PTO and time off
PTO and time off
How PTO accrues
Daisy gives you 18 days of paid time off a year, which accrues at 5.54 hours per pay period — across 26 biweekly pay periods, that works out to 144 hours, or 18 eight-hour days. Accrual starts with your very first pay period; you don't wait 90 days or a full year to start earning it, and you don't need a full bank of hours before you can use some. If you take a day before you've technically accrued it, your balance just runs slightly negative and catches up over the following pay periods.
PTO covers vacation, personal days, and anything else that isn't sick leave — see "Sick leave and FMLA" for the separate bucket that covers being unwell.
Carryover
You can carry up to 5 unused days (40 hours) into the next calendar year. Anything accrued beyond that as of December 31 is forfeited, so it's worth checking your balance each fall rather than discovering a surplus in January. Managers get a Gusto reminder in November for anyone sitting on a balance that's about to hit the cap.
Requesting time off
Time off is requested in Gusto's Time Off module, which routes to your manager for approval and updates your accrual balance automatically. For a single day, there's no required notice — just put it in when you know. For anything longer than three consecutive days, we ask for two weeks' notice where you can manage it, mostly so your team can plan around you rather than scramble.
Company holidays
Daisy observes 11 paid holidays a year: New Year's Day, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Memorial Day, Juneteenth, Independence Day, Labor Day, Thanksgiving Day, the day after Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and New Year's Eve. On top of those, you get 2 floating holidays a year to use for anything that matters to you and isn't on that list — a religious observance, a birthday, a random Tuesday. Floating holidays are scheduled in Gusto like any other PTO request and are prorated for new hires based on the quarter you start in.
When you leave
If you leave Daisy, unused accrued PTO is paid out with your final paycheck — see "Pay and payroll" for the timing rules on that check. This is a company policy choice, not a state requirement; Texas doesn't mandate PTO payout either way, and Daisy pays it out because we'd rather that be simple and predictable than something you have to ask about on your way out.