Asking from the point of view of the employee: how many days a year do you actually take as annual leave? Please provide company name or country if possible. Asking for a friend.
It works OK, but there's two situations where it can go bad:
1. (Uncommon) People take off during crunch time
2. (Very common IME) People take off en masse during lulls, leaving a skeleton crew to handle blowups.
3. No vacation payout during layoffs
If you do 1 just to get out of work, you're a crappy coworker. People do 2, to be team players, but it can result in large waves of low staffing. 3 is a natural result, which is a major financial downside - the upside, of course, is that you can take much more vacation, and many do.
Even with the above, I like it. You can take mental health days and deal with family issues without that feeling of "begging for forgiveness"
I think "unlimited vacation" should not be conflated with "vacation any time you want it". To avoid the pathological cases you mention above, managers still need to make sure that not too many vacations overlap.
If expectations have been set that you can take vacation whenever you want (even during a crunch on a project that you're leading) without consideration of the business needs, I'd suggest that's a big mistake.
My coworker left to go work at LogicMonitor in Santa Barbara, CA (https://www.logicmonitor.com/careers/). Back in 2013 (not sure of the current policy) they offered unlimited vacations, and a $1000 bonus if you took a full week off and did not check email or do any work while you were out. He described it as a dinner buffet...in theory it looks like you could eat 10 steaks and 20 pizzas, but in reality even though it's unlimited most people stick to the same portion sizes they would at a regular restaurant because your stomach is still the same size. He said that for him the big 1-2 week vacations were still limited by 1) cost, 2) his wife's work schedule, 3) kids' school schedule. The one difference that having unlimited vacation made is that people didn't have to lie about being sick all the time to take 1 or 2 days here and there.
The schedule of the kids and wife is a good point. I'm writing this from the balcony of a condo I'm currently renting for a vacation, we're here because it's my son's spring break. :)
I lost touch but in the first 2 years he said he loved it, and it was the best job he ever had. A current check of LinkedIn shows he left but I don't know the reason.
USA. When I was at Sociable Labs, unlimited vacation worked out pretty well for me. I took around 4-5 weeks most years. Typically a week or less at a time, although I'd do a 2 weeks around Christmas and I think I took one 2-week trip during the summer.
Some of my colleagues weren't very proactive about it, so after a couple of years, the manager started assigning folks a week off here and there if they hadn't taken much vacation recently. I think something like this is a good idea.
I'm now at Tanium, and they have unlimited / self-directed vacation, but I've only been around for a few months, so I've only taken a day or two off.
They told me that most folks take 4~5 weeks a year here also, and I have seen a couple colleagues take vacations where they were wholly unreachable for a week or more.
My first job out of high school did not have unlimited vacation, but I took the month of August off (unpaid) my second year there - that was nice.
I think the higher up in the org you are, or the more you serve as a bottleneck for productivity (e.g. because of unique skills), then the harder it is to take a truly 100% off vacation. The terminal example is a CEO — I'm sure most CEOs would cut a vacation short if a real crisis came up. That said, it has to be an actual crisis. If coworkers are bugging you about routine stuff on vacation, that's a bad work environment.
If you are not ever able to take vacation because you are so important that's a sign for bad organization. In reality sometimes people are off for months because of sickness and I have never seen this being a real problem. People pick up quickly.
If you're on vacation, you're on vacation, in my book. If I'm taking a real vacation, I'm going to be somewhere way out in the sticks where there isn't even any cell service, sitting on a lake catching trout, in a foreign country backpacking with no laptop, or sipping tropical drinks on the beach in the sun. In none of those cases am I going to be able to do anything useful even if you did get ahold of me.
In my experience it has a chilling effect on actual vacation taken. The real driver is not having to pay an employee for earned, unused vacation when they leave the company.
> In my experience it has a chilling effect on actual vacation taken.
This was exactly my experience in two very different environments with an unlimited vacation policy - one start-up, one large established company. The overwhelming majority of people took less vacation than what is typical at most tech companies and a handful took quite a bit more. The latter handful tended to be strongly correlated with people who were underperformers and the underperforming was, at least from my perspective, not due to less time but more down to a mix of general attitude and motivation. The former majority tended to be worried about perception and/or unsure of what was appropriate and thus tended to take less vacation than they otherwise would have.
