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You don’t know much about Netflix. Netflix was the first company to give unlimited vacation and 1 year family leave. Netflix openly says that if you work long h

You don’t know much about Netflix. Netflix was the first company to give unlimited vacation and 1 year family leave. Netflix openly says that if you work long hours then it’s not the right place for you. They would prefer people who get the job done in an hour than someone who tools for 10 hours a day.

enraged_camel 8y ago
No such thing as unlimited vacation. What happens in every “unlimited vacation” environment is people start to feel guilty about taking vacations, and therefore stop taking them. Studies have shown this - you can look them up.
- remote_phone 8y ago
  I have unlimited vacation at my company and I took 8 weeks off last year. I also got a 30% performance bonus on top of my regular bonus for 2018. This year I’ve already arranged for 7 weeks vacation
  - izacus 8y ago
    What does your anecdote prove though?
  - wtetzner 8y ago
    Out of curiosity, where do you work (assuming you're comfortable saying)?
- PorterDuff 8y ago
  It's also probably a way that companies avoid carrying vacation on the books and then pay you when you leave. I'd be surprised if I took 60 days of vacation in 30 years as an FTE.
  - sokoloff 8y ago
    > I'd be surprised if I took 60 days of vacation in 30 years as an FTE. Are you saying that you'd be surprised to have taken 60 days (12 weeks) in a single year, or that across 30 years you don't think you've taken 60 days in total? The latter would be very surprising to me, but seems to be the most natural reading of your sentence.
    - PorterDuff 8y ago
      The latter. I'd have to sit and tally it up. It's possible that I'm slightly low in my estimate but not by a tremendous amount. I realize that that's only a couple of days a year. I'm not including getting sick in that swag. Typically I'd work for somewhere for 5 years and then pocket the vacation when I left. There might be a single week (or two) off and a handful of Fridays off in that time. I'll tell you when the non-vacation time comes up is when you become a FT contractor. If the money flows, you row.
- maehwasu 8y ago
  I dream of a world in which, when someone says "studies have shown", the appropriate response is to politely change the subject so as not to embarrass the speaker.
- snowwrestler 8y ago
  It's a shame that you're being downvoted, because you are correct. > But Brantner said research indicates that employees with unlimited vacation tend to take less vacation each year than workers who have caps on their vacation days. This, she said, is partly because many companies have policies requiring those with limited vacation days to use those days or lose them at the end of a calendar year, which encourages those workers to take off all the time they're allowed. > The 2017 HR Mythbusters report by Namely, which offers HR software and services to midsize companies, found that employees who were offered unlimited vacation took, on average, 13 days off a year, while workers with capped vacation days took, on average, 15 days off. https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/hr-topics/employee-relations/pages/unlimited-vacation-.aspx https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/hr-topics/employee-re... > A rundown of research compiled by Sage Business Researcher showed that companies offering unlimited vacation found that in many cases it actually encouraged employees to take less time off. Other research shows that it may even create competition to take fewer days off. https://www.inc.com/john-boitnott/unlimited-vacation-sounds-great-until-your-workers-forget-to-take-time-off.html https://www.inc.com/john-boitnott/unlimited-vacation-sounds-... "Unlimited vacation" is not actually unlimited. Hear it from Joshua Reeves, CEO of ZenPayroll, which offers this benefit to their employees: > Even if your time off is technically “unlimited,” your manager obviously doesn’t expect you’ll take off 75% of the time. Actually, he or she probably has at least a general range of number of days or weeks in mind that is acceptable for an employee to take off—even if that range hasn't been openly communicated. Similarly, your company may expect you to take a minimum number of vacation days. At the company HubSpot, for example, employees are expected to take at least two weeks off each year under its “two weeks to infinity” policy. > To get a sense of the norms, ask your boss (or other colleagues) how many days or weeks other employees typically take off. If the theme seems to be “2-3 weeks, plus a day here and there,” stick to that. If you have any doubt about whether you’re using the vacation policy appropriately, pay attention to how your manager and those around you use it. (Of course, be careful: Some workplaces do have different rules and expectations for managers and their reports.) https://www.themuse.com/advice/unlimited-vacation-policy-what-you-should-know https://www.themuse.com/advice/unlimited-vacation-policy-wha... So if the company has an idea how much vacation you should or should not take, why call it "unlimited"? Because it's great marketing (for those who don't think about the above factors anyway), and because vacation that is not accrued does not need to be paid out. Back to that SHRM article: > Some organizations, Brantner said, began offering this benefit as a way to get around having to pay workers for unused vacation days when they left a company. > "I'm absolutely sure that it originated in some camps as a way to get a vast amount of vacation time off the books. It was something preferred by accountants and others looking at the bottom line. At the same time, there are companies that adopted it with good intentions and that believe in the value of taking vacations." > In November 2017, the Financial Times reported that "a big firm that ditches fixed paid leave for open vacations can wipe millions of dollars' worth of unused leave liabilities from its books that would otherwise be paid to departing employees. At the same time, it can safely offer bottomless holidays knowing most employees will never take them, especially in the U.S., the only major advanced economy in the world that does not guarantee workers paid vacation time."
