[wakemewhenitsover]

11. Are days like Christmas and Thanksgiving additional?

[EstimatedProphet]

13. Yeah. they are

6 holidays, 4 floating holidays

[wakemewhenitsover]

26. If you have 19 personal days, do you need to subtract...

...one for Xmas and one for Thanksgiving, or are legal holidays excluded from your personal days?

[Omphaloskepsis]

5. What is your occupation..?

The accountant at a large firm is going to get more than a guy slinging coffee. What is the job?

[wakemewhenitsover]

9. I've been scouring the net, looking...

for average vacation time for a sales job, which this is, and I can find nothing. I've checked all the job websites, and it's frustratingly hard to find a chart of comparisons from company to company. I guess they like to keep this stuff confidential.

[grace0418]

12. We get 15 pto days per year for the first 5 years. After that, 20 per year. I personally

think that sucks shit. Before I hit my five year anniversary, every vacation I took had at least one unpaid day tacked onto it so I could stretch out the days enough over the year. People come in sick all the time because they don't want to waste their precious few pto on being sick. Which of course gets everyone else sick. But who can blame them? Especially those with little kids. My one friend is a single mom and just the number of days her daughter gets off of school during the school year are enough to use up all her pto. Forget taking a vacation or having a sick day or a personal day.

[wakemewhenitsover]

27. Do pto days include Xmas and Thanksgiving?

[grace0418]

34. No, thankfully. We do get Thanksgiving, Xmas, New Years Day, July 4, etc. off.

I would be really pissed if I had to use pto for those days. I guess my feeling is that, when you're salaried, you don't get paid overtime. Most people end up working lots of extra hours at least part of the year (at least everywhere I've ever worked). So the least the company can do is give you paid time off in amounts meaningful enough to really feel like you can recharge.

[leftofthedial]

14. zip

nada

nil

I haven't had a "real" job in a over two years now. Been working numerous small, part-time, temporary gigs, trying to nurse my life savings until I can get a job with an actual living wage.

It worked for a couple of years, but the string is pretty much played out now.

[dropkickpa]

15. I get

10 vacation days, 2 personal days, 1 sick day a month, and 10 paid holidays from the university and all of the business days between dec 26 and Dec 31 from my department (this varies due to the calendar). After 5 years, vacation goes up to 15 days. It usually works out to something like 24 paid days off a year just with vacation and holidays. We also have comp time for hours worked between 37.5 and 40 per week, can take it in the pay check of have the option of using it to not be at work (leave early, go to appt and come back, etc).

My dental, according to my dentists office and my experience, is insanely good. Vision plan pay for 1 exam a year, $60 towards frames, and 100% of the cost for regular lenses (if you want special coatings, you gotta pay for 'em at a discounted price), contacts $75 towards a year supply. Our health insurance is incredibly cheap and good (I pay $118 to cover myself and Dropkid after the university kicks in their share). Prescrioptions, well, not great but not the worst I've seen, and we have to option to mail order a 3 month supply at the cost of two months.

[billyskank]

16. 22 days vacation a year rising to 27 maximum

1 extra day a year per full calendar year worked. We have a defined-contribution pension scheme too (the defined-benefit a.ka. final salary scheme closed a while ago) but I am not sure these things are actually good value at all.

[Kajsa]

17. NONE- Zip, Nada.

Substitute teachers don't count.

But---

Our job is " so important and fulfilling a vital function".

Sounds great, let's see the appreciation
in benefits.

I would love the find out how we could form a Union
or if there is one for us!

[BelleCarolinaPeridot]

18. 36 paid vacation days per year , 401K Program and I pick my own medical and dental plans ...

[wakemewhenitsover]

28. Wow, sounds great. May I ask what sort of job that is?

[BelleCarolinaPeridot]

38. I try to remain anonymous because there are crazy people who troll this board ...

and they collect information because they have no life. I work at a service center that's all I will say.

[wakemewhenitsover]

39. I understand. Thanks for the info.

[femmocrat]

19. Teaching has terrific benefits:

Summers and holidays off, 10 sick days and 3 personal days per year. The personal days roll over into sick days if not used. And you can "cash in" your sick days when you retire. We have excellent retirement plans (ours is part of the state retirement system).

Plus, we get health care, prescriptions, vision, and dental. Those all have co-pays now, but are still very generous compared to a lot of plans. Add in some insurance (life, disability, etc.) and tuition reimbursement. I don't know what other professions offer, but I don't think too many offer better benefits than teaching. (And if you can handle the stress for 9 1/2 - 10 months a year, we deserve every penny of it!)

[flvegan]

20. 15 days PTO, 401k w/matching, full medical/dental/eye

health and diability insurance.

Not too shabby. To me, right now, PTO doesn't matter much. I rarely take time off, though I will in a couple months for the first time in a number of years.

[philosophie_en_rose]

21. It depends on the industry, but that seems minimally okay.

You can start your own 401K. The health insurance seems good. 19 personal days seems a bit low, but manageable.

Again, it depends on your industry and location.

[fizzgig]

22. when i started my job

i had 10 days vacation, five sick days and three personal days. i now have 15 vacation days, seven (i think) sick days and three personal days. we also get five paid holidays (although we do have a rotating schedule of who works those holidays).

i also have a 401k and my health insurance is fairly inexpensive.

