New PTO Policy for 2024

We are excited to announce that we are making several changes to our U.S. Paid Time Off and Leave Policies, beginning in January of next year. It’s a new, reimagined approach to balancing employee’s personal paid time off needs and flexibility while still meeting business objectives and operational requirements. Brief summaries are provided below, you can read the policies via the Employee Portal, and there’s scheduled training to review and answer questions.

• Paid Family Medical Leave for Full-time Employees: Introducing Paid Family Medical Leave! It supplements your income when you’re out on an approved FMLA leave, providing up to 80 hours of pay annually on a rolling calendar basis for eligible employees. (Effective 1/1/2024).
• Parental Leave: We love our DISA babies (check out our DISA Onesies)! We have slightly expanded our Parental Leave policy, which provides 1 week (40 hours) of paid leave upon the birth or adoption of a child by now including foster child placements as eligible events. Taken in coordination with the new Paid Family Medical Leave above, this means that eligible employees can take a 3 week leave (1 week Parental; 2 weeks of Paid Family Medical Leave) when welcoming a new child. For birthing parents, FMLA leave can expand that time, and Short-Term Disability insurance may provide some pay coverage for that expanded time. (Effective 1/1/2024).
• Bereavement Leave Policy: The sad flip side of life’s great joys are life’s great sorrows. While we hope no one ever needs this policy, DISA provides support & necessary time away from work when the unthinkable happens. While no amount of time on leave can be enough to grieve, we’ve expanded & tiered our Bereavement Leave to accommodate the diverse spectrum of family & friend relationships:
  • “Immediate” Family: Up to 5 days Bereavement Leave if an immediate family member passes.
  • “Extended” Family: Up to 3 days Bereavement Leave if an extended family member passes.
  • “Like” Family: Up to 1 day Bereavement Leave (once a year) if someone like family passes, including close friends, neighbors, and fur family members.
  • “Work” Family: Up to 4 hours Bereavement Leave to attend services for a fellow DISA employee or former DISA employee.

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  • Sick Paid Time Off: We want to make sure employees can take time off if they or a loved one gets sick or has medical appointments. Starting in 2024, we will be adding 40 hours of Sick Paid Time Off as a front-loaded bank each January for eligible employees. You’ll be able to immediately request that time off should you need it.
  • Personal Paid Time Off: In addition, for 2024 we are harmonizing and expanding the Personal Paid Time Off Policy practices across DISA. Our approach to time off (and holidays) encourages employees to use their time off ("Find Balance”), rewards tenure at DISA (including acquired company service time), celebrates milestones, and places DISA among the top-tier of employers in our industry relative to holiday, sick and personal time-off benefits.
    • Tiers begin at 3 hours per pay period, and increase based on your tenure with DISA, capping out at 7 hours accrued per pay period.
    • We want to encourage employees to manage their time off, so PTO carryover (for those who had that) is going away (this won’t impact carryover from 2023 to 2024; but there will be no carryover from 2024 to 2025).
    • Managers will have discretion (in some states) to approve an employee to take over their current accrual (i.e., go “in arrears” or have a negative balance) up to 40 hours.
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  • Taken together, the Personal and Sick Time Off Policies provide the hours of paid time off necessary for employees to maintain their personal balance and manage unexpected time off due to their own or loved ones’ mental or physical health. 
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  • Both these policies are detailed, there are some differences based on your state of residence, and there are some changes to current policy, so I encourage you to carefully review them both and send any questions to your HR Business Partner or submit them by clicking the button below.
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• Note: anyone hired in 2023 prior to October 20th who is currently eligible for the DISA PTO policy accruing at a rate of 17 days (136 hours) per year will start 2024 at the 1-4 years of service tier.
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Flexible Paid Time Off: New for 2024, DISA is introducing a flexible model for paid time off which empowers our salaried (exempt) employees to Find Balance while continuing to meet work requirements and performance goals. Under this policy, while DISA will track eligible employees’ time off to ensure consistent treatment and appropriate work coverage, there is no accrual system, and no bank or accrued time off hours are tracked. There is no cap or limit on the amount of FPTO; instead, eligible employees will be free to request time off from their manager as needed; and take that time off upon approval by their manager. Employees can request time off for any reason not covered by another time off or leave policy, whether it's for a scheduled vacation or appointment, for an unexpected absence, for their own or a loved one’s short-duration illness, or other short-term absences not covered by a specific leave policy. 

• We know this is a new and different approach which may feel intimidating to navigate for both employees and managers. We’ve created some FAQs to help, you can submit any other questions you have by clicking the orange button below, we will be conducting training for employees and managers, and you can always come to HR if you need guidance.
• Eligible employees will request, and managers may approve FPTO in the relevant HR Information System, just like normal. However, as Flexible PTO is not capped, there is no need to maintain accrued banks or “carryover”- so we will no longer track that information in the system, and you won’t see your hours ticking down, limiting the amount of time you can take off.
• This also means that when employees depart DISA, there is no payment of unused hours on the final paycheck.

This policy is new, somewhat different, and very detailed, so we encourage you to carefully read the policy and send any questions to your HR Business Partner.