You'll most likely not get a definite answer because it can range from very bad to very good depending on both company and team.
I don't want to mention my current company to keep my anonymity but we currently have unlimited vacation and at least for my team it's going great but it's mostly because of our direct manager who encourages us to:
a) track and document our work so that when someone leaves on vacation the sky doesn't fall
b) take as much time as needed to unwind
I personally took about 6 weeks of vacation (double the amount of policy based vacation I got at my previous company) in the past year and things at work have been stellar. We delivered, kicked ass, whatever you want to call it and with zero guilt. But my company is well known for great work-life balance.
However, I can't say the same about other teams where peer pressure keeps people in their seats.
I am personally very cautious about 'unlimited vacation' plans because if you do a game matrix you'll realize that it's skewed against the employee and you'll end up in a better place only if the stars align just right. If they don't you'll end up working way more and either you'll never have 'approved' vacation by your manager or you'll never ask for it because passive-aggressively the culture frowns on 'slackers' who take time off.
If vacation time matters to you (and It definitely should) before accepting an offer I would ask the hiring manager for the actual number of business days the team members use for vacation. If he/she brushes it off or is handwavy like 'nobody keeps track' (somebody ALWAYS keeps track) then stay away.
>>You'll most likely not get a definite answer because it can range from very bad to very good depending on both company and team.
This matches my experience. I disliked unlimited vacation because my manager at the time was a massive workaholic overachiever and I felt guilty taking any vacation. I usually ended up at ~2.5 weeks a year because I traveled overseas and traveling to the other side of the world for a week was not feasible. I felt like 2 - 3 weeks was typical for most of the people in the company. Some people would do that by just taking multiple very short vacations throughout the year, which seemed like an awful idea to me.
Even in the groups with good managers, you were one re-org away from a bad manager and vacation time going away.
If you have a good manager and work in a place that has accrued PTO, I seriously doubt the manger is going to care if you take some extra personal days throughout the year and don't record them. So you get something like unlimited vacation with the nice guarantees of accrued vacation.
From what I've heard from people in companies that have implemented it, it basically devolves into "you can take off whenever your want but... we really need you here due to crunch!" Basically it turns into a game of guilting people NOT to take any vacation time. Having guaranteed off time that can be scheduled well in advance and flexible working hours is way more reassuring.
In my opinion, why not just be way more generous in how much PTO time employees accrue? If European companies can still function with employees taking up to a month off why is it such a big deal to be generous in this category?
My preference would be for a reasonable amount of PTO coupled with unlimited sick time, so getting the flu doesn't force me to choose between either giving up my planned summer vacation or coming into work sick :)
I second this. It just makes sense not to punish people who are truly sick. They end up coming in and infecting everyone. I'm saying be generous with TRUE vacation time.
As a German, I find the concept of "sick time" baffling. When I'm sick, I go to my doctor and get a note that allows me to stay away from work until I'm healthy. Employers are required by law to continue paying the full salary for at least 6 weeks, or longer if the employer chooses so (e.g. 6 months at my employer). After that, one receives sick pay from the health insurance (70% of the last salary).
Actually, it's even better at my employer. When I feel like a cold is coming on, I just shoot a e-mail to my manager and stay home. I only have to submit a doctor's note at the third day of continuous absence. The manager does not get to argue against your staying home, although I guess that question would be asked if one would abuse this policy. Managers are generally supportive of the policy; they don't want sick people spreading their diseases to their colleagues.
I worked for a US company that gave you an accrual of one sick day every month, with a maximum accrual of 120 days on the books.
Sick days could be "verified" by presenting a doctor's note when you come back to work, or unverified, although you could only take up to five unverified sick days per calendar year.
If you should use no sick days in a given calendar year, regardless of doctor's note or not, you would earn an additional vacation day for use in the following year.
This set up a perverse incentive -- suppose you get sick, use some sick days, and bring back a doctor's note with you for it. You've lost your free vacation day for the next year, and you still have 5 allowable "unverified" days. You may as well now just "call in sick" on a few Fridays here and there to fill out your unverified sick day allowance, and give yourself some three day weekends.
Sounds good, doesn't work.
The fear of taking too much time off makes the conscientious not take enough holiday to maintain a healthy work-life balance. Others take advantage and "are off on vacation again" making the hardworking people bitter and resentful. Unlimited isn't the answer, flexible and accommodating, while accountable, is.
