How to Set a Workplace Vacation Policy Essay Example for Free

How to Set a Workplace Vacation Policy Essay A guide to structuring a vacation policy that sets the tone for your benefits package and keeps employees happy and motivated not to mention gives your company a competitive edge. Deciding what sort of vacation policy you want your company to have is an important step for any business owner in creating a comprehensive employee benefits package. Whether you want to create a system of rewards, or you are just trying to create a set of guidelines for time off, there are several ways that establishing a vacation policy can help contribute to your business functioning smoothly. The following guide will highlight the various options available for creating or improving a vacation policy. How to Set a Workplace Vacation Policy: Consider Legal Requirements Although vacation time seems like a standard occurrence in the American workforce, employers actually have no legal obligation to offer their employees any vacation time at all. However, the majority of business owners understand the health benefits of offering their employees vacation time, and they aim to set policies that fit their businesss operations. While time off for vacation is not federally enforced, employers are legally obligated to provide certain employees with up to 12 weeks of unpaid, job-protected leave each year under the Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA), a labor law which was passed in 1993. Employees that would qualify for this type of leave include persons that are caring for a sick family member, persons who must leave due to a serious health condition that prevents them from working, or persons that have to care for a new child, by birth, adoption or foster care. Dig Deeper: Regulation: Your Own FMLA Policy How to Set a Workplace Vacation Policy: What Are Your Priorities? According to Steve Kane, a human resources expert based out of Hillsborough, California, with more than 25 years of experience working with enterprise companies and start-up businesses, vacation time is simply one form of paid time off (PTO), and before you choose your vacation guidelines, you must begin with deciding what you want to accomplish. You have to put your [benefits] strategy into perspective, he says. Are you setting a vacation policy to create a rewards structure, to minimize costs, [or] to be competitive? Those are all worthy things, but they may lead to different conclusions. Traditional vacation policies, Kane says, have stemmed from policies established by labor union contracts, which will grant employees a certain amount of time off depending upon the length of time they have worked for the company. And, in addition to the yearly allotment of vacation time a company decides to grant employees, many businesses offer additional time off for personal days, sick days, and national or religious holidays, like New Years Day, Independence Day, and Christmas Day. An employer has the option of giving employees two weeks off for the first year, three weeks off after five years, and four weeks off for 10 or 15 years, Kane says. But, those are just some common schedules; some employees say two weeks for everyone. Accrued time off – additional sick days, PTO or vacation time that employees accumulate based on the length of time they have worked at a company – is also more prevalent now than it used to be. Rollover vacation days – unused vacation time from one calendar year that gets added onto next years allotment – may count as part of accrued time off, but it depends on the employer, Kane says: Some employers say you have to use your rollover days by March 30, or some date in the next year. Or, they will say you can accrue unused vacation time only up to so many hours, or for so many hours. One more factor to take into consideration when creating a vacation policy is to determine whether you feel that your business has key employees. If that is the case, you may want to construct separate policies to keep those employees satisfied for the good of the enterprise, Kane says. For instance, since many businesses have sales people who consistently bring money in, you may consider offering a vacation policy with a higher incentive to that group of people who are driving your business. However, if singling out groups of people within the company leaves other employees unsatisfied, you may be better off sticking to a universal policy. Dig Deeper: Benefits: Time Off You Can Bank On How to Set a Workplace Vacation Policy: Enforcing a Vacation Policy While time off from work is often viewed as an earned employee benefit, a whopping 66 percent of employees were found to have neglected to use all of their vacation time in 2009, according to a study released by Philadelphia-based career management consulting firm Right Management. So, what does an employer do when an employee neglects to take their days off? Kane says that many companies have a use it or lose it policy, which means that if an employee fails to use the vacation time they are entitled to in a given year, it becomes forfeited. Theoretically, doctors will tell you its good to take time off to regenerate, but that only way you can actually make [employees] take a vacation is just to tell them not to come into work, he says. Most vacation systems try to make that a part of the policy, but its enforced by the payroll department, rather than individual supervisors. An employer must also decide whether they want to include part-time employees in a vacation policy, or limit that option to full-time workers only. For some stores, their bread and butter are part-time employees, Kane says. I think its a general rule that employers whose workforce is part-time often [tell employees they] wont accrue vacation for working 20 hours a week or less. If an