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Ask HN: How well does unlimited holiday allowance work in practice?

55 points by konamicode 9y ago

Asking from the point of view of the employee: how many days a year do you actually take as annual leave? Please provide company name or country if possible. Asking for a friend.

JBReefer 9y ago
It works OK, but there's two situations where it can go bad: 1. (Uncommon) People take off during crunch time 2. (Very common IME) People take off en masse during lulls, leaving a skeleton crew to handle blowups. 3. No vacation payout during layoffs If you do 1 just to get out of work, you're a crappy coworker. People do 2, to be team players, but it can result in large waves of low staffing. 3 is a natural result, which is a major financial downside - the upside, of course, is that you can take much more vacation, and many do. Even with the above, I like it. You can take mental health days and deal with family issues without that feeling of "begging for forgiveness"
- theptip 9y ago
  I think "unlimited vacation" should not be conflated with "vacation any time you want it". To avoid the pathological cases you mention above, managers still need to make sure that not too many vacations overlap. If expectations have been set that you can take vacation whenever you want (even during a crunch on a project that you're leading) without consideration of the business needs, I'd suggest that's a big mistake.
- antris 9y ago
  >If you do 1 just to get out of work, you're a crappy coworker Good coworkers work so that crunch time never comes up. Crappy coworkers shame others who refuse to participate in unhealthy work/life balance.
  - praneshp 9y ago
    > Good coworkers work so that crunch time never comes up This is a very bad argument. The launch of a product is a critical time, whether you like it or not. Edit: Replaced crunch with critical, I don't think I understood the meaning of crunch.
    - antris 9y ago
      It is if you're late from schedule. I've launched products with 0 days of crunch time
      - theptip 9y ago
        That should always be the goal, but slips do happen, sometimes through no fault of anyone.
donohoe 9y ago
I don't think it works any better/worse then limited vacation days. The difference IMHO is that companies that paid out unused vacation time when you left no longer need to.
byoung2 9y ago
My coworker left to go work at LogicMonitor in Santa Barbara, CA (https://www.logicmonitor.com/careers/ https://www.logicmonitor.com/careers/). Back in 2013 (not sure of the current policy) they offered unlimited vacations, and a $1000 bonus if you took a full week off and did not check email or do any work while you were out. He described it as a dinner buffet...in theory it looks like you could eat 10 steaks and 20 pizzas, but in reality even though it's unlimited most people stick to the same portion sizes they would at a regular restaurant because your stomach is still the same size. He said that for him the big 1-2 week vacations were still limited by 1) cost, 2) his wife's work schedule, 3) kids' school schedule. The one difference that having unlimited vacation made is that people didn't have to lie about being sick all the time to take 1 or 2 days here and there.
- allsunny 9y ago
  The schedule of the kids and wife is a good point. I'm writing this from the balcony of a condo I'm currently renting for a vacation, we're here because it's my son's spring break. :)
- p1esk 9y ago
  How does your friend like working at Logicmonitor? Any issues?
  - byoung2 9y ago
    I lost touch but in the first 2 years he said he loved it, and it was the best job he ever had. A current check of LinkedIn shows he left but I don't know the reason.
    - p1esk 8y ago
      Interesting. Thanks!
nfriedly 9y ago
USA. When I was at Sociable Labs, unlimited vacation worked out pretty well for me. I took around 4-5 weeks most years. Typically a week or less at a time, although I'd do a 2 weeks around Christmas and I think I took one 2-week trip during the summer. Some of my colleagues weren't very proactive about it, so after a couple of years, the manager started assigning folks a week off here and there if they hadn't taken much vacation recently. I think something like this is a good idea. I'm now at Tanium, and they have unlimited / self-directed vacation, but I've only been around for a few months, so I've only taken a day or two off. They told me that most folks take 4~5 weeks a year here also, and I have seen a couple colleagues take vacations where they were wholly unreachable for a week or more. My first job out of high school did not have unlimited vacation, but I took the month of August off (unpaid) my second year there - that was nice.
- maxxxxx 9y ago
  "I have seen a couple colleagues take vacations where they were wholly unreachable for a week or more" Is that unusual? When I am on vacation I never check my E-mail. They could send a text but that never happens.
  - nfriedly 9y ago
    I've seen it both ways. I think the "wholly unreachable" version is more common, but I've definitely seen people take "work-cations".
    - exolymph 9y ago
      I think the higher up in the org you are, or the more you serve as a bottleneck for productivity (e.g. because of unique skills), then the harder it is to take a truly 100% off vacation. The terminal example is a CEO — I'm sure most CEOs would cut a vacation short if a real crisis came up. That said, it has to be an actual crisis. If coworkers are bugging you about routine stuff on vacation, that's a bad work environment.
      - 9y ago
bg4 9y ago
In my experience it has a chilling effect on actual vacation taken. The real driver is not having to pay an employee for earned, unused vacation when they leave the company.
- skookum 9y ago
  > In my experience it has a chilling effect on actual vacation taken. This was exactly my experience in two very different environments with an unlimited vacation policy - one start-up, one large established company. The overwhelming majority of people took less vacation than what is typical at most tech companies and a handful took quite a bit more. The latter handful tended to be strongly correlated with people who were underperformers and the underperforming was, at least from my perspective, not due to less time but more down to a mix of general attitude and motivation. The former majority tended to be worried about perception and/or unsure of what was appropriate and thus tended to take less vacation than they otherwise would have.
decebalus1 9y ago
You'll most likely not get a definite answer because it can range from very bad to very good depending on both company and team. I don't want to mention my current company to keep my anonymity but we currently have unlimited vacation and at least for my team it's going great but it's mostly because of our direct manager who encourages us to: a) track and document our work so that when someone leaves on vacation the sky doesn't fall b) take as much time as needed to unwind I personally took about 6 weeks of vacation (double the amount of policy based vacation I got at my previous company) in the past year and things at work have been stellar. We delivered, kicked ass, whatever you want to call it and with zero guilt. But my company is well known for great work-life balance. However, I can't say the same about other teams where peer pressure keeps people in their seats. I am personally very cautious about 'unlimited vacation' plans because if you do a game matrix you'll realize that it's skewed against the employee and you'll end up in a better place only if the stars align just right. If they don't you'll end up working way more and either you'll never have 'approved' vacation by your manager or you'll never ask for it because passive-aggressively the culture frowns on 'slackers' who take time off. If vacation time matters to you (and It definitely should) before accepting an offer I would ask the hiring manager for the actual number of business days the team members use for vacation. If he/she brushes it off or is handwavy like 'nobody keeps track' (somebody ALWAYS keeps track) then stay away.
- apohn 9y ago
  >>You'll most likely not get a definite answer because it can range from very bad to very good depending on both company and team. This matches my experience. I disliked unlimited vacation because my manager at the time was a massive workaholic overachiever and I felt guilty taking any vacation. I usually ended up at ~2.5 weeks a year because I traveled overseas and traveling to the other side of the world for a week was not feasible. I felt like 2 - 3 weeks was typical for most of the people in the company. Some people would do that by just taking multiple very short vacations throughout the year, which seemed like an awful idea to me. Even in the groups with good managers, you were one re-org away from a bad manager and vacation time going away. If you have a good manager and work in a place that has accrued PTO, I seriously doubt the manger is going to care if you take some extra personal days throughout the year and don't record them. So you get something like unlimited vacation with the nice guarantees of accrued vacation.
noetic_techy 9y ago
From what I've heard from people in companies that have implemented it, it basically devolves into "you can take off whenever your want but... we really need you here due to crunch!" Basically it turns into a game of guilting people NOT to take any vacation time. Having guaranteed off time that can be scheduled well in advance and flexible working hours is way more reassuring. In my opinion, why not just be way more generous in how much PTO time employees accrue? If European companies can still function with employees taking up to a month off why is it such a big deal to be generous in this category?
- jcadam 9y ago
  My preference would be for a reasonable amount of PTO coupled with unlimited sick time, so getting the flu doesn't force me to choose between either giving up my planned summer vacation or coming into work sick :)
  - noetic_techy 9y ago
    I second this. It just makes sense not to punish people who are truly sick. They end up coming in and infecting everyone. I'm saying be generous with TRUE vacation time.
    - jcadam 9y ago
