Ask HN: Is Unlimited PTO a Scam
The company I work for has unlimited PTO with no minimum or maximum. I have consistently taken less time off year after year as compared to my previous job where we had fixed vacation days. I guess it probably has more to do with me not feeling psychologically safe in my current organization even though I have been here almost 5 years.
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[ 3.2 ms ] story [ 158 ms ] threadIn other places, management mean well but are not aware that people tend not to take enough holiday with unlimited PTO.
Finally, some places are aware of the issue and try to do something about it. My girlfriend is being forced to take two weeks off next month for this reason.
If you are interviewing somewhere with unlimited PTO, it is vital that you ask them how they ensure that people take enough holiday, and reject them if you’re not happy with the answer.
It's one of those things that sounds great, but in practice kind of sucks. If you took PTO every day, that's obviously abusing the system, and so is taking 6 months off, and so is taking 2, etc. The ambiguity makes people not take advantage of the policy because of worries about how it'll be perceived. Plus, other people also don't take PTO, so the collective pressure is self-reinforcing.
For example all you can eat restaurants. Put a limit on how long someone can sit at a table and slow walk the food and you effectively have a limit on how much can be served.
Employers can find all kinds of way to do this with unlimited PTO.
The super legit places will actually account for the liability on their books and pay out at the end of the fiscal year if for some reason you never took the minimums, which gives middle management no choice but to acquiesce or budget for it.
That said, we did have discussions about implementing a forced minimum time off that people were required to take in an attempt to eliminate the issue you're describing. Some people seem to need to be told to take the time off.
Edit: I'm referring to the US with my comment
Obviously, if there is a minimum and rule that that minimum accrues if not used, it doesn't eliminate that, but it would avoid having an allotment above the legal minimum that accrues.
Obviously, though, it works best in places like the US that have no minimum (though the benefit is mitigated in those US states that don't even require paying out accrued time off in all cases to start with; the sweet spot for maximum employer advantage compared to alternatives from an unlimited PTO policy is situations like US states that do require paying out accrued vacation at the end of employment.)
Is this legally required? I worked at one place where this was the case and I was paid out for unused time upon leaving, but at another I was told I’d have to use it all up or lose it.
It’s also worth noting that employers are required to pay final wages — including unused PTO — within 72-hours of your final final shift.
So, the power move in response to such an employer would be to say you are quitting effective immediately and you expect your final check, including unused PTO, to be mailed out within 72-hours.
“Fuck me? No, fuck you.”
It can also look attractive to employees, but I recall studies showing that employees take less time under these plans
But at worst, companies don't pay attention to the psychological impact.
If you're a manager or leader in this sort of environment, I suggest telling your teams something like "I consider 4-6 weeks of PTO to be a healthy amount. You should take somewhere around that. If you need to take more, I'd appreciate it if we talked about that. And if you still feel pressure to take less, let's talk about that too so I can help you feel more comfortable."
taking no PTO isn't mentally healthy. I've never felt like we got "more done" over the course of a year because no one took PTO. Eventually it was just burnt out employees grinding through the days.
Best case: unlimited/flexible PTO policy simply reflects a company taking the attitude of "you are a responsible adult and we trust you," and skipping the need for a cumbersome tracking system.
Worst case: constant pressure + an unclear PTO policy induces workers to take less vacation than the norm.
With unlimited PTO the biggest challenge is to define (both ways) what qualifies for a good reason to go on a leave.
I have enjoyed unlimited PTO wherever I had. But I tried to have my own benchmark of about four weeks in a year. Of course, there have been times when I needed more, and it was fine. There have been times when I didn't need four weeks either, and I was okay with that too!
One of the reasons that this can be so much of a problem is that a lot of states treat the PTO as essentially a liability to the company. It's something that needs to be paid out to an employee leaving (barring being fired for cause or other situations where it'd be forfeit). I've worked in a number of start-ups or early companies that ran with unlimited pto for this reason alone since it makes the balance sheets easier to deal with when reporting to investors because now there's not this extra lingering liability that can be difficult to deal with if things go awry.
The pressure to take less almost certainly is another benefit to those early companies but it's not the one that I've heard being primarily discussed for keeping the unlimited PTO like that.
