HR Operations

Personal holiday

Last updated: September 22, 2023

This page applies to all contract covered, classified non-union and professional staff.

All contract covered, classified non-union and professional staff receive one paid personal holiday per calendar year.

To receive this holiday, you must have completed at least four months of continuous University employment. Classified non-union employees need only to be scheduled to have at least four months of continuous employment.

Personal holiday hours

Full-time employees receive eight hours of time off for their paid holiday.

Part-time employees receive a prorated amount based on their FTE percentage. For example, if you work 20 hours per week (0.5 FTE), you get four hours of paid personal holiday.

Scheduling your personal holiday

For campus staff: Schedule your personal holiday in Workday using the Request Absence process.

For medical centers staff: Follow your usual departmental time off request procedure.

Regardless of your work location, your personal holiday is expected to be taken as a single day of time off. However, use in partial-day increments is allowed for the following reasons.

  • To care for your child, spouse, parent, parent-in-law, or grandparent who has a serious or emergency health condition under the Washington State Family Care Act,
  • To donate a portion of your personal holiday (in four-hour increments) to any shared time off program
  • To accommodate a work shift that crosses the midnight divide

Any remaining hours that are not used for the above reasons must be taken all at once.

Use it or lose it

You must use or donate your personal holiday during the calendar year in which you received it. If you don’t use or donate it by December 31, you will lose it.

Leaving University employment

You are not paid for any unused personal holiday hours if you leave state employment.

However, if you leave the University for a job with another state agency — without a break in service — then your unused personal holiday transfers with you.

Additional resources

  • APS 45.3 Holiday Policy for Classified Non-Union, Contract-Classified, and Professional Staff