With Microsoft moving away from formal PTO tracking to DTO (discretionary time off), so I was wondering what others have experienced and think of working at a company without formal time off tracking.
If you're trying to advance within the company, it sucks and you'll take no time because you're trying to prove yourself. I'm not recommending this attitude, I realize it's flawed, but it's easy to fall for it.
If you're content to coast at your current position, it's great because you'll take advantage of it to the extent that you can.
Seems more like a move to limit accounting liabilities in aggregate than to actually provide a never ending vacation. When time would accrue, it functionally provides more reason to take PTO as far as the business perspective goes. Curious to see the discussion otherwise tho
At first glance it makes sense financially to a business. Reduced liability on the books.
It puts the discussion of time off between a person and their manager. This can be good for those that have a good working professional relationship with their good professional manager. This can be contentious for people that barely get along with their manager and some people may end up never taking time off leading to a build up of stress, burn-out, risk of people snapping and potentially ending up in the news. I believe that could be a financial liability as well.
My first "real" job in software was at a startup with unlimited PTO. In my experience what this meant was that the rank-and-file engineers took no time off while management would be out of the office for months at a time.
same experience. the only person who used it in earnest was the head of HR. For lower tier employees it was much worse than a given X number of days - they had to request the time off from their manager and could (and were) denied taking time off.
Seems like a bad idea to me. There are many people (myself included) who forget to take vacation time or never feel like it's a good time to take it. Short term, that's probably good for the company, but it can lead to burnout. Good managers insist that people use their PTO if only to keep highly valued people from suddenly snapping under their workload. There are, on the other hand, people who jealously guard their time off. Giving them unlimited time just sets them up for conflicts with management because there is no pre-agreed upon notion of what is fair.
I had a similar experience at a startup where I'd never used any PTO endlessly burning at both ends.
A few years in, executives abruptly told everyone they were switching to "unlimited PTO" and everyone's accrued PTO would be erased "since it's no longer necessary, take as much vacation as you want."
Sales/marketing depts celebrated.
My team in engineering flipped out since none of us had ever used any PTO, and knew there were some sizable checks waiting for our exit. I ended up telling leadership if they pull this erasing shit, which is probably illegal, I quit immediately and will be in tomorrow to interview and renegotiate compensation if they like. Everyone received checks for their unused PTO that week.
They still switched to unlimited PTO, which us in engineering never really got to use. In a startup it's a race against the runway running out while you're still building the plane, nobody has time for PTO, and they knew this.
If you use all your PTO there really is no difference though, so I guess if you're the kind of person who burns through all their available PTO, I would not consider a Unlimited PTO employer a bad deal. Some of the agencies I work with at my job, they have unlimited PTO, we only found out because one of my managers noticed one particular person had a lot of PTO they ran through last year.
Between the protection of owning inventions created on your own time, and getting paid for unused PTO, my state (CA) sounds pretty great for a tech person working in startups.
Most people in startups are massively hurt by compensation laws regard stock and the crazy price of housing. If you in SF it’s worse as the most anti-child city
Where I work, if I don't use a certain percentage of my earned PTO by Dec 31, it just goes away. They don't cut me a check for it.
I think I'd get paid for unused PTO if I quit or was fired, but I couldn't accumulate more than something like 5 weeks worth.
I'd love to work for a company that had both unlimited and required PTO. If you don't take enough days off for say six months, they force you to take a week or two off.
Small companies don’t like to carry the liabilities. It makes the company look worse for loans and investors. So they claw back what they gave you which is harder to spot on the books. If you buy a company it’s usually for the people and you won’t know how disgruntled they are until after.
> Where I work, if I don't use a certain percentage of my earned PTO by Dec 31, it just goes away. They don't cut me a check for it.
No one I have ever heard of gets cut a check for unused time et the end of the year. It's when you leave (for any reason) in most states you are supposed to be paid out for it. Not true for unlimited PTO.
> When you leave a company with PTO where you worked your ass off and never took any vacation, you're cut a check for that unused PTO.
