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I feel fortunate that my company gives generous vacation time (up to 4 weeks), plus sick days, "personal days", and national holidays. We have a use it or lose
by nxsynonym 9y ago
I feel fortunate that my company gives generous vacation time (up to 4 weeks), plus sick days, "personal days", and national holidays.
We have a use it or lose it policy, which encourages everyone to use it. I'm also fortunate that the work for my role specifically is pretty easily managed with a reduced team, and has natural periods of being slow.
That said, it does feel weird to take extended vacation (2 weeks plus) even though its entirely within our rights as employees. There's a feeling of FOMO and fear of being seen as a slacker for taking too much time at once.
I like the pre-set vacation times, but it does make it hard for things like coordinating small teams so theres no over-lapping vacations. It also would make it hard/near impossible to schedule events in the future - e.g. weddings - unless you had some say over when the week was taken.
- pc86 9y agoI hated use it or lose it until I got to my current employer. We get 4 weeks a year, and it's mostly use or lose it (you can roll over 20 hours). Sick days don't count, excused absences (e.g. travel) don't count, and if you're working at a client site, client holidays don't count even if the main office is open that day - I'm currently at a state government client so get an extra 5 or 6 days a year. It definitely encourages you to lose the time, but what's more is that it encourages you to plan ahead, schedule the time, and actually do something with it. Like any office, the time off needs to be approved, and nobody wants to be in the situation where it's November 28th and they've got 2 weeks of vacation left that they can't use by the end of the year.
- madcaptenor 9y agoWe have a similar policy (with no rollover except in certain extenuating circumstances that I understand basically never happen). It's nice in terms of everybody actually using their vacation. But because you can't roll over we end up with people who don't take vacation all year and then disappear around the first of December.
- maxxxxx 9y agoIt's always baffles me how many Americans get nervous thinking about just two weeks off. It's pretty sad that a lot of people never get a month during their whole working life.
- canadianwriter 9y agoHow does anyone travel with less than two weeks time? I'm about to go travel and the two weeks I took seems too short!
- maxxxxx 9y ago15 countries in 7 days. "Beijing in 36 hours" is a common theme in newspapers.
- Normal_gaussian 9y ago> I feel fortunate that my company gives generous vacation time (up to 4 weeks), plus sick days, "personal days", and national holidays. In the UK we get a minimum of 5.6 weeks leave by law. I am unfortunate in that I currently have the minimum, most of my friends have 6 or 7 weeks leave.
- bryanlarsen 9y agoYour 5.6 weeks is inclusive of bank holidays though; you get less than the parent's 4 weeks.
- rovek 9y agoDepends on the country. England has 8 public holidays, Scotland seems to have ~10 though.
- nxsynonym 9y agoall said and done I get around 6 - 6.5 weeks of vacation time when counting personal days, sick days, and national holidays. I would love to have a full 7, but that's pretty unheard of in the US.
- RugnirViking 9y agosick days in the uk are not holiday days. You get an unlimited number of sick days per year, and after three consecutive days off you need to provide a doctors note. In fact to be honest limiting the amount of days you are allowed to be ill on seems crazy to me, not just socially but also from a business perspective. Sick days aren't just because we like employees, its because you don't want to come in to work, get little done due to being ill, and infect coworkers.
- xemdetia 9y agoUse it or lose it just means 'lose it' to a lot of people.