Mentor PTO

This question was brought on by this thread.

Do you need to use personal time off to mentor your team? Volunteer/work with your team at events? Or for anything else relating to FIRST Robotics?

If you do need to take PTO, do you believe you would still need to do so if there were a professional development program offered through an accredited university for your mentor tasks? It would also be very helpful for you to provide the name of your company and additional details if possible.

Yes. 12 vacation days this year towards events, and the team intentionally meets in the evenings so mentors don’t need to take time off work for meetings. I doubt any professional development course would help.

Not sure how it is with others within my company but I’ve been fortunate enough to have a manager who “gets it” and has allowed me to take the days without burning PTO. As long as my work is done I’m good. Plus he sees the benefit that FIRST has toward careers, the leadership experience is worth it in his eyes.

Officially, our company does give everyone 1 “volunteer day” that you can use for what ever organization that you want.

I’m an intern so I don’t get PTO so I’m just not getting paid for the time missed for IRI.

I’m always taking a half day off for demos and other events here and there plus with my 12 hr shift and every other 3 day weekend I’m using two days of PTO for Friday and Saturday then rush home to work ast 5am Sunday because it always lands on my weekend. I bet I’m in the teens for the year too like John with the days of PTO used for FRC, and we too meet in the evening.

There needs to be another option on this poll.

No/Yes, my company provides some of the PTO I use for robotics

SunPower gives all its employees 3 days of VTO(volunteer time off) each year for volunteer work. During the season I take at least 12 days off for robotics, 2 days for Monday holidays the school has off but work does not, 1-3 days each for our 3 Regionals(~6 days), and 4-5 days for Champs. The VTO helps, but I’m still eating ~9 days worth of PTO each season. I would like to have more but it is better than nothing.

I thought about adding that option but then decided against it. My logic was that if you’re using any significant amount of PTO to mentor FIRST teams you’d fall into the category that you need to use PTO. In my current job search I’m placing a high value on companies that recognize the value of FIRST Robotics with their volunteering policies.

And here I thought this thread would be about mentors with a second output shaft for powering a separate mechanism using the same motors. Silly me :rolleyes:

Currently, half time (sometimes). If the event is directly sponsored by the Air Force or DoD, then it’s up to the supervisor. My supervisor granted me a free day of leave for a regional. I’ll take it.

I forgot to mention ay my current employer the are two technicians on my crew that mentor teams. Fortunately we compete on different events week 2 and 5. But when there is a conflict one of us must call in sick because they only allow one person to use PTO per day.

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Chronicling my post-college years:

The car dealership: My personal time, and occasionally an extra day around Championship that was just unpaid leave. Only once did I get pushback, and that was more because I was leaving at the end of the month (car sales managers live and die by the end of the month, while my job wasn’t). Car dealerships, frequently owned by salespeople that grew to management and eventually ownership, are highly sales-driven and culturally disinclined to close (except, for some, on Sundays) or do a lot of time off.

InventoryLab: Their policy was “reasonable time off”. No issues getting anything approved.

AndyMark: …do you have to ask? Andy is a firm believer that volunteering at events and getting face time with teams is a good reflection on the company (as is working the AndyMark booth when there is one, obviously). I’m not saying you can jet off to work any event anywhere on the clock. But look in my signature between Championship 2016 and CAGE Match 2017.

Owning my own business: Well, it’s my business. And since I haven’t finished hiring staff yet, I eat any lost working time.

I use PTO if I’m missing a full day. Probably 5 or 6 a year, including one or two for full build days during school vacation.

I stopped asking my boss if it’s ok to take a day off since he always looked confused that I’d even ask. He’s very European and must assume I work the same 20ish hour work week he does.

Working in academia has its perks.

Vacation days. An accredited whatever will not help. I’m not at work, I better be dieing or on vacation.

^^ This.

I haven’t done the math, but I’m pretty sure I use more of my personal leave to mentor and take the team to demos and events than everything else combined. Fortunately, my supervisors would rather have me spread it out than take off most of December like some of my co-workers.

I’d actually like to hear from any mentors who work in HR for their respective companies about this. HR tends to control these policies or have a heavy influence on them.

It’s not as hopeless of a cause as the results so far might make people think. Getting the right message in front of the right person is all it takes.

I get one 1 Volunteer Time off day a year working for Global Payments, and then I have to take PTO for the rest. Luckily this year I think my time out of work was (1-2 days)minimal for robotics…until district CMP and worlds. I am trying to get corporate interested in FIRST. Who knows what would be possible if they came to an event.

My office does have a volunteer policy, but it’s limited by law to 8 hours per quarter, for pre-vetted events, usually judging science fairs and such. I looked into it a few years ago and it appeared I was pushing a rope for minimal payoff.

That’s four days per year and depending on how your company’s fiscal year is setup or if it’s a calendar year, it might be that more than one of them coincides with build season and competitions.

For reference, my company’s policy is to encourage employees to participate in 2 “service learning days” each calendar year (8 hours per day). I use them for helping my team or volunteering but others use them for company-run volunteering events. They also have some other great policies to help non-profits that I take advantage of.

I do have to use PTO but I’ve got an amazing manager that enables me to help my team in other ways and encourages my robotics antics and likes to spend our review sessions asking me about what my students are working on.

Other companies I have been at have actually gone as far as changing their policy when I broached volunteering as a subject with the right people - always in HR.

EDIT: I view volunteering and the enablement of that as a benefit and I encourage those seeking employment to do the same. If the HR rep can’t tell you what the policies are when you ask then push them to find out if it’s important to you. If they don’t have them then keep searching until you find a company that does. It’s an important benefit to me - I look at it like decent health insurance and a good vacation/PTO policy. Finding the right place to work is difficult and finding a good work-life balance is hard.

I must admit that even though my employer does not give me additional time off for volunteering I did 99% of our hotel, bussing, and other travel plans for both or regional and Detroit trips on the clock. The countless hours doing that and spent on Cheif Delphi. Watching reveal videos, scouting matches, and other FRC research more than makes up for it. I have been pretty worthless at work from January through April.

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6844 mentors typically go on unpaid leave for events. Team meetings are scheduled in evenings, so there typically aren’t concerns there. I’ve generally worked in situations where I’ve had flexibility with my schedule - having to work so many hours a week, but being able to do that however I wanted. That’s come in handy.

None of my employers would have done a professional development course for FRC. The professional development options FSL paid for were directly related to their overall mission - cybersecurity, databases, HPC conferences, etc.