This is objectively false for most of the United States. Plenty of states do not require this, and plenty more have loopholes that allow employers to avoid paying out PTO if specified in the employment agreement.
It's also the case that PTO is always capped. So you are forced to use it, meaning the maximum amount you could be paid out is a fairly small fixed amount. Unused PTO above the cap is literally wasted, and used PTO is already part of your salary.
But is it obviously false for the majority of software engineers in the USA, or even in the world? It is true for WA, CA, and NY. It is truer in Europe.
What is stopping someone with an unlimited PTO schedule from planning 40 days off a year (setting aside holidays)?
That's just:
* 2 week (10 day) vacation in summer
* 3 week vacation in winter wrapped around Christmas and New Years (so let's say 12 work days off)
* one Friday off a month (12 days)
* slapping on 6 days around holiday weekends, or wrap a couple of long weekends around those Fridays off
40 days out of basically 240 scheduled work days seems reasonable enough.
What I really wish is every 2 or 3 years you earned a 3 month paid sabbatical to go chase your dreams or maybe even do skunkworks or shadow a leader in the org.
It started as a good idea, balance work/life. Obviously, the middle management class saw it as proof that "kidz these days dont want to work at all" - but eventually realized that it could be abused as either a carrot or stick to abuse their staff with, while themselves taking long holidays when it suits them.
Its basically code for "zero time off" for the little people and multi month holidays for management.
Of course, it doesnt have to be like this, it shouldnt be like this ... but people are going to do what they do best.
* your team is doing the same/is not resentful, and
* your signifiant other is also ok with it
then it's pretty great.
Kids ill? Day off. Have a big trip planned to far away? You can now stay longer, and don't need to sacrifice e.g. Thanksgiving or Christmas. Moving house? Days off. Etc.
Anecdotally, productivity is up on teams I've been on with DTO. Everyone is just more rested, relaxed, and ready.
Or live in a country that by law paid leave for sickness (yours or your kids) and vacations (I have 35 days off a year… and I am obliged to take them all)!
Defined PTO is easy to turn into "use it or lose it" which effectively forces people to take time off, which is a major issue in the US - people need to take their allotted time! The best system would be one where once you hit "lose it" you start getting cash instead, but that would cause other weird incentives.
You then have managers that are flexible with your defined PTO, and let you "go negative" a certain amount. As long as people don't abuse it, it works well. Some companies "dump" your year's allotment of PTO on Jan 1 so you can work it down instead, same idea.
I once worked at a place that transitioned from formal PTO to "unlimited" PTO. Many of us had accrued a good chunk of time on the old system, and the rules of the old system was that it carried year after year. When "unlimited" PTO was implemented, management decided not to reimburse us for our accrued time, since "it was all now covered by 'unlimited'" and so we didn't technically "lose" any time. Didn't feel right, but I didn't know how to voice it at the time.
I once worked at a place that went the opposite way -- "unlimited" PTO often translated to "nobody was taking time off and everyone was burning out", so there was a move to a "soft" (eg: you could take up to 2x your annual allotment without penalty and without requiring any extra approvals) limited PTO.
It worked, more people took time off and there was less burnout+turnover.
See [1]. If you lived in a state that pays out money for unused PTO, then that transition didn't feel right to you because the company failed to pay compensation you earned.
Your experience was very similar to mine. I wonder how many companies pulled this shit when "unlimited pto" became a fad. I know now that it was simply wage theft.
I transferred from finite PTO to unlimited PTO and made it clear to my boss how many days I would plan on taking to make sure that's reasonable. I think even with unlimited it's important to have a rough agreement with your higher ups so there's no surprises.
I have someone on my team who took 12 weeks PTO last year, yet still created outsized value for the company.
I have someone who we lured to the team by offering 4 weeks off in the first 2 months of his employment so he could do a pre-planned trip. Didn't require any special approvals because it's just an SOP.
I have someone who regularly takes 2-3 days off every month, because he works in concentrated bursts of energy, then needs to decompress.
