As of 6/17/25, the 2025 winter break will now run from December 22, 2025 through January 2, 2026 (extended from the previous dates of December 24, 2025 through January 2, 2026). The 2025 holiday calendar has been updated to reflect this change.
Leave
As an employment benefit, leave provides a way for faculty and staff to take approved time off from work for various reasons. Understanding your leave options will help you best prepare for any situation where you may need to use your leave such as vacation, illness, community service, or extended time away from work.
VCU provides various paid and unpaid leave options to assist eligible employees with managing their absences from work. VCU HR Leave Administration manages the university's leave programs and processes to ensure compliance with federal, state, and local regulations.
Your Leave Plan
Employees should reference the VCU Leave Guide for details on each type of leave as applicable to their employee class. The guide also contains guidance on requesting leave from your manager, timekeeping, general leave policies, leave accrual rates, employee responsibilities, and other commonly asked questions about leave.
For detailed information about your leave plan, contact your HR Professional.
Basic elements of leave plans for different employee classes are represented in the chart below. This information is presented in further detail in theVCU Leave Guide.
In general, managers should carefully consider approving the use of university leave before the employee earns (or accrues) it in order to avoid placing both the employee and VCU in the difficult position of requiring the employee to repay the university if separated. Managers should contact their HR Professional as soon as possible to discuss approval and use of university leave an employee has not yet earned which should be reviewed on a case-by-case basis, and for each pay period the employee continues to request the use of leave that an employee has not yet earned. There may be cases when the employee’s use of unaccrued leave is appropriate. However, these situations should always be reviewed by the manager with their HR Professional who will consult with the appropriate Central Human Resource departments for required guidance and actions.
Read more about ways to use your leave in the VCU Leave Guide.
VCU prohibits accruing or carrying leave “off of the books''. Managers should meet with their employees to discuss requested leave and, when possible, university and annual leave should be approved, in advance, of the employee taking leave. Managers have the discretion to grant or deny an employee’s leave requests. Employees request leave through their time and attendance system (typically VCU RealTime) and they should do so with as much advance notice as possible in order to allow sufficient time for managers to plan and schedule work accordingly.
Managers are strongly advised to document the reasons why specific employee leave requests are denied and to maintain such documentation in their files. If requests for leave are submitted by multiple employees for the same leave period, and all leave requests cannot be granted, managers should develop criteria for considering and approving leave requests based on the reason for the request, an employee’s leave record, an employee’s recent opportunities to take leave, years of service, etc.
University and Academic Professionals are granted 16 hours (2 days) of paid time off to volunteer to engage in employee service activities sponsored throughVCU or VCU Health System either individually or as part of a group. VCU's Enhanced Community Service Leave (ECSL) provides university employees with the opportunity to support VCU and VCU Health communities and strengthen university-community relationships, and it may only be used to participate in events sponsored by these organizations. Enhanced community service leave may not be used on a day the university is officially closed for a designated holiday, given ECSL is for use during an employee’s regular work hours.
To request use of ECSL, the employee must notify their manager about the volunteer opportunity as soon as practicable to ensure business operations will allow for this time out of work. Once the manager approves the request, the employee will submit this leave in RealTime for their manager to approve. The employee should make a note in RealTime of the name of the organization the employee volunteered for, and the manager should keep documentation in their supervisor’s file to support the employee’s use of this leave category, in the event of an audit.
Read more about community service leave and enhanced community service leave in the VCU Leave Guide.
Contact Us
For questions about leave usage, contact your HR Professional.