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Open vacation policies don't work because it becomes difficult for a person to actually take a specific number of days without worrying about what others will t

Open vacation policies don't work because it becomes difficult for a person to actually take a specific number of days without worrying about what others will think. If I could come up with a vacation policy, here is what I will do: - Fix a "Minimum" number of vacation days that everyone can take. Encourage everyone to take those days split over the year. This can be 20, 30, 40 whatever depending on what you come up with for your company. But anything less than 20 business days for me is crap. - Unlimited sick days. Yes, I will know if you try to abuse it. But if you are genuinely sick, stay home. - Add another 5 personal days. Use this for running errands, voting, kids days off whatever. - Flexible work routine. I am not completely into 100% remote as I do think there is a value in collaborating in person or show your face once in a while. So I will say flexible 2 days WFH allowed depending on team, project and other relevant situations. I would take these over a BS "unlimited" vacation.

scarface74 10y ago
Why separate vacation days/sick days/personal days? Why not just one bucket? I would much rather have X number of PTO days. If you are sick and have PTO days you have to use those first, but not dock your pay for sick days after that or a personal half day personal errand. This would work well for most salaried professionals. In the U.S. if you are salaried, your pay cannot be docked for any week you worked anyway -- except for very specific reasons -- and I've never heard of company that would dock a salaried person's pay if they actually did call in sick or have an emergency and they used all of their sick time. https://www.tracksmart.com/Advice-Center/Pages/payroll-benefits/docking-employee-pay.aspx https://www.tracksmart.com/Advice-Center/Pages/payroll-benef...
- cauterized 10y ago
  Because if taking a sick day cuts into vacation time, it incentivizes people to come into work when they've got the flu and get everyone else sick too. Which is worse for the company than just granting a few sick days without affecting vacation time.
  - scarface74 10y ago
    That's a valid point. I'm thinking inside my own bubble where there is a distinction between "being contagious but still feeling well enough work" and "being too sick to work". In the former case, I would work from home and in the latter I would have to take a PTO. I guess the one big bucket works better for people in professions where they don't have to be in the office.

scarface74 10y ago

Why separate vacation days/sick days/personal days? Why not just one bucket? I would much rather have X number of PTO days. If you are sick and have PTO days you have to use those first, but not dock your pay for sick days after that or a personal half day personal errand. This would work well for most salaried professionals. In the U.S. if you are salaried, your pay cannot be docked for any week you worked anyway -- except for very specific reasons -- and I've never heard of company that would dock a salaried person's pay if they actually did call in sick or have an emergency and they used all of their sick time. https://www.tracksmart.com/Advice-Center/Pages/payroll-benefits/docking-employee-pay.aspx https://www.tracksmart.com/Advice-Center/Pages/payroll-benef...

cauterized 10y ago
Because if taking a sick day cuts into vacation time, it incentivizes people to come into work when they've got the flu and get everyone else sick too. Which is worse for the company than just granting a few sick days without affecting vacation time.
- scarface74 10y ago
  That's a valid point. I'm thinking inside my own bubble where there is a distinction between "being contagious but still feeling well enough work" and "being too sick to work". In the former case, I would work from home and in the latter I would have to take a PTO. I guess the one big bucket works better for people in professions where they don't have to be in the office.