And of course, I have one person who NEVER takes time off, because they always have so much to do and are afraid to let a ball drop. This leads to overwhelm, and a ball drops anyhow. So I need to force them to take time off.
As with all things, it's not just the mechanism, but the environment that mechanism exists within. It needs to be deployed alongside strong accountability mechanisms - planning, goaling, 1:1s, team health assessments, and performance reviews - otherwise it can be abused, or it can be hard to say 'no' to a request, or it can be hard to know when people aren't taking time they need.
Yes, but you have more recourse when it's put into writing how much PTO you're entitled to per the employee manual. The unlimited PTO? Completely at the whim of your manager with no recourse whatsoever.
Your manager also depends on your whims. And not only yours.
Managers are as accountable as their staff, if not more.
Managers eject from the seat even quicker and for problems oftentimes in no ways caused by them.
They have to deal with people only honouring their own wishes, with policies that would never be a fit. They came up with their own: take all the time you want. All the way you want. I will make sure to fire you if you aren't providing value rather than chase your hours and time taken off.
Note: I'm not a manager. will never be one. I simply have a bit of compassion for their job: they are tasked to make other people get the work done.
> I have someone on my team who took 12 weeks PTO last year, yet still created outsized value for the company.
Hypothetically, what if this individual was taking 12 weeks PTO and were underperforming? Would your business encourage them to take less leave next year to perform better? How much leave would be 'too much' for them to get back on track?
The thing is all of that requires a lot of trust in both directions, as you pretty much said. If I am a candidate for your company, how do I know that trust is there?
Recently I interviewed for a company which had unlimited PTO. They marketted this to me as some fantastic perk, and then when I got the contract they had a clause which said that they ask people to only take 'reasonable' amounts of time off. I asked them to define what is 'reasonable' and they could not. At that point, all of my red flags were waving and I walked away.
I think it's great, because I have no problem actually taking it. As a parent, it was really hard to juggle the huge number of days-off that schoolchildren get when I worked for a place that had fixed PTO. I am really happy to now have unlimited PTO.
I suppose the ideal would be to work for a place that gives you something like 6-8 weeks fixed PTO, but I don't know too many places doing that.
Usually when a company is moving from PTO to DTO they are just trying to get the liability off the books. Management knows that most employees, especially new hires, don't take all of their days. It does nothing to help employees but that is how it is pitched.
If employees were actually utilizing unlimited DTO the company would switch back to accrued PTO. I've seen this happen with an explicit claim that employees were "abusing" the generosity of the company. Said company later switched back to DTO to force employees a few years later to burn down their accrued PTO balances.
It's fine if you, your coworkers, and your manager have the discretion to understand vacation is not optional. I've never seen this. It usually ends up being a race to the bottom, driven by people who think working at (or coercing, in the case of managers) a burnout pace is inherently virtuous somehow.
I'll never go back to regular pto. No us companies offer more then 4 weeks. Even then you need to build up to it. With unlimited I was taking around 6 weeks off every year plus the random days it allows for.
It's true that it's very rare for US companies to offer more than four. But I've always gotten more than that through negotiation. At my previous job I negotiated to get the maximum amount of PTO, as if I was a senior employee, but starting on day 1. At my current job I negotiated to work 4 days a week, and I still have PTO on top of that. Even better I can get a whole week off, using only 4 PTO days.
Manager perspective: I think it should be explicit. When you use “unlimited” you invite fear in some (of overusing their PTO) and abuse in others. Ultimately I prefer employees feel 100% confident and safe about using PTO. We give a number we feel good about and insist employees take it. Not sure if it’s changed but we don’t roll over on grounds that we expect you to use it.
Giving people a set number of PTO hours doesn't by itself create an environment in which people feel comfortable taking it.
IMO the best way to make people comfortable in taking PTO is to create a team in which people can easily fill in for one another without disrupting work.
No matter what the PTO policy is, if you create an environment where people are inconvenienced and work is disrupted when people take PTO, then you've created an environment where there is social friction to taking PTO.
