4 ms·

> Unlimited vacation, hardware budgets, a results-only work environment, optional meetings. No company bullshit. Aside: I've become convinced unlimited vacatio

> Unlimited vacation, hardware budgets, a results-only work environment, optional meetings. No company bullshit. Aside: I've become convinced unlimited vacation policies are a bad idea at scale. Everywhere I've seen them applied, they lead to less vacationing for the people who need it most: the eternally stressed and overworked who feel like the world will end in their absence or that they will get dinged or plain fired in their next performance review if they're not always in the office. You don't need to force people to take a vacation, but the old system of assigning them a fixed number of yearly days with some sort of limited rollover strikes a good balance I see no reason to upset. A system based on firm expectations can still accommodate exceptional events like honeymoons.

lazerwalker 14y ago
It's definitely a difficult cultural thing to balance, but if you're conscious of the delicacy required there are definitely ways to mitigate it. I worked at a large 'startup' (>1000 employees) that had an 'unlimited vacation' policy. One way they managed it was that at their quarterly company-wide meetings, they would give out a 'high performer' award to a few individuals that was basically them being told to take a vacation. The fine print was essentially "here's a few thousand bucks, but you can only use it on vacation-related expenses".
jaggederest 14y ago
> You don't need to force people to take a vacation Actually, you do. People who don't take vacations are worse at their jobs, full stop. It's the same as people who continually put in overtime every week of the year - you're sacrificing productivity for the illusion of effort.
- spindritf 14y ago
  Source? I'm asking because we've had this discussion https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4623289 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4623289 and there doesn't seem to be any strong support for your conclusion.
  - phillmv 14y ago
    Have you never burned out? People need to live their lives. I don't see much the point in creating companies where people can't be happy.
    - sillysaurus 14y ago
      I don't see much the point in creating companies where people can't be happy. The point is typically getting rich. A worker-happiness-focused culture just isn't contemporary mindset. Hopefully in a century or two things will shift towards worker-centric environment, but I can't think of any incentive for businesses to take that policy very seriously. (We love to tell ourselves that there are a bunch of reasons to take it seriously -- and there are. But if you think objectively and honestly about it from a bottom-line standpoint, which is the standpoint most businesses think about, then the policies don't matter much since all you care about is the bottom line anyway. And even if you don't now, you will at scale.)
      - phillmv 14y ago
        >The point is typically getting rich. No, it's not. The point is to be in Control Of Your Own Destiny, and be wealthier. If your goal from the outset is to GET RICH then that's very nice and ambitious of you but that's a) unlikely to happen and b) outside of a few lottery type scenarios you still have to work in that environment for 5+ years before you "cash out". You still have to live and enjoy life within that timeframe. >I can't think of any incentive for businesses to take that policy very seriously. For knowledge workers, more productive employees, higher retention rates. A friend of mine owns the Best Company To Work For. It's incredible to see her hiring process work, because people walk in and look the place up and down and and go "Holy shit yes I want to work here". On the flipside, no one has left voluntarily in three years - which I think in web-developer years is a small eternity. Plus, you get the karmic benefit of not being an asshole.
rogerbinns 14y ago
One thing Rand's company does is reimburse vacation expenses (up to $3k per year) which is use it or lose it. It is an extra bit of incentive to take a vacation. See bullet point #2 (page down) with more detail, the thinking behind it and how they got the idea from another company http://moz.com/rand/keeping-amazing-people-on-the-team/ http://moz.com/rand/keeping-amazing-people-on-the-team/
- sharkweek 14y ago
  I don't work there, but I know several people who do -- outside of great salary/vacation policies, they have pretty great fringe benefits They've also won numerous awards for being one of the best places to work in Seattle (http://www.seattlemet.com/news-and-profiles/best-places-to-work/articles/best-places-to-work-january-2013 http://www.seattlemet.com/news-and-profiles/best-places-to-w...)
snprbob86 14y ago
Unlimited vacation policies are a bad idea even on the small scale. Even on our team of 5, some of us sucked at taking time off. Those of us who didn't suck at taking time off sucked at not feeling guilty about it! I'm still thinking about the side effects of a "Paid Paid Vacation" policy. That is, instead of getting N weeks of paid time off, you get $X per week of vacation used, up to some limit.
- mustefaj 14y ago
  That's actually a pretty good idea.
wahnfrieden 14y ago
We have unlimited vacation at our small startup and to be the counter example it's worked out well for us - we all take a healthy amount. I realize company environments differ though. I read an interesting idea to help prevent the guilt problem - have a minimum number of required vacation days in addition to an unlimited ceiling.
eli_gottlieb 14y ago
There is no such thing as a policy that can replace personal interaction with one's manager, a good rapport between coworkers, and good self-management on the worker's part. Perks or vacation quantities really have little to do with it.
- rwg 14y ago
  This. Free lunches and "unlimited" vacation don't increase job satisfaction when you haven't seen your manager in months, your coworkers are yelling and screaming at each other, and you stop using vacation time because you're still expected to be within arm's reach of an Internet-connected device to answer e-mails when you're not in the office. (Yes, that's experience talking.)
JimmyL 14y ago
Re: Vacations, the place I work uses a combination of both, which seems to work out pretty well - everyone gets their yearly (competitive) fixed amount with some rollover (which is mostly for accounting purposes, so the accountants can quantify the liability of outstanding vacation days), and if you want to take more, then...OK. The yearly fixed amount is good for anchoring/expectations-setting. It's a way of publicly saying the amount that people "should" take, and it means that for people who are worried that taking vacations will come back to haunt them in a review (which is a separate problem), they've got a company-sanctioned minimum. For people who want to do more ROWE-style and take more vacation, that's OK too. Management is on-board with it, and the culture is there. For some people, this means working their ass off for a few months, and then going to South America for two months and working two days a week remotely. Some people "work from home" every other Friday, when they're really working for two hours on a plane or a train while they go see their significant others in different cities for a full weekend. We have one guy who just doesn't like Wednesdays, never comes on in on them, and gets his shit done in the other four days. Edit: Mistyped the significant-other example; meant to say that they do that on Fridays so that they can get to wherever they're going for dinner on Friday nights.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]

