Paid Time Off

Vermont currently has mandatory Paid Time Off (PTO), also known as Earned Sick Time. To learn about Vermont's somewhat byzantine regulations, check out their FAQ Here.

At Vermont Craft Mead, we feel that the state requirements fall short of supporting the neediest Vermonters as well as providing insufficient support for wage earners in general. So we have our own, more expansive policy that covers every employee working 10 hours or more per week, and it begins immediately upon beginning employment with us.

We also prefer the term "PTO" to "Earned Sick Time" because we believe that traveling with your family, going to your brother's recital, staying home when your kid has a snow day, and not coming to work with the flu are all important. We don't want our work family making decisions only focused on their paycheck.
​
The formal rules are as follows:

• Groennfell Meadery’s Paid Time Off (PTO) policy shall comply with the Vermont Requirements for Earned Sick Time.
• All employees who average 10 or more hours of work per week are eligible to earn PTO. 
• Employees start earning PTO at the start of their employment.
• Employees earn 1 hour for every 26 hours worked.
  
• Up to 80 hours of unused PTO will roll over at the end of the year, but an employee may not use more than 120 hours of PTO in a given year without prior approval.
  
• An employee may not use PTO to go above 40 hours of pay in any single week (or 80 hours of pay in a two-week period).
  

Vacation

In addition to earned PTO, tenured employees earn vacation time. (PTO can also be used for vacations). Employees who have been regularly employed by the company for two years or more receive 5 vacation days per year. Employees who have been regularly employed by the company for five years or more receive 10 vacation days per year. Vacation days are earned in a lump at the start of the calendar year (or when the employee first reaches the 2- or 5-year mark) and do not roll over at the end of the year.

Holidays

We believe that our employees should not have to use their PTO for Thanksgiving Day. PTO is intended to help our employees make decisions based on their health and family rather than finances (see above).
​
So, we instituted the Holiday Policy (also known as the 7+3 Policy). The way it works:

• If you would normally work on one of the big seven national holidays (New Year's Day, Memorial Day, Independence Day, Labor Day, Thanksgiving, Black Friday, or Christmas), it's automatically a paid holiday. 
  
• If any of these 7 holidays falls on a weekend and you are not regularly scheduled to work that day, but you are regularly scheduled on the observed day (e.g. Monday, July 5th when July 4th falls on a Sunday), that day is automatically a paid holiday.
  
• Because our staff is very diverse, every employee also gets three holidays of their choosing as paid holidays. Need to fast for Yom Kippur? May your fast be easy. Are you Wiccan and need to travel to Salem for Samhain? Safe travels! Do you have a special birthday tradition that precludes your coming into work? Go for it. Just give Madi at least 2-weeks notice.
  
• Holidays, for reasons that should be self-evident, do not “roll over” or accumulate year-to-year.
  

Voting

Although the Mead Hall is an apolitical space, we're huge supporters of voting and other forms of community engagement. 

To put our money where out mouthis, we're official members of Time to Vote, and pay our employees their normal wages while they vote in all local and national elections. We also provide our employees with up-to-date information about voting locations and times.

How much does it actually add up to?

For our full time employees, these two policies work out to about 21 paid days off per year.