I remember when I heard about the concept of "unlimited pto puts more pressure on you not to use it." At that time it was something I'd never considered and it seemed smart and right to me.
Fast forward five years and now I have no qualms taking PTO whenever I want. I like unlimited PTO. No one is firing me for taking PTO. I have my own definition of what a reasonable amount of PTO is in a year and I use that definition. If anyone has a problem with how much PTO I take, I'm sure they'll tell me. Personally I prefer being able to interpret the policy in a way that works for me. Better to ask for forgiveness than permission.
I think a big problem with this is that you need to be on the same page as your boss. You might think 4 weeks is fine, they might think 2. But since some CXO announced unlimited PTO they're not going to tell you that they think you're taking too much, they're just going to channel that into your performance reviews and general feedback.
In order for unlimited PTO to work you need an incredibly high trust environment which is very hard to create.
I’m glad it’s working for you, but there are a couple of additional things to keep in mind outside of your specific situation:
1) not everyone has the same comfort level asking for PTO. And that distribution is not random, so your company better be taking this stuff. Ex. How many days are under represented minorities taking off compared to the average?
2) Managers will not apply this policy equally. By making the line for what is a reasonable amount of PTO fuzzy, you give managers more power that bad managers can abuse.
Yeah, you’re right on. I think the article can be right sometimes, but at a good company with solid leadership and excellent culture, unlimited PTO is absolutely better than the alternatives. Here’s why I like it:
- It’s self-serve, so I don’t need approval from anyone to suddenly take a day off for any reason.
- I never have to worry about when to plan trips, as I can work around everyone else’s stringent time off policies.
- I can see my friends and family more frequently.
- I can take mental health days without feeling like I have to prove something to someone.
- You don’t run into weird conversations with your peers about why you were away. It’s normal for people to take PTO.
I don’t think there is any pressure from the company for me to take less PTO. In fact, I’ve experienced pressure from my leads to take more PTO.
Any company which has informal limits on unlimited afk isn’t doing it right. Maybe their limit is 4 weeks, and they’re strict about whether they approve it. Well, they’re lying about the policy, so you could nearly say it’s not even a proper unlimited-afk policy.
In other words, the bad examples of unlimited afk happen when a company doesn’t actually do unlimited afk. They just say they do. So I don’t think that should be treated as a critique of unlimited afk specifically.
"Scam" is perhaps a harsh term, but the article does have a point. When you're told it's unlimited, you know there's a limit, you just don't know what it is. Clearly your boss won't be happy with you taking the next year off. So where between 0 and 365 is it?
What will happen is you end up asking someone else what they take. And you're new, so you don't want to be seen to be taking advantage. Poof, everybody takes minimal vacations, only obviously needed days like when there's an illness or life events.
In some countries (at the least the countries that are European Union members, but probably most countries on the continent) the minimum vacation days is set by law (labor code).
In the countries I have experience with it’s 20 working days per year, sometimes with extra days given based on time spent with the same employer. Also, some employers give extra days from the start. But, importantly, it can never be less than the labor code specified number.
So, unlimited vacation may be a trick in the sense that people will rarely take days off, but you can’t be cheated out of the law mandated vacation. Social protection isn't that bad, after all.
I believe the US is one of 7 countries in the world that _don't_ have minimum vacation days (although I believe individual states could/do have their minimums?).
The others are (per Wikipedia):
* Kiribati
* Marshall Islands
* Micronesia
* Nauru
* Palau
* Tonga
That said, your ability to actually _enforce_ your right to minimum holidays is going be pretty variable.
In that "No Rules" Netflix culture book, they talk about how Netflix doesn't have an expense policy, they just tell people to be reasonable and leave it up to them. That struck me as a harmful way to do it - basically forcing most people to err on the side of caution because they are worried about being seen as wasteful. Unlimited vacation policy is the same IMO.
It's captured perfectly in "17 pieces of flair is the minimum, some people choose to add extra to express themselves"
I feel like this idea that the limit must be set in stone comes from anchoring bias. Obviously drinking 10 bottles of beer in one sitting will get you totally wasted, so there must be a limit between 0 and 10 bottles. Where exactly is it? Well, it depends on the person. Tolerance levels differ and people moderate to different degrees (and levels of moderation may not even be proportional to levels of tolerance).
With work, there's also different degrees of how much vacation one needs and also how much they feel comfortable asking for. A workaholic might be less inclined to take vacation than someone who likes to travel, and a more confident person might be more inclined to book more vacation days than one who isn't as confident.
Let's not generalize and assume everyone is too spineless to ask their boss for vacations they're entitled to.
If you can take higher than the typical counted vacation days offered from other companies then it’s a relative benefit yes? If that was a consideration in hiring on there little reason to be afraid of using it. If it turns out you can’t use it that way then that tells you important information too.
It varies very widely based on the company you work for.