      Yea, the current practice of lumping vacation and sick time all together in one bucket called "PTO" is asinine. It incentivizes coming to work sick. Here in the US, people would still come into work sick anyway to prove how much of a hardcore workaholic they are, but still...
  - majewsky 9y ago
    As a German, I find the concept of "sick time" baffling. When I'm sick, I go to my doctor and get a note that allows me to stay away from work until I'm healthy. Employers are required by law to continue paying the full salary for at least 6 weeks, or longer if the employer chooses so (e.g. 6 months at my employer). After that, one receives sick pay from the health insurance (70% of the last salary). Actually, it's even better at my employer. When I feel like a cold is coming on, I just shoot a e-mail to my manager and stay home. I only have to submit a doctor's note at the third day of continuous absence. The manager does not get to argue against your staying home, although I guess that question would be asked if one would abuse this policy. Managers are generally supportive of the policy; they don't want sick people spreading their diseases to their colleagues.
sldfjnsdlfk 9y ago
Sounds good, doesn't work. The fear of taking too much time off makes the conscientious not take enough holiday to maintain a healthy work-life balance. Others take advantage and "are off on vacation again" making the hardworking people bitter and resentful. Unlimited isn't the answer, flexible and accommodating, while accountable, is.
joeld42 9y ago
For me it was super stressful and made it really hard to plan. What I did was decide how much leave I wanted if this were a "traditional" system, discussed that with my manager informally (he still wouldn't give me a straight answer but I got to a number that he seemed to be okay with), and tracked the vacation and sick time myself in a spreadsheet. One thing I did notice is that it seemed very hard to get more vacation as a more senior employee. I think it's less about flexibility for the employee and more so they don't have to keep everyone's unused vacation on the balance sheet and in the bank. Also they don't have to pay out that unused vacation when you leave, so if you're tracking it yourself, try not to "accrue" a lot of vacation. The reality of "unlimited vacation" means you will probably take around the same amount as someone at a traditional setup, but it will be more frequent shorter vacations and you're less likely to take like a month off for a big summer trip. I've also seen this system (perhaps inadvertently) take advantage of people with workaholic tendencies or people that tend to feel a lot of peer pressure to support the team, and "unlimited vacation" can mean "no vacation" for some folks.
- mrguyorama 9y ago
  "Unlimited" vacation without requiring a minimum is a negative thing. It means that instead of "earning"/accruing vacation and spending it how you want, you have to ask permission for every little use. Instead of the company owing you your fair vacation use, they now have an avenue to discourage vacation use and encourage a culture of limited vacation use. If a company truly cared about their employees, they could always just double the accrual rate of paid time off.
  - borplk 9y ago
    bingo! "unlimited vacation" is a scam.
- supreme_sublime 9y ago
  We kind of have "unlimited" vacation, but also a number that we are allowed. If we go over that I think the manager would have to get extra approval for it. What you describe is essentially how it has been for me. I do not have a significant other, or family and feel a lot of responsibility to help my team. Though the past couple of years my manager had heavily encouraged me to take vacation. So near the end of the year I would take off every Friday until the end of the year and take off the week between Christmas and New Years. Stuff like that. Be weary of unlimited vacation if you're anything like me.
66d8kk 9y ago
I've never experienced this myself directly. However I used to work at a company who now does this. I still have many silo'd friend groups at that company (who don't even know each other too well - designers/devs/sales) and the general consensus when I'm out with each group is that "it's a trap". There appears to be a negative vibe a kind of undertone where people will question others (to them selves not openly) and the hierarchy. Admittedly the trust was never great at this company but from my third party view point I would absolutely not like it. Culture would play a huge part though and unfortunately in this case the unlimited leave was a marketing/recruitment angle so was pretty much always set for failure.
jcadam 9y ago
My current workplace has "unlimited" vacation. You have to request days off in advance, which your supervisor can approve/disapprove. However, once you reach 4 weeks (160 Vacation hours) you have to get VP-level approval to take any additional time off. And the vacation hours tracker resets at the end of the Fiscal Year. So, basically, unlimited means 4 weeks per year tops, and you have to get it approved in advance. I don't really care for it.
- dragonwriter 9y ago
  “unlimited”, from all accounts I've seen, seems mostly to be a way to put a positive spin on “you have no balance that accrues or can be cashed out or used as terminal leave, but its still just as limited for most employees as would be common at similar firms with limited policies. Plus, we’ve got a built in way to play favorites without violating the on-the-books policy should we decide to do so.”
  - borplk 9y ago
    Almost all of these things companies brag about are like that. Same thing with open offices. In fact whenever you see companies praising something so much trying to convince people it's such a wonderful thing, follow the money and it always leads to something that is only good for them and that's just their propaganda machine trying to get everyone to repeat it.
- maxxxxx 9y ago
  Considering that in places like Germany 5-6 weeks are pretty much standard then calling 4 weeks "unlimited" is pretty much a joke. If someone offered unlimited vacation I would probably ask what they would do if I took 8 weeks.
kraftman 9y ago
I'm sure some companies are doing it properly, but I think for the most part it's 'unlimited holiday if you get the work done', which turns into 'holiday if you get the work done', and there will always be enough work that it never gets done. At previous company we switched to the 'unlimited holiday' policy, I asked my boss what the real limit was and she said if it was anything over 27 days (the previous amount before being 'unlimited') then the manager would have to sign off on it, which basically wouldn't happen. I'm experiencing a similar thing at my current job where when I asked what the office hours and lunch hours were I couldn't get a straight answer, it's kept intentionally vague so that when it gets to 5 you don't go 'well I'm off home, bye!'
RickS 9y ago
USA. It has mostly to do with personality. People who can take 4 weeks in South America and not feel guilty do, and appear to have a great time. I typically take normal holidays (two weeks for xmas, a week here or there ~twice a year). I think the best way to stave this off would be to have a mandatory minimum time. Eg, we have unlimited PTO but you have to take at least 4 weeks this year, or n days a quarter, or something like that. Not sure if it's legal to do that. edit: another point that someone else brought up is that you can take sick/mental health days often and with ease. This is very true, and is a benefit I've enjoyed a lot.
allsunny 9y ago
I work for a reasonably large (500+ engineers) software company in San Francisco with "unlimited vacation." I take between 4-5 weeks off a year (20-25 actual days off). It seems pretty typical amongst my colleagues.
philwelch 9y ago
It's a mechanism to reduce the amount of bookkeeping HR has to do with vacation hours, with the added benefit of not having to pay out any vacation hours when an employee leaves.
projproj 9y ago
I have this with my current employer. The problem I see si that when I ask for time off, it feels like I'm asking for a favor. Might just be my superiors. I kind of wish it were more like "I have x number of days off left for the year, I'd like to take some of those in October." I still get a generous amount of time off each year, but it's awkward every time I make the request. edit: Check out mrguyorama's comment. They said what I was trying to say in a much better way.
gricardo99 9y ago
It sounds like a way for employers to cut benefits/costs. If you have PAID vacation, that you accrue, then that's something you get, regardless if you take it or not (of course there are usually caps on how much you can accrue). If it's "unlimited", I guess that means there's no accrual, and if you take no (or minimal) vacation and leave, your vacation benefits were effectively reduced. I think "unlimited" vacation is a gimmick to sound generous. If you want to offer a generous vacation policy, then stand behind it as an actual paid benefit. Offer it as paid vacation, and if the employee doesn't take that much while they work for you, then hopefully they use that banked paid time to take a break between jobs.
- NegativeK 9y ago
  I've never been at a company with accrued vacation or sick days; they all just combine the two and say you lose unused days at the end of the year. At this point in my life, I've decided it's worth using all my paid time off and requesting some unpaid time -- so I'd prefer whatever unlimited means.
- conductr 9y ago
  I’ve experienced the best of both. Company policy is paid so it accrues. However I’ve never submitted any time off. So I’m always fully accrued, cash it out regularly, and I still get to take unlimited time off. This only works with the right manager and proper managing up. It keeps the team happy so the manager is willing to bend the rules a little or look the other way. Also, one bad coworker can screw it up for everyone so we kind of make sure we’re not keeping track of each other.
zellyn 9y ago
Joining (the Atlanta office of) Square, I was very nervous that “Unlimited Vacation” actually meant “No Vacation”. It hasn't turned out that way: our office has a good work-life balance. I would still expect that that is not generally the case.
- maximp 9y ago
