Popular Vacation Purchase Plan (VPP) available for 2021/2022

Would you like extra days for your summer holiday or additional days off to take care of children or elderly parents? Are you a new employee wishing for vacation time during your first year?

These are questions to discuss with your supervisor when considering the vacation purchase plan (VPP). If your area’s operational needs are covered, you may be eligible to benefit from the program.

The University will offer this popular program for the sixth year, says Darlene Smith, associate vice-president, human resources. 

“The vacation purchase plan gives support staff (EMAPS, UNIFOR, AESES and CUPE Engineering) the ability to create flexible work arrangements and promotes work-life balance.”

The vacation purchase plan provides eligible employees with an opportunity to purchase five to 10 days of vacation in addition to their current vacation allotment. While unpaid leaves already exist, they impact seniority and service accrual, vacation accrual, pension contributions and other benefits, whereas these consequences do not occur with VPP.

The vacation purchase plan works with the voluntary days off program (VDOP). The VPP allows salary deductions to be distributed throughout the year, whereas the VDOP deducts from earnings within the pay period that the leave is taken.

These options provide significant flexibility for employees; however, the combined total of days between the VPP and VDOP programs cannot exceed 10 days per fiscal year. 

In 2021/2022, VPP and VDOP will run concurrently with vacation carryover. The University recognizes that many employees have significant vacation banks mainly due to the impacts of the pandemic.

“While this is understandable, we also believe that taking time off provides significant health and wellness benefits for employees,” notes Smith.

In consultation with support staff unions the University has agreed to increase the allowable vacation carryover from 10 to 15 days for the 2021/2022 vacation year.

To support the use of vacation banks, vacation carryover will also be considered when determining eligibility for VPP and/or VDOP. The combination of carryover and newly purchased VPP and VDOP cannot exceed 10 days. To enable maximum flexibility for vacation planning for this year only, the VPP 5 day minimum is being removed and employees can purchase from one to 10 days of VPP. If an employee is already carrying over 10 days they cannot purchase VPP days. If the employee is carrying over five days they could purchase an additional five days.  If an employee is carrying over 7 days of vacation, they could purchase an additional three days.

The University is committed to supporting all employees during this unprecedented public health situation, and we ask that employees do their best to support UM operations.

Managers/Department Heads/Deans will work with employees to plan use of current vacation minimizing carryover, and look ahead to workable time off plans and programs for 2021/2022. Details and the VPP application form can be found on the VPP webpage.

Please note the following deadlines for the Vacation Purchase Plan applications:

Employees: Submit the request for VPP form to your supervisor by February 26, 2021. 

Supervisors: Submit approved VPP forms to Human Resources by March 5, 2021.

Questions? Contact the HR Help Desk at hris [at] umanitoba [dot] ca or contact your HR consultant.

To provide feedback, email hrfeedback [at] umanitoba [dot] ca

HR STAFF