PTO Concerns: What Managers Should Consider First

The pattern usually starts quietly. An employee begins calling out on Mondays and Fridays. Or they burn through their PTO balance in the first half of the year and then start asking for unpaid time. Or the absences cluster around the same events — always the day after a holiday, always the morning after a big deadline. You notice it. The team notices it. And you start wondering whether something is wrong or whether someone is gaming the system.

Before you do anything, it is worth slowing down — because this situation is more complicated than it looks, and moving too fast in the wrong direction can create a legal problem out of what might have been a manageable performance conversation.

Let’s walk through how to think about it.

Start with the Question You Might Not Want to Ask

Before you label what is happening as abuse, it is worth asking whether there might be a legitimate reason for the pattern you are seeing. Chronic illness. A caregiving situation. Mental health. A family member with ongoing medical needs. These are exactly the kinds of circumstances that create attendance patterns that look irregular from the outside.

The reason this matters legally is that some of those circumstances may qualify for protection under the FMLA, your state’s leave laws, the ADA, or some combination. An employee with a chronic condition who is using PTO for related absences is not abusing PTO. They are using leave they may be legally entitled to. Managing them as if they are gaming the system, when the underlying cause is a qualifying medical condition, creates real exposure.

This does not mean you cannot address attendance concerns. It means you have to understand what you are actually dealing with before you decide how to respond.

Consultant aside: When I review attendance situations with companies, the first question I always ask is: has anyone actually talked to this employee about what is going on? More often than not, the answer is no. The manager has been watching the pattern, growing frustrated, and documenting — but the conversation about what is behind the absences has never happened. That conversation is not optional. It is the starting point.

The Conversation You Need to Have First

Before any formal action, sit down with the employee in a private, non-accusatory conversation. The framing matters: you are not confronting them about suspected dishonesty. You are checking in about a pattern you have noticed and expressing genuine concern about both their wellbeing and the impact on the team.

Something like: ‘I’ve noticed you’ve had quite a few absences recently and I want to check in. Is everything okay? Is there anything going on that I should know about or that we should be thinking about as a team?’

That conversation does two things. It gives the employee an opportunity to disclose something that might explain the pattern and might trigger legal protections you need to know about. And it demonstrates that your first response was concern rather than discipline — which matters if the situation ever goes further.

Document the conversation. Note the date, what was discussed, and what the employee said. If they disclose a medical situation, loop in HR immediately and follow the accommodation and leave evaluation process before taking any other action.

If No Legitimate Reason Surfaces

If the conversation does not surface a medical or personal circumstance that explains the pattern, and the absences continue, then you are in attendance management territory and you can address it as such. That means reviewing your attendance policy, confirming it has been applied consistently across the team, and moving forward with a documented conversation about the expectation and the consequences.

Be specific. ‘You have been absent eight times in the last twelve weeks, four of which were on Mondays’ is a factual foundation for a performance conversation. ‘You seem like you’re not taking your job seriously’ is an interpretation that will not serve you if the situation escalates.

Make sure the standard you are holding this employee to is the same one you are applying to everyone else. Inconsistent enforcement of attendance policies is one of the most common reasons attendance-related actions get overturned or generate complaints. If others on the team have similar patterns and have not been addressed, fix that before you single anyone out.

Consultant aside: Attendance abuse is one of those situations where managers often know something is off before they have enough documentation to act, and then wait so long to address it that the pattern has become entrenched and the employee has no idea a concern existed. Address it early, conversationally, and with documentation — before it becomes a formal performance process or a termination that the employee describes as coming out of nowhere.

The FMLA and Leave Law Dimension

If the employee’s absences may be related to a serious health condition — their own or a family member’s — you have an obligation to provide information about FMLA or applicable state leave rights even if they have not asked. Intermittent FMLA leave, which allows for absences on an as-needed basis for a qualifying condition, is specifically designed for the kind of irregular attendance pattern you may be looking at.

Intermittent leave can feel frustrating to manage because it is unpredictable by nature. But it is a legal entitlement, and absences that qualify under approved intermittent FMLA cannot be counted against an employee for attendance purposes or used as a basis for discipline. Understanding whether the pattern you are seeing is FMLA-qualifying changes what you are allowed to do about it.

If you are not sure, that is exactly the reason to get HR involved before the attendance conversation becomes a discipline conversation.

The Consultant Lens

After reviewing attendance situations with many organizations, the ones that resolve cleanly are almost always the ones where a genuine conversation happened early, the medical and leave question was asked and answered, and the subsequent management was documented and consistent. The ones that become complaints or litigation are almost always the ones where someone was disciplined or terminated for attendance without ever having been asked whether something was going on — and where the something that was going on turned out to be a qualifying condition.

I have also seen the other end of it: situations where an employee genuinely was taking advantage of a generous policy, there was no underlying protected reason, and the company had strong documentation that supported a clean corrective action. The difference between those two outcomes almost always comes down to whether the right conversation happened in the right order.

This is usually the moment when leaders pause and realize that what felt like a straightforward attendance problem might have layers they have not explored yet — and that exploring them first is both the legally smart move and the human one.

PTO is not just a benefit. It sits at the intersection of employment law, medical privacy, performance management, and team culture. The employee who seems to be abusing it may be struggling with something they have not found a way to tell you. Or they may genuinely be taking advantage of a policy that has no teeth. You will not know which until you have the conversation — and you owe it to both of you to have it before you draw conclusions.

Attendance management done well is not about catching people out. It is about creating a clear, consistent standard and having honest conversations when the standard is not being met — with enough care to make sure you know why before you decide what to do.

What I’d Recommend if This Sounds Familiar

If you are currently watching an attendance pattern and have not yet had a direct conversation with the employee about it, that is the first step. Not a formal warning — a genuine check-in conversation, documented, that gives the employee the opportunity to tell you what is going on.

From there, the path depends on what you learn. If a medical or family situation surfaces, loop in HR and evaluate leave and accommodation options before taking any performance action. If nothing surfaces and the pattern continues, a clear documented conversation about the attendance expectation and the consequence is the appropriate next step.

Schedule a call with me if you want to think through a specific attendance situation or make sure your attendance policy and management process are set up to handle these situations cleanly when they arise.

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