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Nasir and Matt address the problem surrounding employees not taking vacation. The two also talk about overtime pay in the question of the day. Full Podcast Transcript NASIR: Welcome to Legally Sound Smart Business. This is Nasir Pasha. MATT: And this is Matt Staub. NASIR: Episode 29. Are we ready to go? MATT: I am ready. Let’s get to. NASIR: First, we have to talk about SNL. It’s recorded live and it’s broadcasted live on the East Coast but then, with a little bit of a delay. MATT: Yeah, live on the East Coast. I hear that, on the West Coast, it’s on at the same time – the 11:30 p.m. but it’s obviously not the same as it is on the East Coast. I think it even says that on the thing. It says “recorded live from a previous…” or “taped” or whatever it says. But it is live on the East Coast. NASIR: I guess we can’t call our podcast “live” because we’re not broadcasting live on the East Coast. We’ll work on it later on. MATT: Let’s get to the story we have for today. I like this one. It deals with employees and vacation. There’s a lot of interesting things in here about what your employees are really doing when they’re on vacation. Vacation is supposed to be a time when you’re not working. I know, Nasir, when you go on vacations, you never work at all. NASIR: That is not true. I just came from a vacation to Costa Rica. I think that was the first time I had really unplugged – I don’t know – for four years. I think all my vacations have been working vacations. That’s different though. I think I’m in a different – well, apparently, to this article, I’m not different – than anyone else, apparently. MATT: Yeah, and this also talks about it’s more focused on the employees of companies and dealing with supervisors but there’s a lot of interesting numbers in here. Let me rewind a little bit here. It’s basically saying, when employees go on vacation, they’re still working – and we’ll get to the numbers in that, no big surprise. One of the first things it discusses is Americans only used 51 percent of their available vacation time in the last twelve months. NASIR: Meaning they won’t use all their time. MATT: Yeah, your vacation days accrue but they’re not even using the actual vacation days. I guess that’s not that surprising either. NASIR: Hold on, though. I just found a loophole in that statistic because there are some states which, once your vacation accrues, you can’t lose it. Even if you do end up not using the actual vacation days, you still are maybe entitled to vacation pay. Therefore, perhaps some employers just pay them out as a bonus at the end of the year which I know some of our clients do. MATT: Yeah. NASIR: Technically, the employees almost have an incentive not to take vacation days. MATT: Yeah, because you’re still getting paid the money but you’re not getting the break which would be nice. I think everyone needs some sort of break at some point – no matter who you are, in my opinion. Let me get into more of the numbers in here. I’ll just get to the one I thought was the craziest, if I can find it. 20 percent of employees when they’re on vacation said they were contacted by their boss. This seems like a problem. NASIR: Yeah, that’s a problem because, basically, if you’re under the control of your employer, then you are considered to be in work time. Therefore, working. Therefore, not really on vacation. And so, probably a labor law violation in pretty much every state that I can think of. I think it’s also a federal law violation. MATT: Yeah, exactly, that’s what I was getting to – that’s the big issue there. But some of them say it was welcomed. You know, there’s a lot of different numbers always thrown around in this but the bottom-line is people are on vacation, in a sense, but not really taking vacation. Sometimes, it’s just helpful – I’ll talk from an employer’s perspective – if your employees go on vacation, let them go on vacation. Don’t contact them. That’s obvious advice. NASIR: No doubt.