At the company I'm at, I haven't heard of vacation requests being denied, but I've also only been here for 3 months. I did ask about the policy during the interview process, and they said the CEO has created a culture that encourages people to take the time off they need. They have two "quiet weeks", one between Christmas and New Year's, the other in August, where everyone is forced to take a whole week off, supposedly because they know that otherwise, some people would feel guilty about taking time off. In addition, the first Friday of every month is a "Fresh Air Friday", where they strongly encourage you to walk away from your computer after 1 PM, and regular meetings after 1 PM are not allowed.
Ask me about the policy in a year and I'll tell you how well it's actually been working.
I’m curious to see if policies like this become the norm. Anecdata, but people absolutely seem to be happier when they get time off without having to question it. (I.e. “do I have enough left over for a potential holiday alter this year?”)
My company has "unlimited" time off and it was a red flag for me before joining. The thing that got me past the red flag was that both founders saw it as their responsibility to set the standard for the amount of holiday taken, and would take significant holidays in order to define the culture.
The thing I've enjoyed most about "unlimited" holiday though is not the length, but the fact that I don't need to differentiate between holidays and sickness. That may sound like an obvious distinction, but it's not. Sometimes I know that for my own (mental) health I need a day off, but I'm not _sick_, it doesn't need to be a specific day, it could be any day in the next week maybe. Justifying it as a sick day would be tricky if there is a distinction made, and taking it as a holiday is a bit unfair on the employee because it's not really about the holiday. Unlimited time off means there is no distinction and you can just do it without thinking about it.
Another thing that improves our approach is that while we don't technically have a minimum (there are guidelines), if someone leaves they are entitled to 4 weeks paid leave in their last year and we make this up in time/salary to ensure leavers don't lose out. Last time I checked we hadn't actually had to pay anyone as all leavers had taken enough holiday.
It takes a lot of discipline to get right, and so it's still a red flag for me, but it's one that can definitely be overcome and can be a strong positive if the company has the right attitude.
Having unlimited vacation, for the first time this year, I'll say I kind of like it for a couple of reasons:
1. At previous jobs I treated the PTO like an asset. When I'd eventually leave the company, that asset would get paid out to me. So I'd be balancing the worth of a week off provided all of the overhead associated (such as coverage plans), with just finding another job in a year and getting a big check for the unused time, and finally taking a real break.
2. It is surprising how much I appreciate simply taking a day off without going into an inane HR system to log '8 hours PTO' and submit for approval or whatever. It makes me feel less like a row on the CFO's cost sheet and more of an autonomous person who's contributions are assumed.
> A study by Namely found that employees with unlimited PTO took an average of 13 vacation days, compared to 15 days for their fixed PTO counterparts. Why would this be?
The article implies that it's from fear of seeming lazy by comparison; there's probably truth to that but also working your life away is simply more cultural in the U.S., and people tend to behave as others do. Which is why we need a better standard for our workers as a country.
The way I’ve seen this work well is for the prospective employee to state their intent (in writing, can even have HR include in the offer letter) before they accept the offer, as in “I will plan to use on average 12 weeks of PTO per year, consistent with your unlimited PTO policy. Everyone is good with that? Great!”
I think calling unlimited vacation days a scam is a bit extreme. It's more like a bad deal and it's worth negotiating against, which is easier said than done by an employee with no bargaining power.
My (previous) employer switched to Unlimited Vacation midway through the COVID pandemic. Many coworkers, including myself, assumed that this was a cost-saving measure to help cover up the fact that employees were not taking their usual vacations during pandemic--largely since they had nowhere to go. The legal stipulation was that you had the existing bucket of legally accrued vacation that you would continue to drain until you ran out, after which you would switch to the "unlimited" pool. Many people rushed to use their time off--I was a little suspicious of it, and continued to ration my time-off as I usually did (which is basically only taking a week off around July 4th and Christmas, to see family).
Sure enough, some months later, a large portion of us were sold-off/laid-off, and I still had about 80 hours of vacation time accrued prior to the switch, which was a decent chunk of change when it paid out. The people that had been riding the "unlimited" days got diddly.
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Fast forward five years and now I have no qualms taking PTO whenever I want. I like unlimited PTO. No one is firing me for taking PTO. I have my own definition of what a reasonable amount of PTO is in a year and I use that definition. If anyone has a problem with how much PTO I take, I'm sure they'll tell me. Personally I prefer being able to interpret the policy in a way that works for me. Better to ask for forgiveness than permission.
In order for unlimited PTO to work you need an incredibly high trust environment which is very hard to create.
I don’t get it - some would be comfortable and thus would enjoy more PTO
> bad managers can abuse
That’s an issue of bad managers more than PTO policy
- It’s self-serve, so I don’t need approval from anyone to suddenly take a day off for any reason.
- I never have to worry about when to plan trips, as I can work around everyone else’s stringent time off policies.