[lizerdbits]

23. I earn about 3.3hrs of leave every 2 weeks

but after 5 years it goes up. I think each year we all start out with 40 hours of sick leave (we have vacation and sick separate). I like having a 401(k) because if it's never in my checking account I can't spend it. Otherwise I'd say every pay period 'I'll just spend it THIS TIME and then next pay period I'll put some in.' If you're more disciplined than I am you could just have a separate retirement account.
I also have free life insurance (not sure of the dollar amount, I think it's $100,000) and increased coverage is available but I don't pay for that since I don't have anyone financially dependent on me. I also signed up for long term disability which is about $3 per 2 weeks from my check. My health benefits are about $100 a month for myself and I only had one plan available. Dental and vision are I think about $20 a month total but I haven't used either one yet (been there since October) so I don't know all the loopholes in the plan they use to avoid paying.
My previous company's benefits were better in terms of what I paid for health insurance (about $50 a month) and a choice of several plans but that plus the higher salary wasn't worth the mental torture of working there.

[wakemewhenitsover]

29. If you're given the choice of stock options, which is better...

...stock options or $10,000 per year salary?

[lizerdbits]

31. Well I work at a private non profit now

But if it were public I'd be tempted to go for the extra salary. Not sure if it's the immediate satisfaction or not wanting to risk the company tanking. Where I was before the company was purchased and subsequently destroyed by incompetent six sigma people who thought you can run a scientific company like an assembly line, then sold for half the price originally paid to a private equity group. I'm really glad I didn't do any stock options there.

[wakemewhenitsover]

32. Interesting. I feel the same way about stock options.

[skygazer]

24. I consider my benefits package to be pretty good

I get three weeks paid vacation (it goes up over time so eventually I get five weeks) plus 7 paid holidays and 3 floaters. I'm not sure how much sick leave I get because I've never used all of it but I think it's 3 weeks worth. Plus a 401K (unfortunately not matched by the company) and a good medical package for which I don't have to contribute. I really can't complain about my benefits.

[NewWaveChick1981]

25. I work for a nonprofit liberal arts college, and in my experience,

colleges like this offer good-to-excellent benefits packages. :) Every school I've worked for in the past 21 years has had similar benefits. I get paid health insurance, 15 vacation days, 12 sick days (three of them can be used for personal days), and 14 holidays a year. I also get TIAA-CREF retirement, which means my employer matches my contributions. I get dental insurance if I pay for it, but it's $24 a month for me ($48 a month because I carry my husband on the dental plan too). The school gives me a life insurance policy worth two times my salary, and they pay for short- and long-term disability insurance. Also, anyone in my immediate family (this means my husband, and if we had kids it would mean them too) can take classes for free. One nice thing about how they do things is that they reduce the operating hours in the summer from 8 AM - 5 PM to 9 AM - 4 PM while still maintaining full pay for everyone. We get discounts on car, life, and homeowner's insurance, and we can use the on-campus fitness facilities for free.

I worked for a bank from Oct. 2005 to Dec. 2006, and they had 20 days of PTO a year and all Federal holidays paid. They had 401(k) plans and excellent insurance as well as educational reimbursement for the employee.

[wakemewhenitsover]

30. Thanks for the info. Know anything about stock options?

[LibraLiz1973]

33. Heres my deal

15 vacation days per year
15 sick days per year (you can accrue them up to 30 so I start every year with 30)
3 Personal Days per year
10 Holidays Per Year
4 Floating Holidays per Year

I have a 457k (I work for a Municipality) that they contribute a certain percentage of my salary to & I also contribute

And I have full coverage for benefits via Personal Choice that I pay nothing into.

[Fox Mulder]

35. I have good health and dental, but my vacation days are lacking.

This year, I get a whole four days of paid vacation! :eyes:

[Robb]

36. A pool pass.

Seriously. My boss at first joked he would provide quarters to play pool at the local bar, then explained I could have an annual pass to the pool.

Plus, all the vacation days I want, provided things are taken care of at the office and I don't expect to get paid for them. :D

Ah, rural life.

[SPKrazy]

37. no 401 K, hmmm

as for vacation, are the personal days included or is that separate/

if the salary is more than you'd get somewhere that you had a 401 K, then you might consider it and set up your own retirement plan

if the company pays 100% of your medical plan that's pretty good, but look at what you get for choices carefully, what looks good may have outrageous deductibles, and what looks like it is terrible might be practically nothing out of pocket.

vacation time varies, but ideally i'd want at least 20 days a year, and more if they are trying to lump in holidays in that too.

and sick time is important, short term and long term disability, other benefits as well.

fitness centers, discounts on things, etc.

[NewJeffCT]

40. My wife has a very good benefits package

Mine sucks.

I think for our daughter, plus the two of us, she pays about $75 per paycheck for dental and a good blue cross health plan. In her previous job, she was paying over $200 per paycheck for a not quite as good health plan and a not quite as good dental plan. (We calculated the savings as a little over $150 per paycheck, or a bit over $4,000 per year)

Her company also matches 100% of up to 4% of her salary investment in her 401k, and the company has a fully-funded pension plan as well. (actually, over-funded, believe it or not)

Her vacation package is only so-so: I think she gets 10 vacation days and 3 or 4 personal days, but they do have a dozen or so company holidays (they get two days off for Labor Day, for example) - however, she does get an unlimited amount of sick time, though I'm sure they would not let an employee abuse it. Most of my jobs have "paid time off" - which combines sick time and vacation time into one.

[TZ]

41. My last job had the best benefits

All the government holiday and about 3 weeks per year of PTO (includes sick days and such) with 401K and a pretty good medical plan (if a little pricier than I had encountered before) oh and great salary too (it was about $11,000 per year more than my previous job). Of course that's a government contractor and they do tend to be very good to their employees but the benefits were about what many in the life sciences (biotech specifically) tend to offer.

[RebelOne]

42. My company offers a fantastic benefit package.

I have 4 weeks of vacation time, 10 days sick time and 3 personal days per year. Plus, all national holidays. The medical plan is great, too. I have medical coverage, life insurance, dental and eye insurance and pay under $100 a month.