For me it was super stressful and made it really hard to plan. What I did was decide how much leave I wanted if this were a "traditional" system, discussed that with my manager informally (he still wouldn't give me a straight answer but I got to a number that he seemed to be okay with), and tracked the vacation and sick time myself in a spreadsheet.
One thing I did notice is that it seemed very hard to get more vacation as a more senior employee.
I think it's less about flexibility for the employee and more so they don't have to keep everyone's unused vacation on the balance sheet and in the bank. Also they don't have to pay out that unused vacation when you leave, so if you're tracking it yourself, try not to "accrue" a lot of vacation. The reality of "unlimited vacation" means you will probably take around the same amount as someone at a traditional setup, but it will be more frequent shorter vacations and you're less likely to take like a month off for a big summer trip.
I've also seen this system (perhaps inadvertently) take advantage of people with workaholic tendencies or people that tend to feel a lot of peer pressure to support the team, and "unlimited vacation" can mean "no vacation" for some folks.
"Unlimited" vacation without requiring a minimum is a negative thing. It means that instead of "earning"/accruing vacation and spending it how you want, you have to ask permission for every little use.
Instead of the company owing you your fair vacation use, they now have an avenue to discourage vacation use and encourage a culture of limited vacation use.
If a company truly cared about their employees, they could always just double the accrual rate of paid time off.
We kind of have "unlimited" vacation, but also a number that we are allowed. If we go over that I think the manager would have to get extra approval for it.
What you describe is essentially how it has been for me. I do not have a significant other, or family and feel a lot of responsibility to help my team. Though the past couple of years my manager had heavily encouraged me to take vacation. So near the end of the year I would take off every Friday until the end of the year and take off the week between Christmas and New Years. Stuff like that.
Be weary of unlimited vacation if you're anything like me.
I've never experienced this myself directly. However I used to work at a company who now does this.
I still have many silo'd friend groups at that company (who don't even know each other too well - designers/devs/sales) and the general consensus when I'm out with each group is that "it's a trap". There appears to be a negative vibe a kind of undertone where people will question others (to them selves not openly) and the hierarchy. Admittedly the trust was never great at this company but from my third party view point I would absolutely not like it. Culture would play a huge part though and unfortunately in this case the unlimited leave was a marketing/recruitment angle so was pretty much always set for failure.
My current workplace has "unlimited" vacation. You have to request days off in advance, which your supervisor can approve/disapprove.
However, once you reach 4 weeks (160 Vacation hours) you have to get VP-level approval to take any additional time off. And the vacation hours tracker resets at the end of the Fiscal Year.
So, basically, unlimited means 4 weeks per year tops, and you have to get it approved in advance. I don't really care for it.
“unlimited”, from all accounts I've seen, seems mostly to be a way to put a positive spin on “you have no balance that accrues or can be cashed out or used as terminal leave, but its still just as limited for most employees as would be common at similar firms with limited policies. Plus, we’ve got a built in way to play favorites without violating the on-the-books policy should we decide to do so.”
Almost all of these things companies brag about are like that.
Same thing with open offices.
In fact whenever you see companies praising something so much trying to convince people it's such a wonderful thing, follow the money and it always leads to something that is only good for them and that's just their propaganda machine trying to get everyone to repeat it.
Considering that in places like Germany 5-6 weeks are pretty much standard then calling 4 weeks "unlimited" is pretty much a joke. If someone offered unlimited vacation I would probably ask what they would do if I took 8 weeks.
I'm sure some companies are doing it properly, but I think for the most part it's 'unlimited holiday if you get the work done', which turns into 'holiday if you get the work done', and there will always be enough work that it never gets done.
At previous company we switched to the 'unlimited holiday' policy, I asked my boss what the real limit was and she said if it was anything over 27 days (the previous amount before being 'unlimited') then the manager would have to sign off on it, which basically wouldn't happen.
I'm experiencing a similar thing at my current job where when I asked what the office hours and lunch hours were I couldn't get a straight answer, it's kept intentionally vague so that when it gets to 5 you don't go 'well I'm off home, bye!'
USA. It has mostly to do with personality. People who can take 4 weeks in South America and not feel guilty do, and appear to have a great time. I typically take normal holidays (two weeks for xmas, a week here or there ~twice a year).