  > good work-life balance could you put an average # of vacation days on that?
  - zellyn 9y ago
    Nope. Haven't tried.
    - zellyn 9y ago
      Note: Good for the USA.
gberger 9y ago
Palantir. 28+ days.
noemit 9y ago
I've experienced being denied time off excessively, no vacation payout (even if I didn't even take 2 weeks), strict rules about when you can take time off, for how long, etc. Overall bad.
- rconti 9y ago
  To be fair, I've heard of employers who make it hard to use accrued PTO as well.
  - noemit 9y ago
    True. It’s about culture ultimately. Unlimited PTO doesn’t mean good culture or bad culture automatically.
vorpalhex 9y ago
United States here. I've worked at two companies that had this kind of unlimited policy. The first one not only did I end up taking less vacation then I would of, I actually had my manager get mad at me for using more than two weeks of leave. I no longer work at said place for a myriad of reasons. The current one is pretty good. I definitely need to be proactive about it, but I've never been denied or guilted. Last year I used a bit over 3 weeks (so about normal for my field), but this year I'm planning to use a bit more because I have a few different places I'd like to visit. It definitely took me some mental effort to get past my natural tendency to avoid taking off.
- maximp 9y ago
  > get past my natural tendency to avoid taking off It's not that I don't WANT time off - it's that I'm afraid it'll backfire. I'd take months, if I could.
RamshackleJ 9y ago
Unlimited Vacation is the same as saying Unlimited Salary, its total BS. Without set guidelines in your employment contract of what PTO you get in exchange for working there it creates a drawn out negotiation between you, your manager and your team of how much vacation you actually get. Its just better to know for sure what PTO you are entitled to in your employment contract. Would you accept a job without knowing what the salary was? Keep in mind that vacation days are something that you are EARNING in exchange for your work.
- ben1040 9y ago
  Great blog post bringing this comparison up about unlimited salary (original version seems gone now): http://archive.fo/ByJ8X http://archive.fo/ByJ8X It really makes sense -- you wouldn't leave it up to your line manager to decide ad hoc "well that daycare for your kid is too much for you so I won't approve," your salary is your agreed-upon compensation.
bsvalley 9y ago
It is not part of the employee benefits because it doesn't exist. Can I take 2 months off in a row under an unlimited time-off policy? No. Why? Because I would "disrupt" a project or a team. Can I take all my Friday's off? Nope... work weeks should be 5 days not 4. That's what unlimited holiday means to me. So when a company says we have unlimited time-off policy I usually run away. Liars!
ben1040 9y ago
Worked for a (now defunct) Silicon Valley company that did this. My experience also really turned me off to the whole idea. The problem was that it was not clearly defined across the company how much vacation was too much or too little, and even if you hear one thing when you get hired, a reorg can put you under someone with a totally different viewpoint. Meanwhile, in companies I've worked without unlimited vacation, it's clearly defined how much vacation is too much, because you can't use more than your bucket. My first boss was the one who hired me into the company, and when he called me to present the offer, he told me that as a European he felt people in the US don't take enough time off and he wanted us to do 4-5 weeks a year. At one point mid-summer he told me "I don't think you've taken enough time off, it's slow next week, so go have the week off and take your kid to the pool a lot." That boss left the company, and I got reorged into a team that was pretty much the remnants of a startup that my employer had acquihired. The company was pushing this team to develop and release a particular new product concept ASAP, but giving minimal staffing to do so, so it was constant lowgrade crunch the whole time. The manager (and former founder of that startup) was also still operating in startup-hustle mode and setting the sort of example that while you technically get time off, you'd best not be taking a whole lot. I worked under each boss for a year. Under manager 1 I took 4.5 work weeks off in 12 months. Under manager 2 I took 7 days off in 12 months. Not a lawyer but I imagine that companies don't provide more guidance on _minimum_ vacation time usage, because maybe that could be construed as a bucket, and would put you back under the idea that in certain jurisdictions (California included) vacation accruals are viewed as compensation duly earned by the employee but not paid out yet. Avoiding having to carry that as a liability on your books and pay out when people separate, as I understand it, is the primary purpose behind unlimited vacation policies in the first place.
Myrmornis 9y ago
USA. I’ve worked under an unlimited vacation policy for 8 years. It’s fantastic, I’ve been able to do lots of trips to places I wanted to visit, and in addition can always see my family at holidays, and can always take time off when people visit me. I’ve never been denied or frowned at for taking time off. But I enjoy my job and my colleagues enjoy theirs, so people work hard without compulsion.
lhorie 9y ago
In my company, in practice it means around 4 weeks with standard accrual. Had a coworker that wanted to go to Japan for 3 months, and the condition for approval was that the other 2 months would be unpaid sabbatical. IIRC, he ended getting part time pay for a some of that time due to on-call duties. I took my vacations in chunks and went a bit over by a few days. Vacation approval is at the discretion of the manager, and mine is pretty lax about accrual, as long as work is getting done overall. I hear in some teams, people need to be told to take _more_ vacations than they do (workaholic younguns, I guess). We disable publishing to production during end-of-year holidays to minimize risks of outages (though of course you can break the glass in case something does break) I work at Uber, in San Francisco.
praneshp 9y ago
My last two jobs have been unlimited PTO, and going forward, it's a requirement for me. Last job (Godaddy in sunnyvale, one of the nicest places I've worked in) didn't have any tracking. For 3+ days you emailed manager and team. Current job's the same, except you enter 3+ days in a software. At both places, I took ~20 days to go to India, and another 20 days at least rest of the year. More importantly, my manager can expect me to take a day off after a long night of pages. At previous jobs, the 20 day India trip had to be reduced, or some unspoken agreement with manager, because I had 15 or so vacation days. I'm too spoilt now to handle that shit again. I haven't come across a mandatory minimum, but I take off a healthy amount anyway and I'm unimportant enough that the team can make do with 10 months of me.
rconti 9y ago
Only been in my current role for 7 months; due to an acquisition I'll never really see how it plays out. Small startup, I was 'told' 2 weeks/year even though it's unlimited. Turns out you need a higher level of approval for more than 2 weeks at once which is a buzzkill because I prefer to take 3 week vacations when I travel overseas; that said, I've heard of employers who make using too much accrued PTO at much (eg, more than 2 weeks) difficult. So, IMO, it depends far more on your boss and the culture of the company than whether it's 'unlimited' or accrued PTO. Ultimately I've taken 3 days in 7 months and am trying to swing a 3 week vacation in September.. we'll see, I guess. It makes planning a bit difficult any time you need extra approval for 'too many weeks' in a row. But I've always been a big believer in taking lots of vacation.
maximp 9y ago
Small but well-known NYC startup. Disliked the policy strongly, and nobody would give me a ballpark of vacation to take when I interviewed and after I joined. There was a huge discrepancy in how much vacation people took, which left some feeling resentful. A couple more senior employees took 4-5 weeks a year; most people did 2 weeks, with some pushing it a little more - 2-3 weeks. Anytime I asked HR, they encouraged me to "take as much time as I need", but the work was nonstop, and my manager wasn't happy anytime I took time off.
harryh 9y ago
In general, based on personal experience, I am not in favor of this sort of thing for tech companies beyond a certain size (perhaps 50 or so). I think it creates a situation that is ripe for misunderstandings and bad feelings. I used to think otherwise, but as I worked at companies that grew from tiny to moderately large I have definitely witnesses a threshold beyond which things start to break down. We all know that "unlimited" does not really mean unlimited. No one is randomly taking off for 6 months to go walk the appalachian trail or whatever. So what does it mean? About as many days off as you would have had under a typical plan? Maybe with a few extra? But no one is really quite sure. So different people will inevitably have different interpretations which leads to bad feelings when one person takes 10 days off a year while another takes 25. It also puts managers in an impossible situation when people complain. They have no rules or guidelines to point to in order to enforce any sort of standardization. After all, it says "unlimited." What are they supposed to say to the person who takes off for an entire month one summer while everyone else is hard at work pushing that new release out? We have enough guilt conscious style management as it is. There is no need to add more. There's also the issue that if you aren't tracking days then exiting employees don't get paid off for unused days. I consider this a real problem as well. I know it screams "we're a big company" but just suck it up and acknowledge reality. Past ~50 you are a big company. It's high time you act like one. Ultimately paid time off is a form of compensation. Would you accept this sort of loosey-goosey attitude about how much cash or stock you are being paid? Probably not. So what is different about PTO?
theptip 9y ago
