hey guys Serg here back with another video and today we're going to talk
about workplace PTO etiquette hey guys ECR g here and today we're gonna talk
about workplace PTO etiquette so I'm sure you guys have never worked in a
real job before or a career job before you guys may not know what PTO is PTO
stands for paid time off and if you have worked in a job before you will know
what that means now there are a few types of there are a few reasons why one
might take PTO there's you just want to go on a vacation so you're gonna take a
PTO to go travel somewhere or just get away from work for a few days there's
where you may have an appointment so you mean that may need to take a half day
off or a full day off you have a doctor's appointment or having surgery
or you go take care of something or a quit day but that's another type of
opportunity you might take PTO and then there's also an emergency somebody in
the family dies and you gotta go immediately and go deal with that or
someone in your family's in the hospital and you've got to go immediately fly to
that place so there's a few different types of ways you might take PTO and
there's gonna be a common courtesy and etiquette surrounding that especially if
you work in clinical trials such as myself working on projects that are
really really long and can go on for years at a time
so if you if you're not in an environment like that obviously your
headache is gonna be a little bit different and but I still find that
you'll find some of these tips helpful so what you want to do is if you have an
emergency talk to your your boss talk to your manager about you know obviously
you have to negotiate that with them and that's gonna be far more on the company
policy and and what you work out with your manager
on how often how long you get or when that should happen that's an emergency
there should be a certain level of understanding and trust between you and
your boss so not really an issue that's not what this video is really about if
you're going into the hospital for something yourself kind of like an
emergency but obviously you want to plan ahead as much as possible if you can if
you have an appointment and you have to take PTO a lot of times you don't have
to take PTO if you're just gonna be at the office for an hour or two you'd have
to run it by the necessary people your colleagues your line manager or whatever
whatever but obviously you want to be out in front of it and if you know you
have an appointment try and get your work done ahead of time or be able to
let people know I'd say a week in advance before that if possible but
earlier the veteran can never go wrong with earlier but the big one is when
you're going on vacation and every company is gonna be different
everybody's gonna have a different policy usually companies will have a
policy saying you can't take more than so many days at a time because after
you've been with a company so long they normally reward you with more PTO days
or yeah after a few years they typically give you more PTO days so people after
you've been with the place 5 10 15 years you know you have more PTO than you're
actually gonna be able to even use so but so that's how that affects affects
you you may have more PTO then then the policy states that you can take off at
one time which is fine but usually in terms of the etiquette you don't want to
inhibit the project that you're on at anyway obviously if you are an impactful
person what we talk about in these videos if you are the a person on your
team if you are a leader coming in and doing what you're doing doing what you
need to do your presence is gonna be missed when you're gone
so you want to obviously plan as much as possible try and let everybody know as
early as possible usually it's about two weeks before you're gonna take your pto
at least if too many people are taking pto around the same time then it's gonna
be hard for the project to keep going so that you want to watch out for that and
you don't want to be waiting last minute to take pto especially for long
durations of time usually it's about two weeks at least in the clinical research
space where you can take pto you might need special consideration if you're
gonna be taking longer than that if you're gonna go like to europe or
something and you want like three weeks you're gonna have to probably talk to
your manager about that talk to the higher-ups about that and get that
cleared but usually if it's during a good time in your studies it's usually
not a problem where you have somebody to back you up
usually not gonna be a problem but you definitely want to take that into
consideration at what time and the projects that you're on you're taking
pto if there's a busy time with a lot of deadlines and stuff it's usually gonna
be better for you to wait until after that time is passed to take your pto so
you just kind of want to you know play it by ear if you're somebody who's
always taking pto when there's a lot of deadlines and
everyone's bust in there but that's not really gonna look good on you coming
from your managers perspective so you definitely want to try and avoid that as
much as possible obviously if it's an emergency or something like that
have at it you're it's not they should trust you enough to be able to
understand that it's an emergency and you know life isn't all about work you
know you have other obligations as well so not really talking about that just
time off for pleasure pto at this point and you you really want to do your best
to not take it during very hard times an increase because your presence is gonna
be missed already by you leaving you don't want to
have an increased pressure on the team because it's during a busy time during
the project and have that on the team too but on the flip side of that also
you don't don't want because there's always gonna
be busy times and if if you're on a study or if you're on a project which is
busy all the time don't let that inhibit you from taking
PTO you need your PTO we've done a video on why you need your PTO so if you
haven't watched that yet go back and check that out after this video but PTO
is important you need it all I'm saying is try and do your best to be
conscientious about when you take your PTO because that's important people will
notice that hey this person you know they're always there when we need them
the most and that will look good on you they look good for you and if you're
doing a good job in being conscious of this about taking your PTO during
downtime now also look good on you as well so alright you've decided on a date
you decided when you want to take your PTO what do you do next
so usually you're gonna have to contact your manager or your boss let them know
what you want to take your PTO let's say you're taking your PTO a few
months down the line perfect you've waited you've given them enough time to
be able to plan for and yourself enough time to build a plan for your absence so
perfect you know being a let them know and they're gonna decide if it's okay or
not usually it'll be fine let's say you're taking a week off it's usually
gonna be fine and then at that point you're gonna let your colleagues know
and you're gonna put something on your calendar and this is good so that you
know when your PTO is and share a notification with all the people that
are gonna be impacted by you being gone because believe it or not they're not
gonna know all the intricacies and details of your life and they may not
even remember when it comes time for you to be gone so it's good for them to have
a reminder on their calendars as well that's just something I like to do and
it worked out really well for me also you're gonna have to set up so about a
week before or whenever the day before you leave set up a little email response
letting people know where they can like why you're gone so you're gonna be gone
for the whole week you want to let people know that and if
they need to follow up on anything or you can let them know when you'll be
back so when they can expect you to respond yourself and if they you know
whoever your backup is you put their contact information there too so usually
it might be your boss or a colleague or somebody so you say you can reach out to
them if it's an urgent matter and that's pretty much it pretty simple to take PTO
more and more companies are liking people taking PTO which is a good thing
I'm a big proponent of that and you know it's just a simple process once you've
done it a couple times you'll get the hang of it and get why it's good to do
it and advance let people know you're leaving in advance and planning ahead
planning ahead purposes so that's pretty much it about PTO guys if you have any
other questions drop them down below you can email us at elite clinical group at
gmail.com give any comments maybe I missed something on PTO etiquette that
you think is important please comment that down below we'd love to hear that
also looking for people to interview for the show if you have an interesting
story in clinical research or just want to network or connect email us at the
email address elite clinical group at gmail.com or anything any business
inquiries you can email there as well all right guys take care