employee decides to abuse his or her vacation policy, however, the consequences can be dire, and may even result in termination. Typically, a companys human resources or payroll department will keep track of employee sick days and vacation days, and it will be up to them to report abuse to their manager or employer. Dig Deeper: Are Your Employees Scared to Take a Vacation? How to Set a Workplace Vacation Policy: Get Employee Input Vacation time is one aspect of the benefits package that will be difficult to alter once it has been established, so its best to ask your employees what they hope to gain from the policy before its set in stone. A big mistake that employers make in creating a policy, Kane says, is setting guidelines based on what they heard worked for another company, rather than focusing on the needs of their own business and employees. One thing to remember is that if you decide to ask your employees what they want, you have to provide them with the proper education about potential plans so they can make a well-informed decision. If you are putting a new plan to a vote, Kane recommends asking how many people want option A, how many want option B, and how many dont care either way: If you provide the middle option of, Im indifferent, then you can potentially increase the percentage of employees who are happy with the result. Dig Deeper: Giving Employees a Say How to Set a Workplace Vacation Policy: Scrapping Your Policy Altogether If you are contemplating the terms of a workplace vacation policy, a critical step is to determine whether or not it benefits your business to have one at all. Some workplaces have decided to scrap their policies altogether, and allow employees to take off as much time as they want. The theory behind this option is that it de-bureaucratizes the workplace, and, rather than making employees feel like they will be compensated for productivity, they will maintain increased productivity by not having to stress out about proving their self-worth within the company. This concept of workplace democracy, and doing away with employer-sanctioned occupational limitations, has become one of the most important movements in the business world, says Brian Carney, London-based member of the editorial board of theWall Street Journal, editorial page director of the Wall Street Journal Europe, and co-author of the business book, Freedom, Inc.: Free Your Employees and Let Them Lead Your Business to Higher Productivity, Profits, and Growth. One of the things that we discovered [in doing research for this book] is that to really liberate employees, you have to get them out of the mindset of trading material goods in one form or another for performance, he says. According to Carney, a lot of employers are hesitant to consider getting rid of a vacation policy because employees see it as something they are entitled to and something they take comfort in – a dynamic which can be destructive to a company. You have to break that dynamic of, give me something, and Ill give you something, says Carney. You dont establish a vacation policy to encourage people to bankroll [time off], you establish a vacation policy to let people see that its healthy to take time off work.

The Songs of Experience - Explication of London Essay -- Blakes Londo

The Songs of Experience - Explication of London William Blake published, in 1794, a collection of poems entitled The Songs of Experience. This collection works in collaboration with an earlier collection of the author's poems called The Songs of Innocence. The works of 1794 bring to the reader a more realistic or even pessimistic view of the author's native England, in comparison to the poems in The Songs of Innocence. One of the works in the more realistic collection is simply titled "London." In this work Blake gives a concise critique of the city that shares its name with the title as the speaker moves among the suffering people of that city. The poem condemns the condition of the city and its people. Blake questions the economic structure, and the extent of the government's control over the people in England. He goes on to challenge the church and its role in society. The poem concludes with a charge that the moral degradation of London is coming into plain sight in the form of physically impaired children. The first stanza of the work functions as a thesis. Here the author plays with the word "Charter'd" (ln.1 & ln.2). The meanings vary in the dictionary, but all pertain to Blake's use of the word. "Charter'd" is the condition of not only the streets of London but also of the city's greatest asset, the Thames River. While chartered might mean liberated, in the tone of this work it more likely means "rented out." In this way Blake challenges the economic system of his homeland. Also, in this double meaning, the reader can see irony in that the phrase might scoff at the idea of the people of England considering themselves liberated. The second half of the first stanza tells us ... ...ed by the harlot. Another idea to consider is Blake's personal feelings about societal institutions. Above we asserted that societies rules could shackle a person's mind, so to keep with that idea we could assert that "the marriage hearse" may tell us how Blake personally feels about the institution of marriage. This work is an open commentary on the situation of the city of London. Blake calls into question some of the basic practices of the city's people, and government. The work moves through the streets and calls to the reader's attention the different ways in which the people suffer. It accuses the government of controlling the minds of people, and the exploitation of its soldiers. It accuses the church of neglecting the needy, and finally it accuses the people themselves of poisoning their own children through their immoral acts.

