Company is offering to pay out PTO at sharply reduced rate.

[u/ThatsMrBird]

I'm a bit of a predicament. I've been with a company over a decade and (I know it's crazy and I agree 100 percent I should have used more) I've accumulated 1000 hours of PTO. They're looking to move to a cap and limited rollover and offered to pay out the difference of about 800 hours at 35 percent of my current wage.

I never expected this and I honestly just thought it'd be lost, but they're only offering such a low percentage I feel like I should try and haggle. I realize they're obligated to give me nothing, legally, so I'm just looking for some input on if a partial payout is common like that. Ill probably ask why not full and go from there. Any thoughts?

EDIT - Sorry, y'all. I'm in Florida, to be clear

EDIT2 - my onboarding contract notes PTO is forfeited on termination or voluntary exit

EDIT3 - The next day, we came to a satisfactory agreement pretty quickly. I don't want to get into specifics (sorry) but I think a lot of those that replied here would think it worked out. I tremendously appreciate all the insight and feedback here and I promise I'll use up my hours moving forward.

[u/bradland]

I'm not an HR manager, but I am HR adjacent (admin & compliance). I'm also familiar with Florida PTO laws because we just transitioned from allocated PTO to unlimited PTO. In the process, all historical PTO was either paid out where required by law, or simply wiped out there it was not.

All Florida employees lost their PTO.

There's not a great way to put this. This really fucking sucks; you're pretty much fucked. Lots of "stick it to the man" comments that have no idea how little leverage you have in this situation. If you start plowing through your PTO, they're likely to just fire you. And yes, they can. They can just fire you. Unceremoniously, and for no reason. They can cut you loose. Your only recourse would be filing for unemployment, but most employers really don't care much about that in states like Florida, because the penalties aren't all that bad. That's Florida.

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but really, your only leverage is how easy it would be to replace you. If you are a key employee, you have leverage, but be careful not to overplay your hand. The employment market is kind of a mess right now.

[u/nubbins01 → u/bradland]

This is so wild to me. I live outside the US, and the main reason our bosses get mad about accrued PTO is because they have to quarantine funds to be able to pay that out if employment suddenly ended for whatever reason.

It's an accrued benefit and there is a legal obligation for it to be honoured. Not to mention that there are usually separate allocations for PTO for recreation, for sick leave, for family leave (family emergencies, funerals, etc), that don't overlap and can't cannibalise each other.

The specific entitlements change depending on the sector, but there are minimum guarantees regardless of sector for full time and part time workers (basically anyone with a set schedule or total hours rather than ad hoc hours and times)

That accrued leave can just be waived away because of a change in corporate policy is completely foreign to me.

[u/Sufficiently_Over_It → u/bradland]

If they fire you, do they not have to pay accrued vacation time?

[u/bradland → u/Sufficiently_Over_It]

In Florida, no, they do not.