By Terri Lynn, SouthFloridaReporter.com, Managing Editor, Nov. 21, 2015 – It won’t be a lazy morning for all American workers next Thursday, according to findings from Bloomberg BNA’s 2015 Thanksgiving Holiday Practices Survey, which has been conducted annually since 1980. [Editors Note: BNA was formally the Bureau Of National Affairs]
While more than seven out of 10 surveyed employers have scheduled paid days off for both Thanksgiving Day and the following Friday, 36 percent of all responding organizations will require at least some employees to work on the national holiday, up slightly from 33 percent in 2014.
“While 96 percent of employers will designate Thanksgiving a paid day off, a number of organizations will require at least some of their employees to work on the holiday,” said Robert Combs, Bloomberg BNA’s Manager of Custom Research.
Survey Says… Over One-Third of Employers Require Some To Work Thanksgiving
“The good news for workers who are required to spend the holiday away from friends and family is that most will be compensated in the form of extra pay, additional time off or both. In fact, 82 percent of employers requiring Thanksgiving duty will provide workers extra pay and/or leave this year.
According to the survey, as an added bonus, most of those workers won’t have supervisors looking over their shoulder as less than 10 percent of organizations have management staff scheduled for work shifts on Thanksgiving.
Among the survey’s key findings:
Employees responsible for public safety, security or maintenance are most likely to be at work on Thanksgiving Day. Security and public safety workers (14 percent), service and maintenance staff (13 percent), and technicians (13 percent) are most likely to draw holiday shifts.
Most employees who draw Thanksgiving shifts this year will get something extra in their paychecks, leave balances, or both. Among 133 surveyed employers requiring Thanksgiving duty this year, more than four out of five (82 percent) of the surveyed firms will provide employees extra compensation or time off, including time-and-a-half pay (32 percent), double-time pay (24 percent), compensatory time off in addition to regular pay (8 percent), or a combination of overtime and compensatory time off (6 percent) for working the holiday.
Thanksgiving gifts — turkeys, luncheons, gift certificates for food — will appear somewhat more widespread this year than in the recent past, with 26 percent of all responding organizations having some type of employee gift planned for late November, compared with a range of 11 to 20 percent during the previous decade. Sixteen percent of firms will hold Thanksgiving luncheons or dinners, 7 percent will distribute gift certificates for food, while 4 percent will send workers home with a turkey.
Bloomberg BNA has been tracking Thanksgiving employer practices since 1980 and this year’s survey is based on a survey of over 350 senior human resource and employee relations executives representing a broad cross-section of U.S. employers.
SOURCE Bloomberg BNA