The Fukushima Nuclear Plant

The Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant was built in Okuma, Fukushima, to provide Japan with electricity. The plant consists of six nuclear reactors that were built during different times in the 1970s. The reactors were built close together primarily because finding a new location would make a new reactor very expensive, compared to the addition of a new reactor. The plant was constructed near the sea because nuclear plants consumes massive amount of waters just for its cooling needs and also for steam generation which then drives turbines that generate electricity. The various reactors serviced different companies and suppliers including General Electric, Toshiba, and Hitachi. On March 11th, 2011, an earthquake and subsequent tsunami caused a series of equipment failures, nuclear meltdowns and releases of radioactive materials. According to the International Business Times (Australia) â€Å"Fukushima is not the worst nuclear accident ever but it is the most complicated and the most dramatic disaster. † (IBT, 01) On April 2011 The Nuclear Institute rated the disaster a Level 7 â€Å"Major Accident† on the International Nuclear Event Scale. The International Nuclear Event Scale How the reactors were damaged An earthquake of magnitude 9. 0 on a Richter Scale initially damaged the reactors. According to the World Nuclear Association, reactor 4 had been de-fueled while reactors 5 and 6 were in cold shutdown for planned maintenance. Immediately after the earthquake, the remaining reactors 1-3 shut down automatically and emergency generators came online to power electronics and coolant systems. However, a tsunami rapidly followed the earthquake, flooding the low-lying rooms in which the emergency generators were housed. The flooded generators failed, cutting power to critical pumps, which must continuously circulate coolant water through a nuclear reactor for several days after being shut down in order to keep the plant from melting down. As the pumps stopped, the high radioactive decay produced in the first few days after the shutdown caused the reactors to overheat. The overheating led to the meltdown of the reactors. General Risks of Nuclear Plants Even without a natural disaster such as an earthquake followed by a tsunami, a Fukushima-like nuclear accident can occur at any nuclear power plant that relies on water for cooling. Nuclear power reactors today are fueled mostly with uranium, which undergoes a fission chain reaction, releasing heat and creating radioactive fission products, plutonium, and other transuranic elements. After a time, the concentration of chain-reacting isotopes drops to the point where the fuel is considered â€Å"spent† and has to be replaced with fresh fuel. The â€Å"spent† fuel has to be stored in pool basins allowing the heat and radiation level to decrease. After the fuel has cooled, it may be transferred to massive air-cooled dry casks for storage on-site or in a centralized facility. Unlike fossil fuels, nuclear power plants do not emit smoke, sodium dioxide, nitrogen oxide, or CO2 to the atmosphere. However, because of the use of Uranium, all nuclear power plants release radioactive waste, which stays radioactive from thousands of years and is therefore very dangerous. The typical method of storing nuclear waste is to house it in steel-lined concrete basins filled with water. The nuclear power industry’s leading innovators are currently considering alternatives such as moving the nuclear waste to off-site storage facilities, but this raises the problem of transporting the hazardous material. The escape of radioactive material from the nuclear reactor is very dangerous. Leakage can occur in the following situations: through small releases during routine plant operation, accidents in nuclear power plants, accidents in transporting radioactive materials, and escape of radioactive material from confinement systems. After the radioactive material escapes it could end up in our ecosystem via the atmosphere, the ground, or even the water. According to America on Radiation Alert: Japan Faces World's Worst Nuclear Accident since Chernobyl as Experts Warn Fallout May Reach U. S. Japan’s nuclear disaster in 2011 caused several countries to reconsider their use of nuclear energy. Precautions that could have prevented the Disaster The original site for the Fukushima plant was a bluff 35 meters above sea level, but high costs prevented construction at this altitude. The plant had to be built on a rock to assure stability of land, so Kajima, the plant’s constructor, decid ed to lower the level of the bluff by 25 meters to reduce the cost of extra pipes to reach ground rock. However, Kajima did not take into consideration the possibility that a Tsunami could be higher than 10 meters. Lowering the height of the cliff was considered one of the main facts associated with the damage according to the International Atomic Energy Agency. The tsunami caused water to flow into the nuclear plant, flooding the lower emergency generators with seawater, and causing the power supply to fail. The plant was built in a geographical location that is vulnerable to earthquakes, volcanoes and tsunamis. An earthquake, categorized as 9. 0 on a Richter scale, caused a tsunami of magnitude 8. 