- vidarh 8y ago
  When people offer this, it's illuminating to try to suggest numbers and ask if that's still "reasonable". It quickly becomes clear that for all the talk about it being "unlimited", most employers will be very uncomfortable when you start offering up numbers even slightly above the caps most other places. Most of the time these "unlimited" policies seem to either be extremely cynical (with full knowledge of studies into the subject) or reflective of workaholics with extremely naive views of how much vacation time someone might like to take if it felt truly unlimited.
p1esk 8y ago
What the hell is “unlimited vacation”?
- zdragnar 8y ago
  It has become pretty common. You don't track the days you take off. You are expected to honorthe commitments you make. At most companies this becomes an informal 5-8 weeks. At first, I was extremely skeptical, but it actually works well when you work with people who act like reasonable, understanding adults. If you don't, then the vacation policy won't matter, because it's going to suck working for them no matter what.
  - cimmanom 8y ago
    5-8 weeks? Most places I've worked it's been an informal 2 weeks plus sick days.
    - mac01021 8y ago
      I had a very accommodating boss who let me take 5-6 weeks. People on most other teams in my company end up taking 3ish.
    - zdragnar 8y ago
      Most people don't end up taking 5 weeks, and I think 8 is more along the extenuating circumstances - i.e. at one job I needed to leave early on a regular basis to deal with trips to the vet for a very sick dog. My boss was very understanding and since I was one of the more senior and productive team members, no one minded. Honestly, I don't think I would take a job offer that only included 2 weeks vacation, even if the pay was exceptional. Early on in my career I didn't mind not having much vacation, since I rarely, if at all, used it. Now that I'm older, the added flexibility is more important.
      - hopler 8y ago
        You spent 15days in one year year off work taking your dog to the vet?
save_ferris 8y ago
Feel free to attack my knowledge of Netflix, but the opinions left by employees in that link I posted are pretty damning. That said, you base your argument solely on the perks advertised without acknowledging the nuance and politics of large companies, and what they advertise is never quite as rosy as it sounds. Frankly, it sounds to me like you don't know much about Netflix either. A small sample of reviews: "Work life balance is a joke at times but it depends on team and manager" "High turnover rate, culture of fear" "most managers are stressed out all the time and encouraged to weed out employees no longer useful or not performing to "high standards" "Culture is a lie" "Take the good salary with the risk it gives. You will be let go, it's just a matter of when."
- remote_phone 8y ago
  Do you even live in Silicon Valley? Netflix is known to pay top of the market and the ones who work there love it. And Glassdoor is known to produce “ratings” biased by disgruntled employees. Go on blind and talk directly to Netflix engineers. The ones that fit the culture are universally happy. The ones that are unhappy are the ones who likely aren’t good fits and will get let go soon. My friend said he saw 20 people let go in 2 years. But he’s genuinely happy being there and makes over $600,000/yr.
  - dang 8y ago
    Some of your comments were probably downvoted because you began them with personal swipes. Could you please edit those out when posting here? They break the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. It's a pity, because it does sound like you know something about this topic.
  - save_ferris 8y ago
    Not sure how where I live factors into this argument at all. > The ones who work there love it. Again, this clearly isn't true based on what's posted on Glassdoor. Many people have written about being blindsided and fired without any warning or indication. That kind of environment gets toxic, clearly not everyone who works there is happy. There's a reason the word "cult" gets dropped constantly. Are you saying those people who claimed to be fired despite good performance are just trolls who've never actually worked there? If anything, Glassdoor review bias tends to skew towards companies because HR departments send out internal emails asking employees to fill out positive reviews to counter the negative reviews. I've been asked to fill out positive employment reviews by my employer on multiple occasions throughout my career, but perhaps my experience is unusual. > My friend said he saw 20 people let go in 2 years. But he’s genuinely happy being there and makes over $600,000/yr. How he doesn't wonder when they're going to axe him is beyond me, but I'm not privy to his situation. In most companies, turnover like that dramatically destabilizes the culture and retention of truly outstanding employees.
gumby 8y ago
Netflix was hardly the first company to give unlimited vacations! I always have done that at my companies since 1989 and I learned it from someone else.