I think the best way to stave this off would be to have a mandatory minimum time. Eg, we have unlimited PTO but you have to take at least 4 weeks this year, or n days a quarter, or something like that.
Not sure if it's legal to do that.
edit: another point that someone else brought up is that you can take sick/mental health days often and with ease. This is very true, and is a benefit I've enjoyed a lot.
I work for a reasonably large (500+ engineers) software company in San Francisco with "unlimited vacation." I take between 4-5 weeks off a year (20-25 actual days off). It seems pretty typical amongst my colleagues.
It's a mechanism to reduce the amount of bookkeeping HR has to do with vacation hours, with the added benefit of not having to pay out any vacation hours when an employee leaves.
I have this with my current employer. The problem I see si that when I ask for time off, it feels like I'm asking for a favor. Might just be my superiors. I kind of wish it were more like "I have x number of days off left for the year, I'd like to take some of those in October." I still get a generous amount of time off each year, but it's awkward every time I make the request.
edit: Check out mrguyorama's comment. They said what I was trying to say in a much better way.
It sounds like a way for employers to cut benefits/costs.
If you have PAID vacation, that you accrue, then that's something you get, regardless if you take it or not (of course there are usually caps on how much you can accrue).
If it's "unlimited", I guess that means there's no accrual, and if you take no (or minimal) vacation and leave, your vacation benefits were effectively reduced.
I think "unlimited" vacation is a gimmick to sound generous. If you want to offer a generous vacation policy, then stand behind it as an actual paid benefit. Offer it as paid vacation, and if the employee doesn't take that much while they work for you, then hopefully they use that banked paid time to take a break between jobs.
I've never been at a company with accrued vacation or sick days; they all just combine the two and say you lose unused days at the end of the year.
At this point in my life, I've decided it's worth using all my paid time off and requesting some unpaid time -- so I'd prefer whatever unlimited means.
I’ve experienced the best of both. Company policy is paid so it accrues. However I’ve never submitted any time off. So I’m always fully accrued, cash it out regularly, and I still get to take unlimited time off.
This only works with the right manager and proper managing up. It keeps the team happy so the manager is willing to bend the rules a little or look the other way. Also, one bad coworker can screw it up for everyone so we kind of make sure we’re not keeping track of each other.
Joining (the Atlanta office of) Square, I was very nervous that “Unlimited Vacation” actually meant “No Vacation”. It hasn't turned out that way: our office has a good work-life balance.
I would still expect that that is not generally the case.
I've experienced being denied time off excessively, no vacation payout (even if I didn't even take 2 weeks), strict rules about when you can take time off, for how long, etc.
United States here. I've worked at two companies that had this kind of unlimited policy.
The first one not only did I end up taking less vacation then I would of, I actually had my manager get mad at me for using more than two weeks of leave. I no longer work at said place for a myriad of reasons.
The current one is pretty good. I definitely need to be proactive about it, but I've never been denied or guilted. Last year I used a bit over 3 weeks (so about normal for my field), but this year I'm planning to use a bit more because I have a few different places I'd like to visit. It definitely took me some mental effort to get past my natural tendency to avoid taking off.
Unlimited Vacation is the same as saying Unlimited Salary, its total BS. Without set guidelines in your employment contract of what PTO you get in exchange for working there it creates a drawn out negotiation between you, your manager and your team of how much vacation you actually get.
Its just better to know for sure what PTO you are entitled to in your employment contract. Would you accept a job without knowing what the salary was? Keep in mind that vacation days are something that you are EARNING in exchange for your work.
It really makes sense -- you wouldn't leave it up to your line manager to decide ad hoc "well that daycare for your kid is too much for you so I won't approve," your salary is your agreed-upon compensation.
It is not part of the employee benefits because it doesn't exist. Can I take 2 months off in a row under an unlimited time-off policy? No. Why? Because I would "disrupt" a project or a team. Can I take all my Friday's off? Nope... work weeks should be 5 days not 4. That's what unlimited holiday means to me. So when a company says we have unlimited time-off policy I usually run away. Liars!
Worked for a (now defunct) Silicon Valley company that did this. My experience also really turned me off to the whole idea.