The best system I've seen is a well-tracked generous allocation of N days per year, with the option to buy or sell 10 days per year. I think this is the fairest way of doing things; if you don't care for vacation then you can increase your salary, and if you want more vacation you can pay to get it. In practice the "unlimited vacation" seems hard to scale beyond a small team, though in that case it can be made to work. It relies on trust, which I'm skeptical would scale to hundreds of people. That said while you're small I think teams can get away with it if management lead by example and actually take good chunks of vacation.
notahacker 9y ago
Had vacation limited to 28 days plus national holidays once and struggled to use it due to the demands of the work. But I had a right to arrange it, which in one case meant taking four day weeks for six months. Wouldn't have asked for the same thing if holiday was an "unlimited" privilege granted at the whim of line managers. If you want actual unlimited holiday, become a contractor and get used to taking as much unpaid time out as you like, provided you can afford it.
fapjacks 9y ago
In most of the companies I've worked in with this policy, it ended up being a net negative. One place I think did it right, but I'm not sure how much of that was by design. People err on the side of not taking PTO, and everyone is always looking around at what everyone else is doing to see what's "normal", which adds a layer of stress to it. I mean of course it's a policy smell where "unlimited vacation" is just a way to get more work out of employees, or if there's actually some secret, behind-the-scenes value judgments being made against those rotten slackers for taking time off. But it seems to be one of those small ways that startups turn the screws on employee benefits. But actually at one of the places I worked, the CEO and the CTO took regular PTO. I mean of course the ship wasn't rudderless, but I'd say they took liberal, European amounts of PTO under the no-vacation-policy policy. This was actually a really useful kind of "lead by example" that showed they were trying to actually have a cool "unlimited vacation" policy. Their big thing was that as long as the work was getting done, they didn't care about butts-in-seats at all. Incidentally, that's now the standard by which I measure all other companies. Anyway, I think it is largely not a good idea, and the only time I would ever say it was a positive thing was as part of a broader pattern of excellent management. Like the "unlimited PTO" policy working out positively to the benefit of everyone was just a side effect of having great management in the first place. If I ever start another company, I'm just going to hand out 20 days of PTO and be done with it: It's sufficiently large that it's as impressive as "unlimited vacation" is supposed to be, but without all the hidden baggage that usually comes with it.
tejasmanohar 9y ago
I've worked at Segment.com for the last ~2.5 years. We've had an unlimited vacation policy ever since I joined, and I take 4-6 weeks off annually. Our only policy that I'm aware of is to keep your team posted and not leave gaping holes while OOO. Frankly, I really like it this way. I would not like to go back to tracking vacation/sick days, check-in/out times, WFH, etc. I appreciate the mutual trust the team has that people will work hard while in the office and stay away enough to sustainably enjoy life and remain productive. I'll add that I only think this sort of arrangement works if there is strong trust and leadership is a top-down role model in taking off time responsibly. I've never been asked to take time off, and I don't know that anyone has, but I've also never been asked not to. That said, I can also see this not working if you're shy about asking for things that aren't explicitly handed to you, then this system may not work as well. I'd be curious if anyone here has felt that way? :)
- maximp 8y ago
  Are you guys hiring at Segment? I've been keeping an eye out on the company, and things like this are really encouraging to read.
Symbiote 9y ago
This is mostly disappointing. I'd assumed this was a very special benefit, and meant 8-10 weeks off per year! My contract gives me 6 weeks, which is pretty standard in Denmark, and fairly standard in Europe. I use all 30 days, every year. I spread it around, not more than 2 weeks at once, but others take 3-4 weeks off during the summer. I can only see one comment (praneshp) where more than 30 days has been taken, and many where 4 weeks was the unwritten limit. There's no country in Europe with less than 4 weeks holiday entitlement! [1] (If I'm sick, that's separate, and has no effect on my holidays. Except if I'm sick on holiday, then I get the holidays back to use some other time. I would need a note from my doctor to do this.) Has anyone worked in Europe and then at an American company with the unlimited vacation policy, and taken more holiday than they were previously entitled to in Europe? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_minimum_annual_leave_by_country https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_minimum_annual_leave_b...
- maximp 8y ago
  > 8-10 weeks off per year That would be a dream. I don't know anyone who enjoys this much time off (other than people running their own shops/startups)
eip 9y ago
If I had unlimited vacation I would pretty much just do 4 day work weeks.
cimmanom 9y ago
How well? Better than 10 days/yr metered PTO. Not as good as 20-25 days/yr metered. I probably average 15-20 days/yr, with some guilt after the first 10 - which I wouldn't have if more PTO were explicitly allocated; but my boss seems fine with the amount I take. Reference: small to medium companies in the US.
deleted 9y ago
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wink 9y ago
Totally guessing but if we're talking about the US, I think the Europeans that have worked in Europe before won't have any qualms taking their 24-30 paid vacation days per year whereas the Americans might be inclined to stick to what they know and take their 2 weeks. All based on hearsay, so this might as well totally be wrong :) My point of reference is when I had my first job with "we don't count your hours, you just need to do your job" I still kept mental tabs on my hours and it took years until I really didn't care anymore and just eyeballed it. (How can you even tell when "your" work is done? Especially if you work in sprints or with a kanban board)
handbanana 9y ago
Depends on the comnpany. It can mean 15-20 days PTO at some, can mean 30-40 at others. What you must remember is, there will be those who take more PTO than others, and some who take less. Be the person that takes more than the average, make it clear during hiring your PTO expectations. And be sure to take a lengthy amount of time off in the first 6 months of employment. Tell them about this prior to signing on. I have done this twice. It has worked both times. If the company is uncomfortable with the notion of at least 28 PTO days, or you taking 15 PTO days 2 months after getting hired. Then its a red flag IMO (assuming they led you to believe they had splendid PTO) Company I work at doesn't seem to notice/care if people take off 35-40 PTO days, not including the paid holidays they also provide. Not many do this, though. Most people take 15-25 PTO days. Only one other person I know takes 30+ like I do
- maximp 8y ago
  > be sure to take a lengthy amount of time off in the first 6 months of employment. Tell them about this prior to signing on. What's your rationale? Out of curiosity, are you an engineer?
  - handbanana 8y ago
    Well, if they are OK with the time off before you sign then it shows they do value time off. And I like to set the tone with new employers - they can expect I take off a decent amount of PTO. To be clear, I've only worked for employers who advertise their PTO as very good/unlimited. As to your last question, yes.
cagey 9y ago
One year ago I returned to work at a large'ish SV company that, in my absence, was acquired and in this transition was converted from "PTO accrued at an annual rate that increased with seniority" to "unlimited vacation [as long as your manager agrees]". It didn't take much thinking to realize that "unlimited vacation [as long as your manager agrees]" is purely a way to screw the employee (who regresses to the mean of however much time they tend to habitually take off per year (having subconsciously ignored that they won't be repaid in cash for those lost hours of time off when they leave their company), but now additionally "has to beg" for time off rather than the time off being something they've earned) while also removing the liability of the accum'd PTO they owe employees from their books. The claimed justification that "tracking PTO is an added accounting cost" rings totally hollow: all employers I've worked for in my 20 year career had automated systems in place to track this info; in my current gig I'm still required to enter my hours worked per project every week into the same old automated system (into which I used to also enter PTO consumption), so it's not like they lack the systems to track this information with minimal effort/overhead. As another comment mentioned: this and "open office" go hand in hand: IMO the employers all get together (AEA? etc) and learn about the extra-normal practices of the "edgier" employers, select those that save the employer $$$ (regardless of consequence to employees), and adopt = normalize them (while marketing them internally as modernity incarnate: "this new system is SO MUCH BETTER than the way things used to be back in the bad old days; don't you agree?").
Gustomaximus 9y ago
Has anyone used 'unlimited vacation' to work a 4 day week. Assuming work suitable, I'd be tempted work a longer Mon-Thur and take Fridays off.
itsmejeff 9y ago
The Nash equilibrium for an unlimited vacation policy is no vacation for anyone. https://www.amazon.com/Algorithms-Live-Computer-Science-Decisions/dp/1627790365/ref=nodl_ https://www.amazon.com/Algorithms-Live-Computer-Science-Deci...
leonagano 8y ago
Hi, I'm running https://stretchyourannualleave.com https://stretchyourannualleave.com where people enter the number of days they like to book and the site calculates the maximum number of days off you can have, using public holidays and weekends. What I notice is, people are looking to book 5, 10 and 15 days off and especially at the end of the year.

