All Full-time and Part-time Partial Benefits employees are eligible to receive time off for mission trips. Employees of the department originating the mission trip (and/or the staff member is needed and approved to go on the mission trip as part of his or her job):

  1. Supervisor approval is required, and out-of-office time should be handled and scheduled through normal office protocols.
  2. Time spent on the trip is considered “work” and thus work days/hours on the trip are compensated normally. This assumes that both exempt and non-exempt (hourly) employees would be “working” (doing things related to their job) on their normal days and for their normal hours.
  3. Usually, such employees are considered as having no “day off” during the trip — except for sightseeing or recreational days.
  4. Thus, for recuperation upon return, they may follow the irregular hours policy and compensate themselves with days off equal to the number missed during the trip.
  5. Both exempt and non-exempt (and full-time and part-time) employees should be able to follow this method.
  6. If a non-exempt employee or their supervisor anticipate that, during the trip, job-related expectations/hours will exceed “normal” (thus necessitating overtime), this should be pointed out (and negotiated/resolved) with Human Resources before the trip if at all possible. Supervisors should always give extra consideration and wisdom to the hours approved for non-exempt employees on such trips, mitigating any potential for accrual of overtime hours.

Employees who are NOT needed to go on the trip:

  1. Non-GBC mission trip: use Vacation leave; supervisor approval required; out-of-office time must go through normal office protocols.
  2. GBC mission trip: after the employee has been on staff for one year, GBC will allow one week (5 work days) of paid time off (“non-vacation”) every 3 years; supervisor approval required; out-of-office time must go through normal office protocols.
  3. Exceptions must receive pre-approval from HR and the Ops Team before the employee is granted approval.