- I can see my friends and family more frequently.
- I can take mental health days without feeling like I have to prove something to someone.
- You don’t run into weird conversations with your peers about why you were away. It’s normal for people to take PTO.
I don’t think there is any pressure from the company for me to take less PTO. In fact, I’ve experienced pressure from my leads to take more PTO.
Any company which has informal limits on unlimited afk isn’t doing it right. Maybe their limit is 4 weeks, and they’re strict about whether they approve it. Well, they’re lying about the policy, so you could nearly say it’s not even a proper unlimited-afk policy.
In other words, the bad examples of unlimited afk happen when a company doesn’t actually do unlimited afk. They just say they do. So I don’t think that should be treated as a critique of unlimited afk specifically.
That would allow for a week off between Christmas and New Year, two one-week vacations, and some extra days scattered around the year.
Deleted Comment
What will happen is you end up asking someone else what they take. And you're new, so you don't want to be seen to be taking advantage. Poof, everybody takes minimal vacations, only obviously needed days like when there's an illness or life events.
In the countries I have experience with it’s 20 working days per year, sometimes with extra days given based on time spent with the same employer. Also, some employers give extra days from the start. But, importantly, it can never be less than the labor code specified number.
So, unlimited vacation may be a trick in the sense that people will rarely take days off, but you can’t be cheated out of the law mandated vacation. Social protection isn't that bad, after all.
The others are (per Wikipedia):
* Kiribati
* Marshall Islands
* Micronesia
* Nauru
* Palau
* Tonga
That said, your ability to actually _enforce_ your right to minimum holidays is going be pretty variable.
It's captured perfectly in "17 pieces of flair is the minimum, some people choose to add extra to express themselves"
With work, there's also different degrees of how much vacation one needs and also how much they feel comfortable asking for. A workaholic might be less inclined to take vacation than someone who likes to travel, and a more confident person might be more inclined to book more vacation days than one who isn't as confident.
Let's not generalize and assume everyone is too spineless to ask their boss for vacations they're entitled to.
At the company I'm at, I haven't heard of vacation requests being denied, but I've also only been here for 3 months. I did ask about the policy during the interview process, and they said the CEO has created a culture that encourages people to take the time off they need. They have two "quiet weeks", one between Christmas and New Year's, the other in August, where everyone is forced to take a whole week off, supposedly because they know that otherwise, some people would feel guilty about taking time off. In addition, the first Friday of every month is a "Fresh Air Friday", where they strongly encourage you to walk away from your computer after 1 PM, and regular meetings after 1 PM are not allowed.
Ask me about the policy in a year and I'll tell you how well it's actually been working.
I’m curious to see if policies like this become the norm. Anecdata, but people absolutely seem to be happier when they get time off without having to question it. (I.e. “do I have enough left over for a potential holiday alter this year?”)
The thing I've enjoyed most about "unlimited" holiday though is not the length, but the fact that I don't need to differentiate between holidays and sickness. That may sound like an obvious distinction, but it's not. Sometimes I know that for my own (mental) health I need a day off, but I'm not _sick_, it doesn't need to be a specific day, it could be any day in the next week maybe. Justifying it as a sick day would be tricky if there is a distinction made, and taking it as a holiday is a bit unfair on the employee because it's not really about the holiday. Unlimited time off means there is no distinction and you can just do it without thinking about it.
Another thing that improves our approach is that while we don't technically have a minimum (there are guidelines), if someone leaves they are entitled to 4 weeks paid leave in their last year and we make this up in time/salary to ensure leavers don't lose out. Last time I checked we hadn't actually had to pay anyone as all leavers had taken enough holiday.
It takes a lot of discipline to get right, and so it's still a red flag for me, but it's one that can definitely be overcome and can be a strong positive if the company has the right attitude.
1. At previous jobs I treated the PTO like an asset. When I'd eventually leave the company, that asset would get paid out to me. So I'd be balancing the worth of a week off provided all of the overhead associated (such as coverage plans), with just finding another job in a year and getting a big check for the unused time, and finally taking a real break.
2. It is surprising how much I appreciate simply taking a day off without going into an inane HR system to log '8 hours PTO' and submit for approval or whatever. It makes me feel less like a row on the CFO's cost sheet and more of an autonomous person who's contributions are assumed.
> A study by Namely found that employees with unlimited PTO took an average of 13 vacation days, compared to 15 days for their fixed PTO counterparts. Why would this be?
The article implies that it's from fear of seeming lazy by comparison; there's probably truth to that but also working your life away is simply more cultural in the U.S., and people tend to behave as others do. Which is why we need a better standard for our workers as a country.
Sure enough, some months later, a large portion of us were sold-off/laid-off, and I still had about 80 hours of vacation time accrued prior to the switch, which was a decent chunk of change when it paid out. The people that had been riding the "unlimited" days got diddly.