The problem was that it was not clearly defined across the company how much vacation was too much or too little, and even if you hear one thing when you get hired, a reorg can put you under someone with a totally different viewpoint. Meanwhile, in companies I've worked without unlimited vacation, it's clearly defined how much vacation is too much, because you can't use more than your bucket.
My first boss was the one who hired me into the company, and when he called me to present the offer, he told me that as a European he felt people in the US don't take enough time off and he wanted us to do 4-5 weeks a year. At one point mid-summer he told me "I don't think you've taken enough time off, it's slow next week, so go have the week off and take your kid to the pool a lot."
That boss left the company, and I got reorged into a team that was pretty much the remnants of a startup that my employer had acquihired. The company was pushing this team to develop and release a particular new product concept ASAP, but giving minimal staffing to do so, so it was constant lowgrade crunch the whole time. The manager (and former founder of that startup) was also still operating in startup-hustle mode and setting the sort of example that while you technically get time off, you'd best not be taking a whole lot.
I worked under each boss for a year. Under manager 1 I took 4.5 work weeks off in 12 months. Under manager 2 I took 7 days off in 12 months.
Not a lawyer but I imagine that companies don't provide more guidance on _minimum_ vacation time usage, because maybe that could be construed as a bucket, and would put you back under the idea that in certain jurisdictions (California included) vacation accruals are viewed as compensation duly earned by the employee but not paid out yet. Avoiding having to carry that as a liability on your books and pay out when people separate, as I understand it, is the primary purpose behind unlimited vacation policies in the first place.
USA. I’ve worked under an unlimited vacation policy for 8 years. It’s fantastic, I’ve been able to do lots of trips to places I wanted to visit, and in addition can always see my family at holidays, and can always take time off when people visit me. I’ve never been denied or frowned at for taking time off. But I enjoy my job and my colleagues enjoy theirs, so people work hard without compulsion.
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[ 4.3 ms ] story [ 148 ms ] thread1. (Uncommon) People take off during crunch time
2. (Very common IME) People take off en masse during lulls, leaving a skeleton crew to handle blowups.
3. No vacation payout during layoffs
If you do 1 just to get out of work, you're a crappy coworker. People do 2, to be team players, but it can result in large waves of low staffing. 3 is a natural result, which is a major financial downside - the upside, of course, is that you can take much more vacation, and many do.
Even with the above, I like it. You can take mental health days and deal with family issues without that feeling of "begging for forgiveness"
Good coworkers work so that crunch time never comes up. Crappy coworkers shame others who refuse to participate in unhealthy work/life balance.
This is a very bad argument. The launch of a product is a critical time, whether you like it or not.
Edit: Replaced crunch with critical, I don't think I understood the meaning of crunch.
If expectations have been set that you can take vacation whenever you want (even during a crunch on a project that you're leading) without consideration of the business needs, I'd suggest that's a big mistake.
The difference IMHO is that companies that paid out unused vacation time when you left no longer need to.
Some of my colleagues weren't very proactive about it, so after a couple of years, the manager started assigning folks a week off here and there if they hadn't taken much vacation recently. I think something like this is a good idea.
I'm now at Tanium, and they have unlimited / self-directed vacation, but I've only been around for a few months, so I've only taken a day or two off.
They told me that most folks take 4~5 weeks a year here also, and I have seen a couple colleagues take vacations where they were wholly unreachable for a week or more.
My first job out of high school did not have unlimited vacation, but I took the month of August off (unpaid) my second year there - that was nice.
Is that unusual? When I am on vacation I never check my E-mail. They could send a text but that never happens.
When it comes to making a phone call people become a lot more realistic on what is 'urgent'
This was exactly my experience in two very different environments with an unlimited vacation policy - one start-up, one large established company. The overwhelming majority of people took less vacation than what is typical at most tech companies and a handful took quite a bit more. The latter handful tended to be strongly correlated with people who were underperformers and the underperforming was, at least from my perspective, not due to less time but more down to a mix of general attitude and motivation. The former majority tended to be worried about perception and/or unsure of what was appropriate and thus tended to take less vacation than they otherwise would have.
I don't want to mention my current company to keep my anonymity but we currently have unlimited vacation and at least for my team it's going great but it's mostly because of our direct manager who encourages us to:
a) track and document our work so that when someone leaves on vacation the sky doesn't fall b) take as much time as needed to unwind
I personally took about 6 weeks of vacation (double the amount of policy based vacation I got at my previous company) in the past year and things at work have been stellar. We delivered, kicked ass, whatever you want to call it and with zero guilt. But my company is well known for great work-life balance.
