The following company policy statement is for personal leave. Generally, personal leave is granted without pay, but without loss of credit for the employee’s length of service with the company. Not all companies allow employees to retain their service credit, however.

A personal leave of absence without pay may be granted an employee at the discretion of the company. A personal leave of absence is defined as an absence of one week or longer. It is not our general policy to grant personal leaves of absence and such leaves will be granted only under unusual circumstances. A personal leave of absence is not available instead of medical leave.

Granting of such a leave depends on the review of the merits of each case, including the effect the employee’s absence will have on the workload of the other employees. Probationary employees are not generally eligible for leaves of absence. An employee must have one year of continuous employment before such a leave will be considered.

Applications for leaves of absence may be granted or rejected as dictated by the judgment.

Salary and benefits are not payable to an employee while the employee is on a personal leave of absence, with the exception of company-paid term life insurance that is continued for eligible employees for one year of a leave of absence. Health insurance may be continued if the employee pays the full premium at the group rate. Although employees do not accrue benefits while on leave, those benefits accrued up to the time the employee started the leave will be retained.

The employee’s exact position, tour of duty, or work area may not be guaranteed upon return from a personal leave of absence; however, all efforts will be made to place the employee in the first available similar job with similar pay. The employee’s date of initial employment will be adjusted to reflect the time spent on personal leave.

It is the employee’s responsibility to return to work on the date the leave of absence expires. Should the employee fail to return and fail to notify —– of a request for an extension, we will assume that the employee does not intend to rejoin the company and will consider the employee to have resigned from employment. A request for extension of a leave of absence must be in writing and must be received at least 6 working days prior to the expiration of a leave.