55 points by konamicode 9y ago

Asking from the point of view of the employee: how many days a year do you actually take as annual leave? Please provide company name or country if possible. Asking for a friend.

JBReefer 9y ago

It works OK, but there's two situations where it can go bad: 1. (Uncommon) People take off during crunch time 2. (Very common IME) People take off en masse during lulls, leaving a skeleton crew to handle blowups. 3. No vacation payout during layoffs If you do 1 just to get out of work, you're a crappy coworker. People do 2, to be team players, but it can result in large waves of low staffing. 3 is a natural result, which is a major financial downside - the upside, of course, is that you can take much more vacation, and many do. Even with the above, I like it. You can take mental health days and deal with family issues without that feeling of "begging for forgiveness"

theptip 9y ago
I think "unlimited vacation" should not be conflated with "vacation any time you want it". To avoid the pathological cases you mention above, managers still need to make sure that not too many vacations overlap. If expectations have been set that you can take vacation whenever you want (even during a crunch on a project that you're leading) without consideration of the business needs, I'd suggest that's a big mistake.
antris 9y ago
>If you do 1 just to get out of work, you're a crappy coworker Good coworkers work so that crunch time never comes up. Crappy coworkers shame others who refuse to participate in unhealthy work/life balance.
- praneshp 9y ago
  > Good coworkers work so that crunch time never comes up This is a very bad argument. The launch of a product is a critical time, whether you like it or not. Edit: Replaced crunch with critical, I don't think I understood the meaning of crunch.
  - antris 9y ago
    It is if you're late from schedule. I've launched products with 0 days of crunch time
    - theptip 9y ago
      That should always be the goal, but slips do happen, sometimes through no fault of anyone.

donohoe 9y ago

I don't think it works any better/worse then limited vacation days. The difference IMHO is that companies that paid out unused vacation time when you left no longer need to.

byoung2 9y ago

My coworker left to go work at LogicMonitor in Santa Barbara, CA (https://www.logicmonitor.com/careers/ https://www.logicmonitor.com/careers/). Back in 2013 (not sure of the current policy) they offered unlimited vacations, and a $1000 bonus if you took a full week off and did not check email or do any work while you were out. He described it as a dinner buffet...in theory it looks like you could eat 10 steaks and 20 pizzas, but in reality even though it's unlimited most people stick to the same portion sizes they would at a regular restaurant because your stomach is still the same size. He said that for him the big 1-2 week vacations were still limited by 1) cost, 2) his wife's work schedule, 3) kids' school schedule. The one difference that having unlimited vacation made is that people didn't have to lie about being sick all the time to take 1 or 2 days here and there.

allsunny 9y ago
The schedule of the kids and wife is a good point. I'm writing this from the balcony of a condo I'm currently renting for a vacation, we're here because it's my son's spring break. :)
p1esk 9y ago
How does your friend like working at Logicmonitor? Any issues?
- byoung2 9y ago
  I lost touch but in the first 2 years he said he loved it, and it was the best job he ever had. A current check of LinkedIn shows he left but I don't know the reason.
  - p1esk 8y ago
    Interesting. Thanks!

nfriedly 9y ago

USA. When I was at Sociable Labs, unlimited vacation worked out pretty well for me. I took around 4-5 weeks most years. Typically a week or less at a time, although I'd do a 2 weeks around Christmas and I think I took one 2-week trip during the summer. Some of my colleagues weren't very proactive about it, so after a couple of years, the manager started assigning folks a week off here and there if they hadn't taken much vacation recently. I think something like this is a good idea. I'm now at Tanium, and they have unlimited / self-directed vacation, but I've only been around for a few months, so I've only taken a day or two off. They told me that most folks take 4~5 weeks a year here also, and I have seen a couple colleagues take vacations where they were wholly unreachable for a week or more. My first job out of high school did not have unlimited vacation, but I took the month of August off (unpaid) my second year there - that was nice.

maxxxxx 9y ago
"I have seen a couple colleagues take vacations where they were wholly unreachable for a week or more" Is that unusual? When I am on vacation I never check my E-mail. They could send a text but that never happens.
- nfriedly 9y ago
  I've seen it both ways. I think the "wholly unreachable" version is more common, but I've definitely seen people take "work-cations".
  - exolymph 9y ago
    I think the higher up in the org you are, or the more you serve as a bottleneck for productivity (e.g. because of unique skills), then the harder it is to take a truly 100% off vacation. The terminal example is a CEO — I'm sure most CEOs would cut a vacation short if a real crisis came up. That said, it has to be an actual crisis. If coworkers are bugging you about routine stuff on vacation, that's a bad work environment.
    - 9y ago

bg4 9y ago

In my experience it has a chilling effect on actual vacation taken. The real driver is not having to pay an employee for earned, unused vacation when they leave the company.

skookum 9y ago
> In my experience it has a chilling effect on actual vacation taken. This was exactly my experience in two very different environments with an unlimited vacation policy - one start-up, one large established company. The overwhelming majority of people took less vacation than what is typical at most tech companies and a handful took quite a bit more. The latter handful tended to be strongly correlated with people who were underperformers and the underperforming was, at least from my perspective, not due to less time but more down to a mix of general attitude and motivation. The former majority tended to be worried about perception and/or unsure of what was appropriate and thus tended to take less vacation than they otherwise would have.

decebalus1 9y ago

You'll most likely not get a definite answer because it can range from very bad to very good depending on both company and team. I don't want to mention my current company to keep my anonymity but we currently have unlimited vacation and at least for my team it's going great but it's mostly because of our direct manager who encourages us to: a) track and document our work so that when someone leaves on vacation the sky doesn't fall b) take as much time as needed to unwind I personally took about 6 weeks of vacation (double the amount of policy based vacation I got at my previous company) in the past year and things at work have been stellar. We delivered, kicked ass, whatever you want to call it and with zero guilt. But my company is well known for great work-life balance. However, I can't say the same about other teams where peer pressure keeps people in their seats. I am personally very cautious about 'unlimited vacation' plans because if you do a game matrix you'll realize that it's skewed against the employee and you'll end up in a better place only if the stars align just right. If they don't you'll end up working way more and either you'll never have 'approved' vacation by your manager or you'll never ask for it because passive-aggressively the culture frowns on 'slackers' who take time off. If vacation time matters to you (and It definitely should) before accepting an offer I would ask the hiring manager for the actual number of business days the team members use for vacation. If he/she brushes it off or is handwavy like 'nobody keeps track' (somebody ALWAYS keeps track) then stay away.

apohn 9y ago
>>You'll most likely not get a definite answer because it can range from very bad to very good depending on both company and team. This matches my experience. I disliked unlimited vacation because my manager at the time was a massive workaholic overachiever and I felt guilty taking any vacation. I usually ended up at ~2.5 weeks a year because I traveled overseas and traveling to the other side of the world for a week was not feasible. I felt like 2 - 3 weeks was typical for most of the people in the company. Some people would do that by just taking multiple very short vacations throughout the year, which seemed like an awful idea to me. Even in the groups with good managers, you were one re-org away from a bad manager and vacation time going away. If you have a good manager and work in a place that has accrued PTO, I seriously doubt the manger is going to care if you take some extra personal days throughout the year and don't record them. So you get something like unlimited vacation with the nice guarantees of accrued vacation.

noetic_techy 9y ago

From what I've heard from people in companies that have implemented it, it basically devolves into "you can take off whenever your want but... we really need you here due to crunch!" Basically it turns into a game of guilting people NOT to take any vacation time. Having guaranteed off time that can be scheduled well in advance and flexible working hours is way more reassuring. In my opinion, why not just be way more generous in how much PTO time employees accrue? If European companies can still function with employees taking up to a month off why is it such a big deal to be generous in this category?