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[ 0.16 ms ] story [ 165 ms ] threadIf you're content to coast at your current position, it's great because you'll take advantage of it to the extent that you can.
It puts the discussion of time off between a person and their manager. This can be good for those that have a good working professional relationship with their good professional manager. This can be contentious for people that barely get along with their manager and some people may end up never taking time off leading to a build up of stress, burn-out, risk of people snapping and potentially ending up in the news. I believe that could be a financial liability as well.
Sucks for people who tracked PTO religiously before though.
"Unlimited PTO" is PR-style spin on the loss of that compensation; you're being fleeced by your employer.
When you leave a company with PTO where you worked your ass off and never took any vacation, you're cut a check for that unused PTO.
When you leave a company with "unlimited PTO" after doing the same, you get nothing.
Edit: according to some comments, this is state-specific. The above applies to CA.
About 2 years later, they decided to flip us to 'unlimited PTO' and put that typical HR BS spin on it.
That was the last straw for me, after a couple other little 'f u' changes (once a year 401k match, for example). Cashed out my PTO and went elsewhere.
A few years in, executives abruptly told everyone they were switching to "unlimited PTO" and everyone's accrued PTO would be erased "since it's no longer necessary, take as much vacation as you want."
Sales/marketing depts celebrated.
My team in engineering flipped out since none of us had ever used any PTO, and knew there were some sizable checks waiting for our exit. I ended up telling leadership if they pull this erasing shit, which is probably illegal, I quit immediately and will be in tomorrow to interview and renegotiate compensation if they like. Everyone received checks for their unused PTO that week.
They still switched to unlimited PTO, which us in engineering never really got to use. In a startup it's a race against the runway running out while you're still building the plane, nobody has time for PTO, and they knew this.
The benefit of unlimited PTO (FTO) is only a benefit if you take it.
I've had FTO for the last five years and I will never go back to 15/20 days of PTO.
Only 5 states require this. Most states allow companies to choose what to do with unused PTO, and many, (surprise!) choose not to pay it out.
Between the protection of owning inventions created on your own time, and getting paid for unused PTO, my state (CA) sounds pretty great for a tech person working in startups.
Most people in startups are massively hurt by compensation laws regard stock and the crazy price of housing. If you in SF it’s worse as the most anti-child city
Only in that HN users form a tiny minority of the general workforce.
I wouldn't say it helps a tiny minority of "hackers", invention ownership protections benefits all hackers.
I think I'd get paid for unused PTO if I quit or was fired, but I couldn't accumulate more than something like 5 weeks worth.
I'd love to work for a company that had both unlimited and required PTO. If you don't take enough days off for say six months, they force you to take a week or two off.
No one I have ever heard of gets cut a check for unused time et the end of the year. It's when you leave (for any reason) in most states you are supposed to be paid out for it. Not true for unlimited PTO.
This is objectively false for most of the United States. Plenty of states do not require this, and plenty more have loopholes that allow employers to avoid paying out PTO if specified in the employment agreement.
It's also the case that PTO is always capped. So you are forced to use it, meaning the maximum amount you could be paid out is a fairly small fixed amount. Unused PTO above the cap is literally wasted, and used PTO is already part of your salary.
It also prevents everyone taking off at the end of the year. They didn’t stockpile vacation because they didn’t need to acrue it.
- 25 + 5 (must use 25, can collect arbitrarily) + 11 official holidays.
- The ones that can be collected can be paid out, the must-use ones cannot.
- Paying out collected days off at your current salary means you get more if you wait for a raise.
If I want more, I pay for it, and if I want less, I get paid more.
That's just:
* 2 week (10 day) vacation in summer
* 3 week vacation in winter wrapped around Christmas and New Years (so let's say 12 work days off)
* one Friday off a month (12 days)
* slapping on 6 days around holiday weekends, or wrap a couple of long weekends around those Fridays off
40 days out of basically 240 scheduled work days seems reasonable enough.
What I really wish is every 2 or 3 years you earned a 3 month paid sabbatical to go chase your dreams or maybe even do skunkworks or shadow a leader in the org.
