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> What do we do? Well, root out the real causes of burnout. If it’s not those top workplace issues, it may very well be the burn of extended, heightened stress.

> What do we do? Well, root out the real causes of burnout. If it’s not those top workplace issues, it may very well be the burn of extended, heightened stress. For employees surveyed, flexible work hours and mental health support were more popular than even a four-day work week or unlimited PTO. The point then is lots of professionals like their actual work, they just don’t like the restrictions and environment. Give direction, let them do the work. Remove barriers. PTO and a healthy work environment are both good.

sharken 5y ago
Restrictions unfortunately play a large part, e.g. changes to Production can only be done by request. Requests then take weeks to be completed even though the actual work involved can be measured in minutes Another core issue for me is the ratio between challenging tasks and more simple tasks. There should always be a few tasks to work on that are challenging, otherwise procrastination sets in which can turn into some form of burnout if nothing is done.
sneak 5y ago
The passive-aggressive lie that is "unlimited PTO" is part of the growing toxicity of startup work environments.
- stadium 5y ago
  Depends on the company! If it's inauthentic though, employees can smell it from far away.
  - CobrastanJorji 5y ago
    I have no doubt it's meant in good faith at many companies, but it's almost sure to be used unfairly. A lot of people, especially folks who don't feel safely part of whatever in-group, are going to be hesitant to push that policy, especially because being on vacation can be an imposition on your coworkers. I suspect you could implement the same policy in practice with less social anxiety by mandating N weeks of vacation and allowing additional time off upon request.
    - 8ytecoder 5y ago
      Truth is it could be hard to take vacation in a toxic company irrespective of whether it's clearly laid out or not. A lot of startups are toxic - intentionally or unintentionally. Mandating vacation is a good idea when they really mean it. Use it or lose might work. Fixed days with payout if you quit or an option to cash out works too - companies carry it in their balance sheet and encourage days off as a result.
    - xmprt 5y ago
      In my experience limited PTO leads to burnout more often because employees could get paid more by taking fewer days off since their PTO is paid out when they leave. So some employees choose to continue working because they feel bad taking time off that technically decreases their potential pay.
  - sneak 5y ago
    It's always inauthentic, as otherwise people would take all work days off, never show up again, and collect a paycheck in perpetuity. This is a business transaction. "Unlimited PTO" literally means free paychecks.
    - stadium 5y ago
      Sure, that's a literal definition of unlimited. In reality, I've seen it implemented as a "take what you need" policy. Unlimited in that sense means there is no upper bound. Managers are trained to push people who are trending under 5 weeks per year to take more time off. Some people take a lot more than that. Work still get done and people seem happy to do the work. Sample size = 1 employer. Inauthentic?
- MisterBastahrd 5y ago
  In reality, the only person who has unlimited PTO is usually the CEO, because he's the only one who can afford to get away repeatedly.
- noirbot 5y ago