jcadam 9y ago
My preference would be for a reasonable amount of PTO coupled with unlimited sick time, so getting the flu doesn't force me to choose between either giving up my planned summer vacation or coming into work sick :)
- noetic_techy 9y ago
  I second this. It just makes sense not to punish people who are truly sick. They end up coming in and infecting everyone. I'm saying be generous with TRUE vacation time.
  - jcadam 9y ago
    Yea, the current practice of lumping vacation and sick time all together in one bucket called "PTO" is asinine. It incentivizes coming to work sick. Here in the US, people would still come into work sick anyway to prove how much of a hardcore workaholic they are, but still...
- majewsky 9y ago
  As a German, I find the concept of "sick time" baffling. When I'm sick, I go to my doctor and get a note that allows me to stay away from work until I'm healthy. Employers are required by law to continue paying the full salary for at least 6 weeks, or longer if the employer chooses so (e.g. 6 months at my employer). After that, one receives sick pay from the health insurance (70% of the last salary). Actually, it's even better at my employer. When I feel like a cold is coming on, I just shoot a e-mail to my manager and stay home. I only have to submit a doctor's note at the third day of continuous absence. The manager does not get to argue against your staying home, although I guess that question would be asked if one would abuse this policy. Managers are generally supportive of the policy; they don't want sick people spreading their diseases to their colleagues.

sldfjnsdlfk 9y ago

Sounds good, doesn't work. The fear of taking too much time off makes the conscientious not take enough holiday to maintain a healthy work-life balance. Others take advantage and "are off on vacation again" making the hardworking people bitter and resentful. Unlimited isn't the answer, flexible and accommodating, while accountable, is.

joeld42 9y ago

For me it was super stressful and made it really hard to plan. What I did was decide how much leave I wanted if this were a "traditional" system, discussed that with my manager informally (he still wouldn't give me a straight answer but I got to a number that he seemed to be okay with), and tracked the vacation and sick time myself in a spreadsheet. One thing I did notice is that it seemed very hard to get more vacation as a more senior employee. I think it's less about flexibility for the employee and more so they don't have to keep everyone's unused vacation on the balance sheet and in the bank. Also they don't have to pay out that unused vacation when you leave, so if you're tracking it yourself, try not to "accrue" a lot of vacation. The reality of "unlimited vacation" means you will probably take around the same amount as someone at a traditional setup, but it will be more frequent shorter vacations and you're less likely to take like a month off for a big summer trip. I've also seen this system (perhaps inadvertently) take advantage of people with workaholic tendencies or people that tend to feel a lot of peer pressure to support the team, and "unlimited vacation" can mean "no vacation" for some folks.

mrguyorama 9y ago
"Unlimited" vacation without requiring a minimum is a negative thing. It means that instead of "earning"/accruing vacation and spending it how you want, you have to ask permission for every little use. Instead of the company owing you your fair vacation use, they now have an avenue to discourage vacation use and encourage a culture of limited vacation use. If a company truly cared about their employees, they could always just double the accrual rate of paid time off.
- borplk 9y ago
  bingo! "unlimited vacation" is a scam.
supreme_sublime 9y ago
We kind of have "unlimited" vacation, but also a number that we are allowed. If we go over that I think the manager would have to get extra approval for it. What you describe is essentially how it has been for me. I do not have a significant other, or family and feel a lot of responsibility to help my team. Though the past couple of years my manager had heavily encouraged me to take vacation. So near the end of the year I would take off every Friday until the end of the year and take off the week between Christmas and New Years. Stuff like that. Be weary of unlimited vacation if you're anything like me.

66d8kk 9y ago

I've never experienced this myself directly. However I used to work at a company who now does this. I still have many silo'd friend groups at that company (who don't even know each other too well - designers/devs/sales) and the general consensus when I'm out with each group is that "it's a trap". There appears to be a negative vibe a kind of undertone where people will question others (to them selves not openly) and the hierarchy. Admittedly the trust was never great at this company but from my third party view point I would absolutely not like it. Culture would play a huge part though and unfortunately in this case the unlimited leave was a marketing/recruitment angle so was pretty much always set for failure.

jcadam 9y ago

My current workplace has "unlimited" vacation. You have to request days off in advance, which your supervisor can approve/disapprove. However, once you reach 4 weeks (160 Vacation hours) you have to get VP-level approval to take any additional time off. And the vacation hours tracker resets at the end of the Fiscal Year. So, basically, unlimited means 4 weeks per year tops, and you have to get it approved in advance. I don't really care for it.

dragonwriter 9y ago
“unlimited”, from all accounts I've seen, seems mostly to be a way to put a positive spin on “you have no balance that accrues or can be cashed out or used as terminal leave, but its still just as limited for most employees as would be common at similar firms with limited policies. Plus, we’ve got a built in way to play favorites without violating the on-the-books policy should we decide to do so.”
- borplk 9y ago
  Almost all of these things companies brag about are like that. Same thing with open offices. In fact whenever you see companies praising something so much trying to convince people it's such a wonderful thing, follow the money and it always leads to something that is only good for them and that's just their propaganda machine trying to get everyone to repeat it.
maxxxxx 9y ago
Considering that in places like Germany 5-6 weeks are pretty much standard then calling 4 weeks "unlimited" is pretty much a joke. If someone offered unlimited vacation I would probably ask what they would do if I took 8 weeks.

kraftman 9y ago

I'm sure some companies are doing it properly, but I think for the most part it's 'unlimited holiday if you get the work done', which turns into 'holiday if you get the work done', and there will always be enough work that it never gets done. At previous company we switched to the 'unlimited holiday' policy, I asked my boss what the real limit was and she said if it was anything over 27 days (the previous amount before being 'unlimited') then the manager would have to sign off on it, which basically wouldn't happen. I'm experiencing a similar thing at my current job where when I asked what the office hours and lunch hours were I couldn't get a straight answer, it's kept intentionally vague so that when it gets to 5 you don't go 'well I'm off home, bye!'

RickS 9y ago

USA. It has mostly to do with personality. People who can take 4 weeks in South America and not feel guilty do, and appear to have a great time. I typically take normal holidays (two weeks for xmas, a week here or there ~twice a year). I think the best way to stave this off would be to have a mandatory minimum time. Eg, we have unlimited PTO but you have to take at least 4 weeks this year, or n days a quarter, or something like that. Not sure if it's legal to do that. edit: another point that someone else brought up is that you can take sick/mental health days often and with ease. This is very true, and is a benefit I've enjoyed a lot.

allsunny 9y ago

I work for a reasonably large (500+ engineers) software company in San Francisco with "unlimited vacation." I take between 4-5 weeks off a year (20-25 actual days off). It seems pretty typical amongst my colleagues.

philwelch 9y ago

It's a mechanism to reduce the amount of bookkeeping HR has to do with vacation hours, with the added benefit of not having to pay out any vacation hours when an employee leaves.

projproj 9y ago

I have this with my current employer. The problem I see si that when I ask for time off, it feels like I'm asking for a favor. Might just be my superiors. I kind of wish it were more like "I have x number of days off left for the year, I'd like to take some of those in October." I still get a generous amount of time off each year, but it's awkward every time I make the request. edit: Check out mrguyorama's comment. They said what I was trying to say in a much better way.

gricardo99 9y ago

It sounds like a way for employers to cut benefits/costs. If you have PAID vacation, that you accrue, then that's something you get, regardless if you take it or not (of course there are usually caps on how much you can accrue). If it's "unlimited", I guess that means there's no accrual, and if you take no (or minimal) vacation and leave, your vacation benefits were effectively reduced. I think "unlimited" vacation is a gimmick to sound generous. If you want to offer a generous vacation policy, then stand behind it as an actual paid benefit. Offer it as paid vacation, and if the employee doesn't take that much while they work for you, then hopefully they use that banked paid time to take a break between jobs.