enraged_camel 8y ago

No such thing as unlimited vacation. What happens in every “unlimited vacation” environment is people start to feel guilty about taking vacations, and therefore stop taking them. Studies have shown this - you can look them up.

remote_phone 8y ago
I have unlimited vacation at my company and I took 8 weeks off last year. I also got a 30% performance bonus on top of my regular bonus for 2018. This year I’ve already arranged for 7 weeks vacation
- izacus 8y ago
  What does your anecdote prove though?
- wtetzner 8y ago
  Out of curiosity, where do you work (assuming you're comfortable saying)?
PorterDuff 8y ago
It's also probably a way that companies avoid carrying vacation on the books and then pay you when you leave. I'd be surprised if I took 60 days of vacation in 30 years as an FTE.
- sokoloff 8y ago
  > I'd be surprised if I took 60 days of vacation in 30 years as an FTE. Are you saying that you'd be surprised to have taken 60 days (12 weeks) in a single year, or that across 30 years you don't think you've taken 60 days in total? The latter would be very surprising to me, but seems to be the most natural reading of your sentence.
  - PorterDuff 8y ago
    The latter. I'd have to sit and tally it up. It's possible that I'm slightly low in my estimate but not by a tremendous amount. I realize that that's only a couple of days a year. I'm not including getting sick in that swag. Typically I'd work for somewhere for 5 years and then pocket the vacation when I left. There might be a single week (or two) off and a handful of Fridays off in that time. I'll tell you when the non-vacation time comes up is when you become a FT contractor. If the money flows, you row.
maehwasu 8y ago
I dream of a world in which, when someone says "studies have shown", the appropriate response is to politely change the subject so as not to embarrass the speaker.
snowwrestler 8y ago
It's a shame that you're being downvoted, because you are correct. > But Brantner said research indicates that employees with unlimited vacation tend to take less vacation each year than workers who have caps on their vacation days. This, she said, is partly because many companies have policies requiring those with limited vacation days to use those days or lose them at the end of a calendar year, which encourages those workers to take off all the time they're allowed. > The 2017 HR Mythbusters report by Namely, which offers HR software and services to midsize companies, found that employees who were offered unlimited vacation took, on average, 13 days off a year, while workers with capped vacation days took, on average, 15 days off. https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/hr-topics/employee-relations/pages/unlimited-vacation-.aspx https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/hr-topics/employee-re... > A rundown of research compiled by Sage Business Researcher showed that companies offering unlimited vacation found that in many cases it actually encouraged employees to take less time off. Other research shows that it may even create competition to take fewer days off. https://www.inc.com/john-boitnott/unlimited-vacation-sounds-great-until-your-workers-forget-to-take-time-off.html https://www.inc.com/john-boitnott/unlimited-vacation-sounds-... "Unlimited vacation" is not actually unlimited. Hear it from Joshua Reeves, CEO of ZenPayroll, which offers this benefit to their employees: > Even if your time off is technically “unlimited,” your manager obviously doesn’t expect you’ll take off 75% of the time. Actually, he or she probably has at least a general range of number of days or weeks in mind that is acceptable for an employee to take off—even if that range hasn't been openly communicated. Similarly, your company may expect you to take a minimum number of vacation days. At the company HubSpot, for example, employees are expected to take at least two weeks off each year under its “two weeks to infinity” policy. > To get a sense of the norms, ask your boss (or other colleagues) how many days or weeks other employees typically take off. If the theme seems to be “2-3 weeks, plus a day here and there,” stick to that. If you have any doubt about whether you’re using the vacation policy appropriately, pay attention to how your manager and those around you use it. (Of course, be careful: Some workplaces do have different rules and expectations for managers and their reports.) https://www.themuse.com/advice/unlimited-vacation-policy-what-you-should-know https://www.themuse.com/advice/unlimited-vacation-policy-wha... So if the company has an idea how much vacation you should or should not take, why call it "unlimited"? Because it's great marketing (for those who don't think about the above factors anyway), and because vacation that is not accrued does not need to be paid out. Back to that SHRM article: > Some organizations, Brantner said, began offering this benefit as a way to get around having to pay workers for unused vacation days when they left a company. > "I'm absolutely sure that it originated in some camps as a way to get a vast amount of vacation time off the books. It was something preferred by accountants and others looking at the bottom line. At the same time, there are companies that adopted it with good intentions and that believe in the value of taking vacations." > In November 2017, the Financial Times reported that "a big firm that ditches fixed paid leave for open vacations can wipe millions of dollars' worth of unused leave liabilities from its books that would otherwise be paid to departing employees. At the same time, it can safely offer bottomless holidays knowing most employees will never take them, especially in the U.S., the only major advanced economy in the world that does not guarantee workers paid vacation time."
vidarh 8y ago
When people offer this, it's illuminating to try to suggest numbers and ask if that's still "reasonable". It quickly becomes clear that for all the talk about it being "unlimited", most employers will be very uncomfortable when you start offering up numbers even slightly above the caps most other places. Most of the time these "unlimited" policies seem to either be extremely cynical (with full knowledge of studies into the subject) or reflective of workaholics with extremely naive views of how much vacation time someone might like to take if it felt truly unlimited.