I would have a lot of unpaid free time on my hands if I suggested taking that much time off on the "unlimited PTO" scheme.
Its basically code for "zero time off" for the little people and multi month holidays for management.
Of course, it doesnt have to be like this, it shouldnt be like this ... but people are going to do what they do best.
* you can take enough time off by yourself, and
* your team is doing the same/is not resentful, and
* your signifiant other is also ok with it
then it's pretty great.
Kids ill? Day off. Have a big trip planned to far away? You can now stay longer, and don't need to sacrifice e.g. Thanksgiving or Christmas. Moving house? Days off. Etc.
Anecdotally, productivity is up on teams I've been on with DTO. Everyone is just more rested, relaxed, and ready.
Defined PTO is easy to turn into "use it or lose it" which effectively forces people to take time off, which is a major issue in the US - people need to take their allotted time! The best system would be one where once you hit "lose it" you start getting cash instead, but that would cause other weird incentives.
You then have managers that are flexible with your defined PTO, and let you "go negative" a certain amount. As long as people don't abuse it, it works well. Some companies "dump" your year's allotment of PTO on Jan 1 so you can work it down instead, same idea.
It worked, more people took time off and there was less burnout+turnover.
1: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34340973
I have someone who we lured to the team by offering 4 weeks off in the first 2 months of his employment so he could do a pre-planned trip. Didn't require any special approvals because it's just an SOP.
I have someone who regularly takes 2-3 days off every month, because he works in concentrated bursts of energy, then needs to decompress.
And of course, I have one person who NEVER takes time off, because they always have so much to do and are afraid to let a ball drop. This leads to overwhelm, and a ball drops anyhow. So I need to force them to take time off.
As with all things, it's not just the mechanism, but the environment that mechanism exists within. It needs to be deployed alongside strong accountability mechanisms - planning, goaling, 1:1s, team health assessments, and performance reviews - otherwise it can be abused, or it can be hard to say 'no' to a request, or it can be hard to know when people aren't taking time they need.
But if you've done that, it's an incredible tool.
Sounds perfect.
Managers are as accountable as their staff, if not more.
Managers eject from the seat even quicker and for problems oftentimes in no ways caused by them.
They have to deal with people only honouring their own wishes, with policies that would never be a fit. They came up with their own: take all the time you want. All the way you want. I will make sure to fire you if you aren't providing value rather than chase your hours and time taken off.
Note: I'm not a manager. will never be one. I simply have a bit of compassion for their job: they are tasked to make other people get the work done.
Hypothetically, what if this individual was taking 12 weeks PTO and were underperforming? Would your business encourage them to take less leave next year to perform better? How much leave would be 'too much' for them to get back on track?
The thing is all of that requires a lot of trust in both directions, as you pretty much said. If I am a candidate for your company, how do I know that trust is there?
Recently I interviewed for a company which had unlimited PTO. They marketted this to me as some fantastic perk, and then when I got the contract they had a clause which said that they ask people to only take 'reasonable' amounts of time off. I asked them to define what is 'reasonable' and they could not. At that point, all of my red flags were waving and I walked away.
1. How to actually manage people.
Snarky I admit, but in 2023 this is a true statement for a lot of people.
The point is that good tools in the hand of bad managers can be used for oppressive behavior and not as a means of reward. This is one of them.
I suppose the ideal would be to work for a place that gives you something like 6-8 weeks fixed PTO, but I don't know too many places doing that.
If employees were actually utilizing unlimited DTO the company would switch back to accrued PTO. I've seen this happen with an explicit claim that employees were "abusing" the generosity of the company. Said company later switched back to DTO to force employees a few years later to burn down their accrued PTO balances.
IMO the best way to make people comfortable in taking PTO is to create a team in which people can easily fill in for one another without disrupting work.
No matter what the PTO policy is, if you create an environment where people are inconvenienced and work is disrupted when people take PTO, then you've created an environment where there is social friction to taking PTO.