However, I can't say the same about other teams where peer pressure keeps people in their seats.
I am personally very cautious about 'unlimited vacation' plans because if you do a game matrix you'll realize that it's skewed against the employee and you'll end up in a better place only if the stars align just right. If they don't you'll end up working way more and either you'll never have 'approved' vacation by your manager or you'll never ask for it because passive-aggressively the culture frowns on 'slackers' who take time off.
If vacation time matters to you (and It definitely should) before accepting an offer I would ask the hiring manager for the actual number of business days the team members use for vacation. If he/she brushes it off or is handwavy like 'nobody keeps track' (somebody ALWAYS keeps track) then stay away.
This matches my experience. I disliked unlimited vacation because my manager at the time was a massive workaholic overachiever and I felt guilty taking any vacation. I usually ended up at ~2.5 weeks a year because I traveled overseas and traveling to the other side of the world for a week was not feasible. I felt like 2 - 3 weeks was typical for most of the people in the company. Some people would do that by just taking multiple very short vacations throughout the year, which seemed like an awful idea to me.
Even in the groups with good managers, you were one re-org away from a bad manager and vacation time going away.
If you have a good manager and work in a place that has accrued PTO, I seriously doubt the manger is going to care if you take some extra personal days throughout the year and don't record them. So you get something like unlimited vacation with the nice guarantees of accrued vacation.
In my opinion, why not just be way more generous in how much PTO time employees accrue? If European companies can still function with employees taking up to a month off why is it such a big deal to be generous in this category?
Here in the US, people would still come into work sick anyway to prove how much of a hardcore workaholic they are, but still...
Actually, it's even better at my employer. When I feel like a cold is coming on, I just shoot a e-mail to my manager and stay home. I only have to submit a doctor's note at the third day of continuous absence. The manager does not get to argue against your staying home, although I guess that question would be asked if one would abuse this policy. Managers are generally supportive of the policy; they don't want sick people spreading their diseases to their colleagues.
Sick days could be "verified" by presenting a doctor's note when you come back to work, or unverified, although you could only take up to five unverified sick days per calendar year.
If you should use no sick days in a given calendar year, regardless of doctor's note or not, you would earn an additional vacation day for use in the following year.
This set up a perverse incentive -- suppose you get sick, use some sick days, and bring back a doctor's note with you for it. You've lost your free vacation day for the next year, and you still have 5 allowable "unverified" days. You may as well now just "call in sick" on a few Fridays here and there to fill out your unverified sick day allowance, and give yourself some three day weekends.
In many places it is 6 weeks annual leave.
One thing I did notice is that it seemed very hard to get more vacation as a more senior employee.
I think it's less about flexibility for the employee and more so they don't have to keep everyone's unused vacation on the balance sheet and in the bank. Also they don't have to pay out that unused vacation when you leave, so if you're tracking it yourself, try not to "accrue" a lot of vacation. The reality of "unlimited vacation" means you will probably take around the same amount as someone at a traditional setup, but it will be more frequent shorter vacations and you're less likely to take like a month off for a big summer trip.
I've also seen this system (perhaps inadvertently) take advantage of people with workaholic tendencies or people that tend to feel a lot of peer pressure to support the team, and "unlimited vacation" can mean "no vacation" for some folks.
If a company truly cared about their employees, they could always just double the accrual rate of paid time off.
What you describe is essentially how it has been for me. I do not have a significant other, or family and feel a lot of responsibility to help my team. Though the past couple of years my manager had heavily encouraged me to take vacation. So near the end of the year I would take off every Friday until the end of the year and take off the week between Christmas and New Years. Stuff like that.
Be weary of unlimited vacation if you're anything like me.
However, once you reach 4 weeks (160 Vacation hours) you have to get VP-level approval to take any additional time off. And the vacation hours tracker resets at the end of the Fiscal Year.
So, basically, unlimited means 4 weeks per year tops, and you have to get it approved in advance. I don't really care for it.
Same thing with open offices.
In fact whenever you see companies praising something so much trying to convince people it's such a wonderful thing, follow the money and it always leads to something that is only good for them and that's just their propaganda machine trying to get everyone to repeat it.