NegativeK 9y ago
I've never been at a company with accrued vacation or sick days; they all just combine the two and say you lose unused days at the end of the year. At this point in my life, I've decided it's worth using all my paid time off and requesting some unpaid time -- so I'd prefer whatever unlimited means.
conductr 9y ago
I’ve experienced the best of both. Company policy is paid so it accrues. However I’ve never submitted any time off. So I’m always fully accrued, cash it out regularly, and I still get to take unlimited time off. This only works with the right manager and proper managing up. It keeps the team happy so the manager is willing to bend the rules a little or look the other way. Also, one bad coworker can screw it up for everyone so we kind of make sure we’re not keeping track of each other.

zellyn 9y ago

Joining (the Atlanta office of) Square, I was very nervous that “Unlimited Vacation” actually meant “No Vacation”. It hasn't turned out that way: our office has a good work-life balance. I would still expect that that is not generally the case.

maximp 9y ago
> good work-life balance could you put an average # of vacation days on that?
- zellyn 9y ago
  Nope. Haven't tried.
  - zellyn 9y ago
    Note: Good for the USA.

gberger 9y ago

Palantir. 28+ days.

noemit 9y ago

I've experienced being denied time off excessively, no vacation payout (even if I didn't even take 2 weeks), strict rules about when you can take time off, for how long, etc. Overall bad.

rconti 9y ago
To be fair, I've heard of employers who make it hard to use accrued PTO as well.
- noemit 9y ago
  True. It’s about culture ultimately. Unlimited PTO doesn’t mean good culture or bad culture automatically.

vorpalhex 9y ago

United States here. I've worked at two companies that had this kind of unlimited policy. The first one not only did I end up taking less vacation then I would of, I actually had my manager get mad at me for using more than two weeks of leave. I no longer work at said place for a myriad of reasons. The current one is pretty good. I definitely need to be proactive about it, but I've never been denied or guilted. Last year I used a bit over 3 weeks (so about normal for my field), but this year I'm planning to use a bit more because I have a few different places I'd like to visit. It definitely took me some mental effort to get past my natural tendency to avoid taking off.

maximp 9y ago
> get past my natural tendency to avoid taking off It's not that I don't WANT time off - it's that I'm afraid it'll backfire. I'd take months, if I could.

RamshackleJ 9y ago

Unlimited Vacation is the same as saying Unlimited Salary, its total BS. Without set guidelines in your employment contract of what PTO you get in exchange for working there it creates a drawn out negotiation between you, your manager and your team of how much vacation you actually get. Its just better to know for sure what PTO you are entitled to in your employment contract. Would you accept a job without knowing what the salary was? Keep in mind that vacation days are something that you are EARNING in exchange for your work.

ben1040 9y ago
Great blog post bringing this comparison up about unlimited salary (original version seems gone now): http://archive.fo/ByJ8X http://archive.fo/ByJ8X It really makes sense -- you wouldn't leave it up to your line manager to decide ad hoc "well that daycare for your kid is too much for you so I won't approve," your salary is your agreed-upon compensation.

bsvalley 9y ago

It is not part of the employee benefits because it doesn't exist. Can I take 2 months off in a row under an unlimited time-off policy? No. Why? Because I would "disrupt" a project or a team. Can I take all my Friday's off? Nope... work weeks should be 5 days not 4. That's what unlimited holiday means to me. So when a company says we have unlimited time-off policy I usually run away. Liars!

ben1040 9y ago

Worked for a (now defunct) Silicon Valley company that did this. My experience also really turned me off to the whole idea. The problem was that it was not clearly defined across the company how much vacation was too much or too little, and even if you hear one thing when you get hired, a reorg can put you under someone with a totally different viewpoint. Meanwhile, in companies I've worked without unlimited vacation, it's clearly defined how much vacation is too much, because you can't use more than your bucket. My first boss was the one who hired me into the company, and when he called me to present the offer, he told me that as a European he felt people in the US don't take enough time off and he wanted us to do 4-5 weeks a year. At one point mid-summer he told me "I don't think you've taken enough time off, it's slow next week, so go have the week off and take your kid to the pool a lot." That boss left the company, and I got reorged into a team that was pretty much the remnants of a startup that my employer had acquihired. The company was pushing this team to develop and release a particular new product concept ASAP, but giving minimal staffing to do so, so it was constant lowgrade crunch the whole time. The manager (and former founder of that startup) was also still operating in startup-hustle mode and setting the sort of example that while you technically get time off, you'd best not be taking a whole lot. I worked under each boss for a year. Under manager 1 I took 4.5 work weeks off in 12 months. Under manager 2 I took 7 days off in 12 months. Not a lawyer but I imagine that companies don't provide more guidance on _minimum_ vacation time usage, because maybe that could be construed as a bucket, and would put you back under the idea that in certain jurisdictions (California included) vacation accruals are viewed as compensation duly earned by the employee but not paid out yet. Avoiding having to carry that as a liability on your books and pay out when people separate, as I understand it, is the primary purpose behind unlimited vacation policies in the first place.

Myrmornis 9y ago

USA. I’ve worked under an unlimited vacation policy for 8 years. It’s fantastic, I’ve been able to do lots of trips to places I wanted to visit, and in addition can always see my family at holidays, and can always take time off when people visit me. I’ve never been denied or frowned at for taking time off. But I enjoy my job and my colleagues enjoy theirs, so people work hard without compulsion.

lhorie 9y ago

In my company, in practice it means around 4 weeks with standard accrual. Had a coworker that wanted to go to Japan for 3 months, and the condition for approval was that the other 2 months would be unpaid sabbatical. IIRC, he ended getting part time pay for a some of that time due to on-call duties. I took my vacations in chunks and went a bit over by a few days. Vacation approval is at the discretion of the manager, and mine is pretty lax about accrual, as long as work is getting done overall. I hear in some teams, people need to be told to take _more_ vacations than they do (workaholic younguns, I guess). We disable publishing to production during end-of-year holidays to minimize risks of outages (though of course you can break the glass in case something does break) I work at Uber, in San Francisco.

praneshp 9y ago

My last two jobs have been unlimited PTO, and going forward, it's a requirement for me. Last job (Godaddy in sunnyvale, one of the nicest places I've worked in) didn't have any tracking. For 3+ days you emailed manager and team. Current job's the same, except you enter 3+ days in a software. At both places, I took ~20 days to go to India, and another 20 days at least rest of the year. More importantly, my manager can expect me to take a day off after a long night of pages. At previous jobs, the 20 day India trip had to be reduced, or some unspoken agreement with manager, because I had 15 or so vacation days. I'm too spoilt now to handle that shit again. I haven't come across a mandatory minimum, but I take off a healthy amount anyway and I'm unimportant enough that the team can make do with 10 months of me.

rconti 9y ago

Only been in my current role for 7 months; due to an acquisition I'll never really see how it plays out. Small startup, I was 'told' 2 weeks/year even though it's unlimited. Turns out you need a higher level of approval for more than 2 weeks at once which is a buzzkill because I prefer to take 3 week vacations when I travel overseas; that said, I've heard of employers who make using too much accrued PTO at much (eg, more than 2 weeks) difficult. So, IMO, it depends far more on your boss and the culture of the company than whether it's 'unlimited' or accrued PTO. Ultimately I've taken 3 days in 7 months and am trying to swing a 3 week vacation in September.. we'll see, I guess. It makes planning a bit difficult any time you need extra approval for 'too many weeks' in a row. But I've always been a big believer in taking lots of vacation.

maximp 9y ago

Small but well-known NYC startup. Disliked the policy strongly, and nobody would give me a ballpark of vacation to take when I interviewed and after I joined. There was a huge discrepancy in how much vacation people took, which left some feeling resentful. A couple more senior employees took 4-5 weeks a year; most people did 2 weeks, with some pushing it a little more - 2-3 weeks. Anytime I asked HR, they encouraged me to "take as much time as I need", but the work was nonstop, and my manager wasn't happy anytime I took time off.

harryh 9y ago

In general, based on personal experience, I am not in favor of this sort of thing for tech companies beyond a certain size (perhaps 50 or so). I think it creates a situation that is ripe for misunderstandings and bad feelings. I used to think otherwise, but as I worked at companies that grew from tiny to moderately large I have definitely witnesses a threshold beyond which things start to break down. We all know that "unlimited" does not really mean unlimited. No one is randomly taking off for 6 months to go walk the appalachian trail or whatever. So what does it mean? About as many days off as you would have had under a typical plan? Maybe with a few extra? But no one is really quite sure. So different people will inevitably have different interpretations which leads to bad feelings when one person takes 10 days off a year while another takes 25. It also puts managers in an impossible situation when people complain. They have no rules or guidelines to point to in order to enforce any sort of standardization. After all, it says "unlimited." What are they supposed to say to the person who takes off for an entire month one summer while everyone else is hard at work pushing that new release out? We have enough guilt conscious style management as it is. There is no need to add more. There's also the issue that if you aren't tracking days then exiting employees don't get paid off for unused days. I consider this a real problem as well. I know it screams "we're a big company" but just suck it up and acknowledge reality. Past ~50 you are a big company. It's high time you act like one. Ultimately paid time off is a form of compensation. Would you accept this sort of loosey-goosey attitude about how much cash or stock you are being paid? Probably not. So what is different about PTO?