p1esk 8y ago

What the hell is “unlimited vacation”?

zdragnar 8y ago
It has become pretty common. You don't track the days you take off. You are expected to honorthe commitments you make. At most companies this becomes an informal 5-8 weeks. At first, I was extremely skeptical, but it actually works well when you work with people who act like reasonable, understanding adults. If you don't, then the vacation policy won't matter, because it's going to suck working for them no matter what.
- cimmanom 8y ago
  5-8 weeks? Most places I've worked it's been an informal 2 weeks plus sick days.
  - mac01021 8y ago
    I had a very accommodating boss who let me take 5-6 weeks. People on most other teams in my company end up taking 3ish.
  - zdragnar 8y ago
    Most people don't end up taking 5 weeks, and I think 8 is more along the extenuating circumstances - i.e. at one job I needed to leave early on a regular basis to deal with trips to the vet for a very sick dog. My boss was very understanding and since I was one of the more senior and productive team members, no one minded. Honestly, I don't think I would take a job offer that only included 2 weeks vacation, even if the pay was exceptional. Early on in my career I didn't mind not having much vacation, since I rarely, if at all, used it. Now that I'm older, the added flexibility is more important.
    - hopler 8y ago
      You spent 15days in one year year off work taking your dog to the vet?

save_ferris 8y ago

Feel free to attack my knowledge of Netflix, but the opinions left by employees in that link I posted are pretty damning. That said, you base your argument solely on the perks advertised without acknowledging the nuance and politics of large companies, and what they advertise is never quite as rosy as it sounds. Frankly, it sounds to me like you don't know much about Netflix either. A small sample of reviews: "Work life balance is a joke at times but it depends on team and manager" "High turnover rate, culture of fear" "most managers are stressed out all the time and encouraged to weed out employees no longer useful or not performing to "high standards" "Culture is a lie" "Take the good salary with the risk it gives. You will be let go, it's just a matter of when."

remote_phone 8y ago
Do you even live in Silicon Valley? Netflix is known to pay top of the market and the ones who work there love it. And Glassdoor is known to produce “ratings” biased by disgruntled employees. Go on blind and talk directly to Netflix engineers. The ones that fit the culture are universally happy. The ones that are unhappy are the ones who likely aren’t good fits and will get let go soon. My friend said he saw 20 people let go in 2 years. But he’s genuinely happy being there and makes over $600,000/yr.
- dang 8y ago
  Some of your comments were probably downvoted because you began them with personal swipes. Could you please edit those out when posting here? They break the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. It's a pity, because it does sound like you know something about this topic.
- save_ferris 8y ago
  Not sure how where I live factors into this argument at all. > The ones who work there love it. Again, this clearly isn't true based on what's posted on Glassdoor. Many people have written about being blindsided and fired without any warning or indication. That kind of environment gets toxic, clearly not everyone who works there is happy. There's a reason the word "cult" gets dropped constantly. Are you saying those people who claimed to be fired despite good performance are just trolls who've never actually worked there? If anything, Glassdoor review bias tends to skew towards companies because HR departments send out internal emails asking employees to fill out positive reviews to counter the negative reviews. I've been asked to fill out positive employment reviews by my employer on multiple occasions throughout my career, but perhaps my experience is unusual. > My friend said he saw 20 people let go in 2 years. But he’s genuinely happy being there and makes over $600,000/yr. How he doesn't wonder when they're going to axe him is beyond me, but I'm not privy to his situation. In most companies, turnover like that dramatically destabilizes the culture and retention of truly outstanding employees.

gumby 8y ago

Netflix was hardly the first company to give unlimited vacations! I always have done that at my companies since 1989 and I learned it from someone else.