At previous company we switched to the 'unlimited holiday' policy, I asked my boss what the real limit was and she said if it was anything over 27 days (the previous amount before being 'unlimited') then the manager would have to sign off on it, which basically wouldn't happen.
I'm experiencing a similar thing at my current job where when I asked what the office hours and lunch hours were I couldn't get a straight answer, it's kept intentionally vague so that when it gets to 5 you don't go 'well I'm off home, bye!'
I think the best way to stave this off would be to have a mandatory minimum time. Eg, we have unlimited PTO but you have to take at least 4 weeks this year, or n days a quarter, or something like that.
Not sure if it's legal to do that.
edit: another point that someone else brought up is that you can take sick/mental health days often and with ease. This is very true, and is a benefit I've enjoyed a lot.
edit: Check out mrguyorama's comment. They said what I was trying to say in a much better way.
If you have PAID vacation, that you accrue, then that's something you get, regardless if you take it or not (of course there are usually caps on how much you can accrue). If it's "unlimited", I guess that means there's no accrual, and if you take no (or minimal) vacation and leave, your vacation benefits were effectively reduced.
I think "unlimited" vacation is a gimmick to sound generous. If you want to offer a generous vacation policy, then stand behind it as an actual paid benefit. Offer it as paid vacation, and if the employee doesn't take that much while they work for you, then hopefully they use that banked paid time to take a break between jobs.
At this point in my life, I've decided it's worth using all my paid time off and requesting some unpaid time -- so I'd prefer whatever unlimited means.
This only works with the right manager and proper managing up. It keeps the team happy so the manager is willing to bend the rules a little or look the other way. Also, one bad coworker can screw it up for everyone so we kind of make sure we’re not keeping track of each other.
I would still expect that that is not generally the case.
could you put an average # of vacation days on that?
Overall bad.
The first one not only did I end up taking less vacation then I would of, I actually had my manager get mad at me for using more than two weeks of leave. I no longer work at said place for a myriad of reasons.
The current one is pretty good. I definitely need to be proactive about it, but I've never been denied or guilted. Last year I used a bit over 3 weeks (so about normal for my field), but this year I'm planning to use a bit more because I have a few different places I'd like to visit. It definitely took me some mental effort to get past my natural tendency to avoid taking off.
It's not that I don't WANT time off - it's that I'm afraid it'll backfire. I'd take months, if I could.
Its just better to know for sure what PTO you are entitled to in your employment contract. Would you accept a job without knowing what the salary was? Keep in mind that vacation days are something that you are EARNING in exchange for your work.
http://archive.fo/ByJ8X
It really makes sense -- you wouldn't leave it up to your line manager to decide ad hoc "well that daycare for your kid is too much for you so I won't approve," your salary is your agreed-upon compensation.
The problem was that it was not clearly defined across the company how much vacation was too much or too little, and even if you hear one thing when you get hired, a reorg can put you under someone with a totally different viewpoint. Meanwhile, in companies I've worked without unlimited vacation, it's clearly defined how much vacation is too much, because you can't use more than your bucket.
My first boss was the one who hired me into the company, and when he called me to present the offer, he told me that as a European he felt people in the US don't take enough time off and he wanted us to do 4-5 weeks a year. At one point mid-summer he told me "I don't think you've taken enough time off, it's slow next week, so go have the week off and take your kid to the pool a lot."
That boss left the company, and I got reorged into a team that was pretty much the remnants of a startup that my employer had acquihired. The company was pushing this team to develop and release a particular new product concept ASAP, but giving minimal staffing to do so, so it was constant lowgrade crunch the whole time. The manager (and former founder of that startup) was also still operating in startup-hustle mode and setting the sort of example that while you technically get time off, you'd best not be taking a whole lot.
I worked under each boss for a year. Under manager 1 I took 4.5 work weeks off in 12 months. Under manager 2 I took 7 days off in 12 months.
Not a lawyer but I imagine that companies don't provide more guidance on _minimum_ vacation time usage, because maybe that could be construed as a bucket, and would put you back under the idea that in certain jurisdictions (California included) vacation accruals are viewed as compensation duly earned by the employee but not paid out yet. Avoiding having to carry that as a liability on your books and pay out when people separate, as I understand it, is the primary purpose behind unlimited vacation policies in the first place.