9 Richter Scale. At the time the plant was built, theories regarding plate tectonics were relatively new. Had geologists and other scientists been more familiar with the causes of earthquakes, especially in that region, the plant might have been built on another, safer site. However, relocating the nuclear plant is the cost effective, time consuming, most locations have similar features because Japan is found on fault lines. The plants current existing location is conductive in helping cool the nuclear plants (water is taken from seas/rivers and circulated†¦ that’s why it was on the shore). The damaged reactors cut power to the critical pumps, which failed to circulate coolant water through the nuclear reactors for several days, allowing it to melt down. The high radioactive heat decay produced in the last few days of the disaster had to be cooled. At that point, only the prompt flooding of the reactors with seawater could have cooled the reactors quickly enough to prevent meltdown, but the decision to allow flooding was delayed because it would ruin the costly reactors permanently. Only after a long delay, the Japanese government ordered the reactors to be flooded with seawater. A meltdown could have been prevented if they had acted sooner. Alternatively, the disaster could have been prevented if the emergency generators were located in the upper levels of the plant. This would have prevented the flooding and kept the emergency generators in operation. If the generators had not been flooded with seawater the nuclear reactor could have maintained cooling operations and a nuclear meltdown could have been avoided. Finally, certain safety precautions could have prevented this type of disaster at Fukushima. One, properly trained personnel are, in my opinion the main issue to be addressed. The American Nuclear Society approved that unlike the United States, â€Å"Japan rarely tests the limits of the system and training of personnel† All which lacked training† (ANS, 02). Two, many structural and managerial precautions could have been implemented to protect against natural disasters; â€Å"there were serious problems with accident management and with risk communication and crisis communication† (ANS, 04). Most nuclear power plants nowadays practice these basics and have regulation checking’s and visiting taking place. Conclusion on Fukushima. One could make the argument that the nuclear reactor accidents could have been attributed to at least some level of human error. However, the consensus seems to be that the disaster was caused for the most part by the natural occurrence of the earthquake and tsunami. On October 12th, 2012, a Japanese Nuclear Plant Operator admitted on CNN for the first time that â€Å"TEPCO has failed to take stronger measures to prevent disasters. † Tokyo Electric Power Co. said in a statement that paying closer attention to better-trained employees, international standards and recommendations could have prevented the disaster. TEPCO’s president said to TEPCO’s press release that â€Å"these implementations could have saved us from the accident if we turn the clock back. ’’ Newly designed reactors For the past few years, nuclear plants have been undergoing an extensive process of redesign. Newly built reactors are designed more safely, so that they do not need electrical power to shut down safely; they are relying less on pumps and valves, and more on natural heat. In addition, advanced digital operation will do away with the requirement of a human controller for 72 hours, and the main core will remain cool because of a containment cooling system. According to the World Nuclear Association, â€Å"Additional safety measures have been installed at nuclear power plants nationwide since the accident under the government’s instructions. † Such measures include enhanced seawalls, additional backup power and cooling water sources, the storage of radioactive waste on dry land, and the development of better crisis management training. Nuclear power plants/stations are statistically safe because disasters rarely happen. However, when nuclear disasters happen they cause massive destruction.

Dreams Essay - 2684 Words

Dreams nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;In this information age, the more one ‘knows’ the better will be his response to his world. What better way to know oneself than through ones dreams and their interpretations. Take Joe for example. He dreamt that he was lying in bed crying. When his mother came in to see what was wrong they had sex. Initially Joe woke up, thinking he was in the middle of a nightmare. Now there are two choices for Joe. He could either feel weird, that he had feelings about his mother, or he could look at what symbols were in his dream. nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;Joe decided to analyze his dream. Since he was in his own bed, it showed that he is comfortable in his life. Secondly Joe, needed to decipher if there was†¦show more content†¦Most Westerners, as opposed to Asians, are better able to distinguish between dream and reality. nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;Psychologists like Sigmund Freud and Karl Jung are famous for their dream studies. Freud’s most famous work, The Interpretation Of Dreams, argues that the unconscious drives and desires contributed to conscious behavior. Freud also felt that a dream was the fulfillment of a wish. Psychologists like Robert Van de Castle, Ph D., have concluded that children and adults dream in the same way. Though their dreams may be different, they also serve the same purpose (Short 30). Oona Short, author of â€Å"Sweet and Not So Sweet Dreams† from Working Mother, says that small children, mainly infants dream more often than adults do. While adults only spend about twenty percent of their nights in dream sleep, infants spend nearly half of all sleep time dreaming (30). Dreams are put in two categories: good dreams and nightmares. Between the ages of three and seven, one begins to develop good dreams (Short 30-1), which are simply characterized as what makes the individual happy. Once they have established these dreams, they last throughout one’s life. In one year some have as many as 1000 dreams, but remember very few. For that reason many people claim to be â€Å"nondreamers† (Faraday 19). Remembering dreams can be difficult for some, but dreams