Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, September 3, 1995 TAG: 9509010009
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: F-4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MARIANNE TAYLOR CHICAGO TRIBUNE
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
If you work for the right company, here's a luxury you can afford: time.
Sharon Sarna, 41, a supervisor in the human resources department at Quaker Oats Co., has ``bought'' an extra week of vacation every year since 1993, when the Chicago-based food company began offering this perquisite to employees.
This could cost her as much as a week's pay, which would make the extra week, simply, time off without pay.
But Quaker's flexible benefit plan allows Sarna to tailor her own menu of benefits. Thus she accumulates ``credits'' by declining benefits she doesn't need and applies them to have some of the extra time that she treasures.
``I don't feel a great need to buy up on life insurance or other things,'' Sarna said. ``I feel I'm maintaining the level of benefits I need as a single person.''
In the end, Quaker deducts a small amount from each paycheck to pay for her extra days off.
The program, offered by 11 percent of 1,000 employers surveyed nationwide last year by consultant Hewitt Associates, gives new meaning to the concept of spending time.
``We always take a cruise in the winter, some place nice and warm in the Caribbean,'' Sarna said, anticipating her travel budget for this year. She travels often with a group of friends and also makes time to visit her parents at their part-time home in Florida, she said.
Lest anyone think these extra days off are luxuries only carefree singles can afford, Nancy Holub, 37, has been buying extra time whenever she can.
Holub, a project analyst at Bank of America, is part of a two-career family with four children who range in age from 10 to 16. She values vacation time as ``the only time as a family we totally spend together. With three teen-agers, that's important.''
This year, the family drove to Maine's Acadia National Park for a camping trip. Later this year, they plan to drive to Disney World in Orlando to enjoy a four-day package tour of the theme park and surrounding attractions.
``It's extremely important. Because we both work, we never see each other. It's time for everyone to mold back together and start having fun,'' she said. ``Once you start making the money to go on vacation, you lose the time.''
Like Sarna at Quaker Oats, Holub is eligible for three weeks of paid vacation. Both women buy one extra week.
Quaker's vacation bank came as part of a new benefits package first offered in January 1993, said Melanie Pheatt, manager of benefit plans at Quaker.
``Our flexible benefits were designed by a team of employees,'' she said. Buying and selling vacation time - which Quaker also allows, but Bank of America doesn't - was ``something the team was very much interested in,'' she said. ``The team wanted to find as many ways as they could to add flexibility to people's benefits.''
In the late 1980s, many companies began adding flexible benefit plans, which are also called cafeteria plans because workers can pick and choose their fringe benefits from a wide selection. But most of these plans do not offer the chance to buy and sell vacation time, Pheatt said.
Vacation-buying appeals to relatively new employees who haven't had a chance to build up much vacation time, the Hewitt study found. But it also works for those who need extra time to care for aging parents or for children on days when they're sick, the study found.
Selling time appeals to long-service workers, workaholics and families who need to cash in time to build up credits for benefits they need more, such as long-term care insurance, Hewitt found.
More firms offer vacation buying than selling. And more employees take advantage of buying time, rather than selling it, even when both are offered.
Most companies limit the number of days an employee may buy or sell, usually to five days, Hewitt found.
At Quaker, more than a third of the company's 7,000 eligible employees buy extra time each year, with most opting for the maximum extra five days, Pheatt said. Another 9 percent ``sell'' their time back to the company.
``It's very popular,'' she said. ``It's something that people value.''
by CNB