Today's Agent Skill: PTO and Time-Off Policy Drafter
What It Does
Small business owners often build their PTO policy on the back of a napkin, then rewrite it every time an employee asks a question. This skill drafts a clear, state-compliant PTO and time-off policy tailored to your team size, industry, and location.
How It Works
The agent takes your state, employee count, industry, and any existing informal practices, then produces a written PTO policy covering accrual, carryover, sick leave, bereavement, jury duty, and holidays. It flags any state-specific rules that apply (California CFRA, Colorado FAMLI, New York sick leave, etc.) and drafts an employee-facing FAQ.
How to Deploy It
Load into Claude Code, Gemini CLI, Cursor, or Windsurf and provide your business's basic details as inputs. The output is a Markdown or DOCX policy plus an FAQ. Have an employment attorney do a final review before you publish — the skill is a first draft accelerator, not a substitute for licensed advice.
SKILL.md — Ready to Deploy
## Description
Drafts a written PTO, sick leave, and holiday policy for a US small business, tailored to state law and team size, plus a plain-language employee FAQ.
## Trigger
Invoke when the user says "write my PTO policy," "draft time-off rules," or provides state, headcount, and industry as inputs.
## Input
- State(s) where employees work
- Employee count and W-2 vs contractor split
- Industry (retail, professional services, healthcare, restaurant, etc.)
- Existing informal practices (accrual rate, carryover, blackout dates)
- Company holidays already observed
- Optional: budget constraint (weeks per year the owner is willing to grant)
## Steps
1. Identify the state-specific paid sick leave and family leave laws that apply based on state and employee count.
2. Draft an accrual policy — hours per pay period, cap, and carryover rules.
3. Draft a request and approval workflow — how many days notice, who approves, how to record.
4. Cover the standard categories: vacation, sick, bereavement, jury duty, military, unpaid personal leave.
5. Include a section on unused PTO at separation, matched to state law (some states require payout).
6. Draft an employee-facing FAQ answering the Copy the full SKILL.md and drop it into your agent's skills directory to activate this skill.