  To me, the most important part of unlimited PTO isn't the "unlimitedness" but the fact that it's not something I'm having to log in a system. It's that usually I can just take off a Friday or a Monday here and there without any issue as long as I give a bit of notice. My company just got rid of unlimited PTO for all the reasons people say they hate it - they didn't think people were taking enough PTO for their health, it was used unfairly, etc... Functionally now though, I have to file paperwork with 3 different groups to have someone approve even a single day off so they can make sure I'm not going over the number of days off that I have in accordance with my level and seniority. Thankfully my manager has essentially told us they don't care and we're still on unlimited because they don't want to do the paperwork either. It's not to say that "unlimited" can't be toxic, but it's easy to forget how onerous other systems can be, which can lead to you taking less time off in the same way. One of my friends is the junior on their team on a fixed PTO system and is being forced to take nearly random days off now in order to have any at all because they didn't get their holiday plans in as early as their more senior team members, so now they're stuck with the dregs. Toxic cultures are gonna be toxic. The framing just changes the mechanism.
  - sjs7007 5y ago
    > It's that usually I can just take off a Friday or a Monday here and there without any issue as long as I give a bit of notice. I have fixed number of days but still can essentially do this. > Functionally now though, I have to file paperwork with 3 different groups to have someone approve even a single day off so they can make sure I'm not going over the number of days off that I have in accordance with my level and seniority. This sounds odd. Why can't you just have a system that tracks number of days and as long as you have the number of days 1-2 days shouldn't be an issue at all. I don't see how switching from unlimited to limited made this approval business necessary at all.
    - noirbot 5y ago
      I'm sure it's possible to have a system where this is easy, but giving HR more things to track to prove their value to the company does tend to make no incentive for them to make it trivial. I'm sure systems exist for that that we could buy, but we didn't, so we don't, so someone's got some ad-hoc something in some Oracle DB somewhere, and now taking vacation is an added hassle for my already overworked manager.
beerandt 5y ago
Unlimited PTO is crazy to me. It takes the principles of spelled-out employment terms and throws them in the trash. The "flexible hours" policy was bad enough at my last job. Wildly varying interpretations between different managers and department heads under the same roof.
- 8ytecoder 5y ago
  It's really great - when it works. I have worked at two companies with this policy - only in one of them I took (rather could take) 4-5weeks off every year.
  - zz865 5y ago
    Why not both? 4-5 weeks is pretty standard for a professional job in NY.
- bb88 5y ago
  There's a lot of companies in the world where "vacation" is offered, but the managers will many times terminate those who take it. All it takes is for one or two employees to be terminated after just getting back from a vacation to send a message to the rest of the employees. The right to use benefits has to be enforced by the CEO. If people aren't using their vacations (and effectively losing them), then that sets the culture off on the wrong foot from the start.
  - ZainRiz 5y ago
    Some companies I've been at swung in the opposite direction and I was really greatful for it. E.g. At Microsoft you have a max amount of vacation days that you can accrue before they start expiring, and managers get dinged whenever their directs have expiring vacation days. The result: Managers would encourage taking vacation
    - bb88 5y ago
      Yes, I absolutely agree with that, and that takes leadership to prioritize your employee's benefits at the same level of deliverables. It's easier to think that employee vacations are worthless as a manager since it doesn't actually contribute to any direct profit. But if you're an employee, and that was a selling point of joining the company, it certainly sucks when the promise of vacation could never be materialized -- because work was apparently too important.

