More companies are moving to a paid time off (PTO) system where days off are not designated as vacation leave, sick leave, or personal leave. Employees are given a number of days to manage however they choose. If they rarely get sick, they can have more vacation/personal leave days. If they are sick enough to not be able to work, they can take the time off they need, but it may cut into the amount of vacation time they can take. These policies are designed to give employees more flexibility and to ease the administrative burden of tracking and policing workers' use of their time off. Employees don't need to tell white lies, such as claiming to be sick when they're not, and they can use the days however they think is appropriate. For example, a working parent might use the time to care for a sick child or attend a school conference, while someone without children might want to take more vacation leave.
Where an employer has a PTO policy, remaining PTO days are generally treated the same as vacation days under the law when an employee leaves the job - see question 5 below. These days are considered to be accrued by the employee and payable when the employee leaves the job.