theptip 9y ago

The best system I've seen is a well-tracked generous allocation of N days per year, with the option to buy or sell 10 days per year. I think this is the fairest way of doing things; if you don't care for vacation then you can increase your salary, and if you want more vacation you can pay to get it. In practice the "unlimited vacation" seems hard to scale beyond a small team, though in that case it can be made to work. It relies on trust, which I'm skeptical would scale to hundreds of people. That said while you're small I think teams can get away with it if management lead by example and actually take good chunks of vacation.

notahacker 9y ago

Had vacation limited to 28 days plus national holidays once and struggled to use it due to the demands of the work. But I had a right to arrange it, which in one case meant taking four day weeks for six months. Wouldn't have asked for the same thing if holiday was an "unlimited" privilege granted at the whim of line managers. If you want actual unlimited holiday, become a contractor and get used to taking as much unpaid time out as you like, provided you can afford it.

fapjacks 9y ago

In most of the companies I've worked in with this policy, it ended up being a net negative. One place I think did it right, but I'm not sure how much of that was by design. People err on the side of not taking PTO, and everyone is always looking around at what everyone else is doing to see what's "normal", which adds a layer of stress to it. I mean of course it's a policy smell where "unlimited vacation" is just a way to get more work out of employees, or if there's actually some secret, behind-the-scenes value judgments being made against those rotten slackers for taking time off. But it seems to be one of those small ways that startups turn the screws on employee benefits. But actually at one of the places I worked, the CEO and the CTO took regular PTO. I mean of course the ship wasn't rudderless, but I'd say they took liberal, European amounts of PTO under the no-vacation-policy policy. This was actually a really useful kind of "lead by example" that showed they were trying to actually have a cool "unlimited vacation" policy. Their big thing was that as long as the work was getting done, they didn't care about butts-in-seats at all. Incidentally, that's now the standard by which I measure all other companies. Anyway, I think it is largely not a good idea, and the only time I would ever say it was a positive thing was as part of a broader pattern of excellent management. Like the "unlimited PTO" policy working out positively to the benefit of everyone was just a side effect of having great management in the first place. If I ever start another company, I'm just going to hand out 20 days of PTO and be done with it: It's sufficiently large that it's as impressive as "unlimited vacation" is supposed to be, but without all the hidden baggage that usually comes with it.

tejasmanohar 9y ago

I've worked at Segment.com for the last ~2.5 years. We've had an unlimited vacation policy ever since I joined, and I take 4-6 weeks off annually. Our only policy that I'm aware of is to keep your team posted and not leave gaping holes while OOO. Frankly, I really like it this way. I would not like to go back to tracking vacation/sick days, check-in/out times, WFH, etc. I appreciate the mutual trust the team has that people will work hard while in the office and stay away enough to sustainably enjoy life and remain productive. I'll add that I only think this sort of arrangement works if there is strong trust and leadership is a top-down role model in taking off time responsibly. I've never been asked to take time off, and I don't know that anyone has, but I've also never been asked not to. That said, I can also see this not working if you're shy about asking for things that aren't explicitly handed to you, then this system may not work as well. I'd be curious if anyone here has felt that way? :)

maximp 8y ago
Are you guys hiring at Segment? I've been keeping an eye out on the company, and things like this are really encouraging to read.

Symbiote 9y ago

This is mostly disappointing. I'd assumed this was a very special benefit, and meant 8-10 weeks off per year! My contract gives me 6 weeks, which is pretty standard in Denmark, and fairly standard in Europe. I use all 30 days, every year. I spread it around, not more than 2 weeks at once, but others take 3-4 weeks off during the summer. I can only see one comment (praneshp) where more than 30 days has been taken, and many where 4 weeks was the unwritten limit. There's no country in Europe with less than 4 weeks holiday entitlement! [1] (If I'm sick, that's separate, and has no effect on my holidays. Except if I'm sick on holiday, then I get the holidays back to use some other time. I would need a note from my doctor to do this.) Has anyone worked in Europe and then at an American company with the unlimited vacation policy, and taken more holiday than they were previously entitled to in Europe? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_minimum_annual_leave_by_country https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_minimum_annual_leave_b...

maximp 8y ago
> 8-10 weeks off per year That would be a dream. I don't know anyone who enjoys this much time off (other than people running their own shops/startups)

eip 9y ago

If I had unlimited vacation I would pretty much just do 4 day work weeks.

cimmanom 9y ago

How well? Better than 10 days/yr metered PTO. Not as good as 20-25 days/yr metered. I probably average 15-20 days/yr, with some guilt after the first 10 - which I wouldn't have if more PTO were explicitly allocated; but my boss seems fine with the amount I take. Reference: small to medium companies in the US.

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wink 9y ago

Totally guessing but if we're talking about the US, I think the Europeans that have worked in Europe before won't have any qualms taking their 24-30 paid vacation days per year whereas the Americans might be inclined to stick to what they know and take their 2 weeks. All based on hearsay, so this might as well totally be wrong :) My point of reference is when I had my first job with "we don't count your hours, you just need to do your job" I still kept mental tabs on my hours and it took years until I really didn't care anymore and just eyeballed it. (How can you even tell when "your" work is done? Especially if you work in sprints or with a kanban board)

handbanana 9y ago

Depends on the comnpany. It can mean 15-20 days PTO at some, can mean 30-40 at others. What you must remember is, there will be those who take more PTO than others, and some who take less. Be the person that takes more than the average, make it clear during hiring your PTO expectations. And be sure to take a lengthy amount of time off in the first 6 months of employment. Tell them about this prior to signing on. I have done this twice. It has worked both times. If the company is uncomfortable with the notion of at least 28 PTO days, or you taking 15 PTO days 2 months after getting hired. Then its a red flag IMO (assuming they led you to believe they had splendid PTO) Company I work at doesn't seem to notice/care if people take off 35-40 PTO days, not including the paid holidays they also provide. Not many do this, though. Most people take 15-25 PTO days. Only one other person I know takes 30+ like I do

maximp 8y ago
> be sure to take a lengthy amount of time off in the first 6 months of employment. Tell them about this prior to signing on. What's your rationale? Out of curiosity, are you an engineer?
- handbanana 8y ago
  Well, if they are OK with the time off before you sign then it shows they do value time off. And I like to set the tone with new employers - they can expect I take off a decent amount of PTO. To be clear, I've only worked for employers who advertise their PTO as very good/unlimited. As to your last question, yes.

cagey 9y ago

One year ago I returned to work at a large'ish SV company that, in my absence, was acquired and in this transition was converted from "PTO accrued at an annual rate that increased with seniority" to "unlimited vacation [as long as your manager agrees]". It didn't take much thinking to realize that "unlimited vacation [as long as your manager agrees]" is purely a way to screw the employee (who regresses to the mean of however much time they tend to habitually take off per year (having subconsciously ignored that they won't be repaid in cash for those lost hours of time off when they leave their company), but now additionally "has to beg" for time off rather than the time off being something they've earned) while also removing the liability of the accum'd PTO they owe employees from their books. The claimed justification that "tracking PTO is an added accounting cost" rings totally hollow: all employers I've worked for in my 20 year career had automated systems in place to track this info; in my current gig I'm still required to enter my hours worked per project every week into the same old automated system (into which I used to also enter PTO consumption), so it's not like they lack the systems to track this information with minimal effort/overhead. As another comment mentioned: this and "open office" go hand in hand: IMO the employers all get together (AEA? etc) and learn about the extra-normal practices of the "edgier" employers, select those that save the employer $$$ (regardless of consequence to employees), and adopt = normalize them (while marketing them internally as modernity incarnate: "this new system is SO MUCH BETTER than the way things used to be back in the bad old days; don't you agree?").

Gustomaximus 9y ago

Has anyone used 'unlimited vacation' to work a 4 day week. Assuming work suitable, I'd be tempted work a longer Mon-Thur and take Fridays off.

itsmejeff 9y ago

The Nash equilibrium for an unlimited vacation policy is no vacation for anyone. https://www.amazon.com/Algorithms-Live-Computer-Science-Decisions/dp/1627790365/ref=nodl_ https://www.amazon.com/Algorithms-Live-Computer-Science-Deci...

leonagano 8y ago

Hi, I'm running https://stretchyourannualleave.com https://stretchyourannualleave.com where people enter the number of days they like to book and the site calculates the maximum number of days off you can have, using public holidays and weekends. What I notice is, people are looking to book 5, 10 and 15 days off and especially at the end of the year.