I’ve worked at a company with unlimited PTO since 2012.
It was the founder’s preference, as was allowing us all to work from home, because he didn’t want to babysit adults who all agreed to work towards a goal.
It’s never felt like a trap. Employees absolutely take a week+ off work, multiple times a year, and I’ve never heard of anyone ever being reprimanded.
The same founder also continued to pay an employee who was struggling with life in general, encouraging them to take off for a couple weeks and when they were ready, chat about whether they’d continue to work here.
There certainly can be scammy, predatory “unlimited PTO” policies, and maybe my experience is the exception, but I definitely prefer it over having to submit paperwork any time I have to miss working hours to take my kid to doctor, or just to take half a day to with the family on a Friday afternoon.
Shortly after leaving that job for one that did have limited PTO, both my mother and sister had some health issues (they are both doing better now), and I found myself looking at my PTO balance when deciding if I take time off for this or that, and I really missed the cognitive freedom that came with "unlimited".
One thing that's rarely mentioned is that for employees who accrue fixed vacation time, the monetary value of this time tends to be legally required in most US states to be paid out upon the employee's termination. I'd guess that with unlimited vacation time, $0 is paid out.
Yes and I believe this policy started at Netflix where they have (had?) higher relative salaries to compensate for this, but most companies that implement unlimited PTO skip that part.
I’ve always felt like the unlimited thing gained popularity partially because it’s a way for the company to avoid having a liability on the books. So not a “scam”, but not done out of total benevolence.
That said, I've found it insanely beneficial after having kids and feel really fortunate that I'm able to utilize it.
Between Thanksgiving break (1 week), Christmas / winter break (2 weeks), ski week in February (1 week, I live in California and have no idea why we have this), spring break (1 week), various gaps in summer camp coverage (~2 weeks), we're looking at like a month and a half of time off per year right now. It's crazy.
(I wish it were all fun and relaxing. It isn't!)
With unlimited PTO every time I ask for days off I feel like I am asking for a favor.
> Instead of bringing freedom, the fall of the oppressive authority thus gives rise to new and more severe prohibitions. How are we to account for this paradox? Think of the situation known to most of us from our youth: the unfortunate child who, on Sunday afternoon, has to visit his grandmother instead of being allowed to play with friends. The old-fashioned authoritarian father’s message to the reluctant boy would have been: “I don’t care how you feel. Just do your duty, go to grandmother and behave there properly!” In this case, the child’s predicament is not bad at all: although forced to do something he clearly doesn’t want to, he will retain his inner freedom and the ability to (later) rebel against the paternal authority. Much more tricky would have been the message of a “postmodern” non-authoritarian father: “You know how much your grandmother loves you! But, nonetheless, I do not want to force you to visit her – go there only if you really want to!” Every child who is not stupid (and as a rule they are definitely not stupid) will immediately recognize the trap of this permissive attitude: beneath the appearance of a free choice there is an even more oppressive demand than the one formulated by the traditional authoritarian father, namely an implicit injunction not only to visit the grandmother, but to do it voluntarily, out of the child’s own free will. Such a false free choice is the obscene superego injunction: it deprives the child even of his inner freedom, ordering him not only what to do, but what to want to do.
You are "free" to take all the PTO you want, as long as your boss feels it is the appropriate amount, but they won't tell you up front how much is appropriate.
You could easily find a middle ground (call it “Confucian freedom”) where you aren’t expected to want to visit grandma, but you are expected to want to do your familial duty. This is a more general and socially-useful “want” that has been at the core of Western (“honor thy parents”) and Eastern (xiào, or “filial piety”) social organization for millennia.
I don’t think it’s “authoritarian” to teach deontological ethics that have a several-thousand-year track record of holding civil society together.
In a previous job I asked my manager if 6 weeks was reasonably in his mind. He said yes. I never had any issues taking time off in that job, and averaged 6+ weeks. I suppose it's true, he didn't establish a clear upper bound, but I doubt there was one. A "reasonable" upper bound could no doubt vary based on the situation.
It's definitely a good idea to establish a common ground up-front about what's reasonable, but I've never had any issues doing so.
I take roughly 4-5 weeks off per year. If you're not using your PTO, that's on you, and it's not the company's fault or the policy's fault.