are remembered like all other memory. People only recall theShow MoreRelatedDreams And Dreams : Dreams1425 Words   |  6 PagesAvery Alexander English III Mr. Tarr 26 April 2015 Dreams Throughout our dreaming experience, we feel different sensations, emotions, and thoughts interpreted through images in a person’s mind. During our unconscious process, the meanings of our inner thoughts are experienced through dreams. Some psychologists believe dreams are connected to our real emotions and others may see dreams as a specific meaning related to one’s life (Young). Dreams can put us in touch with our real motives in life dueRead MoreDream And Dream - Dream Killers1012 Words   |  5 PagesDream killers You know the type, the ones who think that just because they did not make it, then you can t, the Debbie Downers who can t see beyond their pathetic existence to dream of something bigger. The one who will never achieve much because they fail to dream and dream to fail, these are the dream killers. Conversation #1 You   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   I am thinking of starting my own business Them   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   Why you want to do that? You   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚     Ã‚  Ã‚   Because I have always wanted to work for myself? ThemRead MoreDreams And Dreams1729 Words   |  7 Pagesinterpretations and true meanings of dreams has expanded and has varied over centuries and cultures. Many of the earlier studies were based on culture’s and the interpretation of dreams, but also used as a form of prophecy, inspiration, and guidance. Many people still believe this such, people today beliefs and theories have opened up to a more vast interpretation, they are made up of; dreams are rare brain activity, dreams allow people to reflect on themselves, or that dreams are too massive to be correctlyRead MoreDreams : The Causes Of Dreams And Dreams987 Words   |  4 Pagesâ€Å"Dreams are a sequence of images, emotions, and thoughts passing through a sleeping person’s mind† (Myers). They can occur anytime during sleep. Although most vibrant dreams occur during deep sleep, REM (rapid eye movement) sleep, when a person’s brain is more active. Most people tend to have at least 4 to 6 dreams per night while in REM sleep. While everyone dreams during sleep, but not everyone remembers. Scientist aren’t quite sure why some people remember more than others, but there are manyRead MoreDreams And Dreams1893 Words   |  8 PagesEvery single one of us dreams and each one is experienced at a personal level, but interpreting them and figuring what they actually mean is still a mystery to us all. The histories of dreams, dates all the way back to over 5,000 years ago. These were the times where they would still write things down on clay tablets. Even then, we were already interested in what dreams meant. During the Greek and Roman eras, dreams were perceived in a religious sense. If they were good dreams, they would be interpretedRead MoreDreams And The Subconscious : Dreams Essay1276 Words   |  6 PagesDreams and the Subconscious Are dreams a way of processing life events, or are they really messages from the subconscious? This phenomenon has always interested me, and I am extremely grateful this opportunity has arisen for me to research dreams in more depth. Since childhood, I have been intrigued with dreams and how similar they can be for each person. For instance, many people have recurring nightmares of being chased. According to Huffington Post, being chased is one of the most common dreamsRead MoreDreams : A Lucid Dream1097 Words   |  5 PagesBeing able to understand what dreams represent and how they effect a person should be something everyone should understand. Dreams can be a small glimpse or feel so real that it is unbelievable. The issue people have the most is remembering. They can not remember if they spoke with another individual in actually life or if it was all apart of their dream they had. There is so much confusion that the person is almost embarrassed to ask if the event actually happe ned. A dream like this is considered oneRead MoreThe Dream Of A Lucid Dream1403 Words   |  6 PagesIt is said that a lucid dream is a dream that can be induced or controlled and is characterized by the dreamer being aware that he or she is dreaming (Lucid). When lucidity occurs, the dreamer â€Å"wakes up† inside the dream during fixed states of cognizance. Dreams are caused by things â€Å"†¦our mind knows, however which we cannot handle, is disturbing or something that we keep reiterating to ourselves† (Ganguly). This is why distinguishing significant dream symbols from ambient symbols is important forRead MoreThe Dream Of A Dream Story1426 Words   |  6 Pagesdifficulties of life after his accident. The dream that can be analyzed in this essay is the idea of being useful in life and towards society; Friedman describes Bret’s process in achieving this dream through the inclusion of characters’ thoughts and actions. This narrative technique rev eals the idea that dreams are not always singular, the people surrounding you can play a crucial role in your dream story, and factors that affect your dream can also change the dreams of surrounding people. Bret’s storyRead MoreDreams : What Are Dreams?1174 Words   |  5 PagesWhat are dreams? Are they the mind’s way of entertaining itself while you sleep, or are they your unconscious trying to tell you something? If you chose the ladder, you are on the right track. The mind can’t talk to you, you don t hear voices in your head unless you are a Schizophrenic. The only way that our unconscious mind has a way to communicate, is when you are asleep. The idea that dreams are trying to tell you something is simple, but understanding what the dream is trying to say can be difficult