sharken 5y ago

Restrictions unfortunately play a large part, e.g. changes to Production can only be done by request. Requests then take weeks to be completed even though the actual work involved can be measured in minutes Another core issue for me is the ratio between challenging tasks and more simple tasks. There should always be a few tasks to work on that are challenging, otherwise procrastination sets in which can turn into some form of burnout if nothing is done.

sneak 5y ago

The passive-aggressive lie that is "unlimited PTO" is part of the growing toxicity of startup work environments.

stadium 5y ago
Depends on the company! If it's inauthentic though, employees can smell it from far away.
- CobrastanJorji 5y ago
  I have no doubt it's meant in good faith at many companies, but it's almost sure to be used unfairly. A lot of people, especially folks who don't feel safely part of whatever in-group, are going to be hesitant to push that policy, especially because being on vacation can be an imposition on your coworkers. I suspect you could implement the same policy in practice with less social anxiety by mandating N weeks of vacation and allowing additional time off upon request.
  - 8ytecoder 5y ago
    Truth is it could be hard to take vacation in a toxic company irrespective of whether it's clearly laid out or not. A lot of startups are toxic - intentionally or unintentionally. Mandating vacation is a good idea when they really mean it. Use it or lose might work. Fixed days with payout if you quit or an option to cash out works too - companies carry it in their balance sheet and encourage days off as a result.
  - xmprt 5y ago
    In my experience limited PTO leads to burnout more often because employees could get paid more by taking fewer days off since their PTO is paid out when they leave. So some employees choose to continue working because they feel bad taking time off that technically decreases their potential pay.
- sneak 5y ago
  It's always inauthentic, as otherwise people would take all work days off, never show up again, and collect a paycheck in perpetuity. This is a business transaction. "Unlimited PTO" literally means free paychecks.
  - stadium 5y ago
    Sure, that's a literal definition of unlimited. In reality, I've seen it implemented as a "take what you need" policy. Unlimited in that sense means there is no upper bound. Managers are trained to push people who are trending under 5 weeks per year to take more time off. Some people take a lot more than that. Work still get done and people seem happy to do the work. Sample size = 1 employer. Inauthentic?
MisterBastahrd 5y ago
In reality, the only person who has unlimited PTO is usually the CEO, because he's the only one who can afford to get away repeatedly.
noirbot 5y ago
To me, the most important part of unlimited PTO isn't the "unlimitedness" but the fact that it's not something I'm having to log in a system. It's that usually I can just take off a Friday or a Monday here and there without any issue as long as I give a bit of notice. My company just got rid of unlimited PTO for all the reasons people say they hate it - they didn't think people were taking enough PTO for their health, it was used unfairly, etc... Functionally now though, I have to file paperwork with 3 different groups to have someone approve even a single day off so they can make sure I'm not going over the number of days off that I have in accordance with my level and seniority. Thankfully my manager has essentially told us they don't care and we're still on unlimited because they don't want to do the paperwork either. It's not to say that "unlimited" can't be toxic, but it's easy to forget how onerous other systems can be, which can lead to you taking less time off in the same way. One of my friends is the junior on their team on a fixed PTO system and is being forced to take nearly random days off now in order to have any at all because they didn't get their holiday plans in as early as their more senior team members, so now they're stuck with the dregs. Toxic cultures are gonna be toxic. The framing just changes the mechanism.
- sjs7007 5y ago
  > It's that usually I can just take off a Friday or a Monday here and there without any issue as long as I give a bit of notice. I have fixed number of days but still can essentially do this. > Functionally now though, I have to file paperwork with 3 different groups to have someone approve even a single day off so they can make sure I'm not going over the number of days off that I have in accordance with my level and seniority. This sounds odd. Why can't you just have a system that tracks number of days and as long as you have the number of days 1-2 days shouldn't be an issue at all. I don't see how switching from unlimited to limited made this approval business necessary at all.
  - noirbot 5y ago
    I'm sure it's possible to have a system where this is easy, but giving HR more things to track to prove their value to the company does tend to make no incentive for them to make it trivial. I'm sure systems exist for that that we could buy, but we didn't, so we don't, so someone's got some ad-hoc something in some Oracle DB somewhere, and now taking vacation is an added hassle for my already overworked manager.

beerandt 5y ago

Unlimited PTO is crazy to me. It takes the principles of spelled-out employment terms and throws them in the trash. The "flexible hours" policy was bad enough at my last job. Wildly varying interpretations between different managers and department heads under the same roof.

8ytecoder 5y ago
It's really great - when it works. I have worked at two companies with this policy - only in one of them I took (rather could take) 4-5weeks off every year.
- zz865 5y ago
  Why not both? 4-5 weeks is pretty standard for a professional job in NY.
bb88 5y ago
There's a lot of companies in the world where "vacation" is offered, but the managers will many times terminate those who take it. All it takes is for one or two employees to be terminated after just getting back from a vacation to send a message to the rest of the employees. The right to use benefits has to be enforced by the CEO. If people aren't using their vacations (and effectively losing them), then that sets the culture off on the wrong foot from the start.
- ZainRiz 5y ago
  Some companies I've been at swung in the opposite direction and I was really greatful for it. E.g. At Microsoft you have a max amount of vacation days that you can accrue before they start expiring, and managers get dinged whenever their directs have expiring vacation days. The result: Managers would encourage taking vacation
  - bb88 5y ago
    Yes, I absolutely agree with that, and that takes leadership to prioritize your employee's benefits at the same level of deliverables. It's easier to think that employee vacations are worthless as a manager since it doesn't actually contribute to any direct profit. But if you're an employee, and that was a selling point of joining the company, it certainly sucks when the promise of vacation could never be materialized -- because work was apparently too important.