Vacation/Sick Day Policies

[cfred]

I live in York Region....not too far from you I'll bet! My clients get sick days in direct correspondence to the number of days per week they're enrolled for. For example, someone enrolled for 3 days per week gets 3 sick days per year and so on. Once those are used up, they're gone. They are not accumulative from year to year, are used in order of absences, not valid on Statutory Holidays and are not transferrable from one sibling to another. I've never charged for my own vacation or sick days. I know lots of providers do, but I've never been comfortable with it. I guess I've never felt it prudent business-wise. Kind of biting the hand that feeds you, so to speak, as shown by the response from your clients. I get the whole thing about deserving a paid vacation, but we all get into this business for various reasons that are beneficial to us. I've just always seen unpaid vacation and no benefits as the downfalls that existed when I came into it....a trade off for all the other things. I would suspect that's how clients view it as well in many cases. However, offering sick days is generous and I understand many don't do that. That is a desirable business move, or so has been indicated at interviews. I may phase mine out over time, with future clients, but for now, they're in.

I think you're safer just to raise your rates and bank the money as it's a less obvious way of getting vacation pay. Be careful how much you raise them in one shot though for existing clients. $2/day is a substantial hike for most people on a budget, especially if you have any siblings. It's my understanding, from the owners of a formal centre who helped me set up my fee schedule, the norm is to raise your rates by $1/day/year. That's not to say though that you can't jack the prices up by $2 or $3 for any future clients who come on board. My clients are now at $39/day and bumping up to $40 in Sept. BUT, should any of them leave, new clients will have fees of $42/day.

This, of course, isn't to diminish what anyone else has done. Whatever works for you is a good thing, if it does in fact work FOR you and your business.