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An employer may require an employee who is taking a vacation to use accrued paid vacation time rather than taking unpaid time off. Vacation pay is not required by law, although when it is offered, certain accrual and vesting rules do apply in California.
However, no law specifies that employees have an absolute right to determine when they want to use their paid vacation. Therefore, you may require your employee to use their paid vacation rather than going unpaid and saving the paid vacation time for a later date.
As a best practice, you should include language in an employee handbook stating that accrued paid vacation time must be used if available when taking time off for vacation purposes.
Even without this specific language in a handbook, however, an employer still may require the use of accrued paid vacation time since nothing in the law would prohibit such a requirement.
Note that certain state and federal leave of absence laws limit when an employer may require the use of paid vacation.
For example, an employee taking a leave of absence for pregnancy disability may not be required to use their vacation pay during the leave, although they may choose to do so at their option.
Read more about when vacation use may be mandated during various legally protected leaves of absence on the Benefits During Leaves of Absence chart.
Read more about Vacation in the HR Library.