3 ms·

Forget productivity, I see it as humanity. I would rather be paid less an hour if it was made up with PTO days. Maybe don't make paid vacation mandatory but mak

by csmeder 16y ago

Forget productivity, I see it as humanity. I would rather be paid less an hour if it was made up with PTO days. Maybe don't make paid vacation mandatory but make it mandatory that employees can trade $ per hour for paid vacation. Or at the very least make it mandatory that employees are by law allowed to take up to 1 month off unpaid. I think letting employees have some time off is a good thing for both the employee and society.

jbellis 16y ago
trading money for vacation is called unpaid leave. most employers are happy to accommodate that.
patio11 16y ago
I recommend self-employment. You get all the unpaid time off you want! (And, if you're selling software, it is "unpaid" for a very curious value of "unpaid" in which your bank account actually does get fatter on a daily basis.) Mandating any form of compensation transfers wealth from people who would not choose to avail themselves of that compensation to people who would. I tend to think these transfers are generally unwise and/or unfair, and would prefer to leave them up to negotiation among the parties. For example, "You can have up to a month off" has real costs for the business. Consider what it does at companies with one owner and one employee, for illustration: the business is mandated by law to virtually shutter itself one month out of the year. It is cheaper to have redundancy in large corporations where everyone is a cog, but it is not free. To the extent it is not free, that cost is implicitly tied to workers, and it competes against other forms of compensation, such as wages, regardless of whether they choose to exercise their vacation options or not. One could easily imagine a situation in which workers -- say, young single workers -- would prefer wages, or flex time, or "all you can eat Amazon books" over the unexercized option to be single and bored at home. (Though I'll grant there is one nice bit about everybody having vacation time: it alleviates a bit of a collective action problem, since time off when your friends/family have to work has shockingly lower utility than time off when they do not.)
walkon 16y ago
I would rather be paid less an hour if it was made up with PTO days Part of the point of the article was that this is what happens. Your work is worth a certain amount for which you are getting paid, regardless of how it is amortized over a time period with or without PTO. If more PTO is mandated, it will necessitate a decrease in pay. The exception would be the unlikely result of people's productivity improving to counteract the loss of value caused by the extra time off.

by csmeder 16y ago

jbellis 16y ago

trading money for vacation is called unpaid leave. most employers are happy to accommodate that.

patio11 16y ago

I recommend self-employment. You get all the unpaid time off you want! (And, if you're selling software, it is "unpaid" for a very curious value of "unpaid" in which your bank account actually does get fatter on a daily basis.) Mandating any form of compensation transfers wealth from people who would not choose to avail themselves of that compensation to people who would. I tend to think these transfers are generally unwise and/or unfair, and would prefer to leave them up to negotiation among the parties. For example, "You can have up to a month off" has real costs for the business. Consider what it does at companies with one owner and one employee, for illustration: the business is mandated by law to virtually shutter itself one month out of the year. It is cheaper to have redundancy in large corporations where everyone is a cog, but it is not free. To the extent it is not free, that cost is implicitly tied to workers, and it competes against other forms of compensation, such as wages, regardless of whether they choose to exercise their vacation options or not. One could easily imagine a situation in which workers -- say, young single workers -- would prefer wages, or flex time, or "all you can eat Amazon books" over the unexercized option to be single and bored at home. (Though I'll grant there is one nice bit about everybody having vacation time: it alleviates a bit of a collective action problem, since time off when your friends/family have to work has shockingly lower utility than time off when they do not.)

walkon 16y ago

I would rather be paid less an hour if it was made up with PTO days Part of the point of the article was that this is what happens. Your work is worth a certain amount for which you are getting paid, regardless of how it is amortized over a time period with or without PTO. If more PTO is mandated, it will necessitate a decrease in pay. The exception would be the unlikely result of people's productivity improving to counteract the loss of value caused by the extra time off.