lazerwalker 14y ago

It's definitely a difficult cultural thing to balance, but if you're conscious of the delicacy required there are definitely ways to mitigate it. I worked at a large 'startup' (>1000 employees) that had an 'unlimited vacation' policy. One way they managed it was that at their quarterly company-wide meetings, they would give out a 'high performer' award to a few individuals that was basically them being told to take a vacation. The fine print was essentially "here's a few thousand bucks, but you can only use it on vacation-related expenses".

jaggederest 14y ago

> You don't need to force people to take a vacation Actually, you do. People who don't take vacations are worse at their jobs, full stop. It's the same as people who continually put in overtime every week of the year - you're sacrificing productivity for the illusion of effort.

spindritf 14y ago
Source? I'm asking because we've had this discussion https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4623289 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4623289 and there doesn't seem to be any strong support for your conclusion.
- phillmv 14y ago
  Have you never burned out? People need to live their lives. I don't see much the point in creating companies where people can't be happy.
  - sillysaurus 14y ago
    I don't see much the point in creating companies where people can't be happy. The point is typically getting rich. A worker-happiness-focused culture just isn't contemporary mindset. Hopefully in a century or two things will shift towards worker-centric environment, but I can't think of any incentive for businesses to take that policy very seriously. (We love to tell ourselves that there are a bunch of reasons to take it seriously -- and there are. But if you think objectively and honestly about it from a bottom-line standpoint, which is the standpoint most businesses think about, then the policies don't matter much since all you care about is the bottom line anyway. And even if you don't now, you will at scale.)
    - phillmv 14y ago
      >The point is typically getting rich. No, it's not. The point is to be in Control Of Your Own Destiny, and be wealthier. If your goal from the outset is to GET RICH then that's very nice and ambitious of you but that's a) unlikely to happen and b) outside of a few lottery type scenarios you still have to work in that environment for 5+ years before you "cash out". You still have to live and enjoy life within that timeframe. >I can't think of any incentive for businesses to take that policy very seriously. For knowledge workers, more productive employees, higher retention rates. A friend of mine owns the Best Company To Work For. It's incredible to see her hiring process work, because people walk in and look the place up and down and and go "Holy shit yes I want to work here". On the flipside, no one has left voluntarily in three years - which I think in web-developer years is a small eternity. Plus, you get the karmic benefit of not being an asshole.

rogerbinns 14y ago

One thing Rand's company does is reimburse vacation expenses (up to $3k per year) which is use it or lose it. It is an extra bit of incentive to take a vacation. See bullet point #2 (page down) with more detail, the thinking behind it and how they got the idea from another company http://moz.com/rand/keeping-amazing-people-on-the-team/ http://moz.com/rand/keeping-amazing-people-on-the-team/

sharkweek 14y ago
I don't work there, but I know several people who do -- outside of great salary/vacation policies, they have pretty great fringe benefits They've also won numerous awards for being one of the best places to work in Seattle (http://www.seattlemet.com/news-and-profiles/best-places-to-work/articles/best-places-to-work-january-2013 http://www.seattlemet.com/news-and-profiles/best-places-to-w...)

snprbob86 14y ago

Unlimited vacation policies are a bad idea even on the small scale. Even on our team of 5, some of us sucked at taking time off. Those of us who didn't suck at taking time off sucked at not feeling guilty about it! I'm still thinking about the side effects of a "Paid Paid Vacation" policy. That is, instead of getting N weeks of paid time off, you get $X per week of vacation used, up to some limit.

mustefaj 14y ago
That's actually a pretty good idea.

wahnfrieden 14y ago

We have unlimited vacation at our small startup and to be the counter example it's worked out well for us - we all take a healthy amount. I realize company environments differ though. I read an interesting idea to help prevent the guilt problem - have a minimum number of required vacation days in addition to an unlimited ceiling.

eli_gottlieb 14y ago

There is no such thing as a policy that can replace personal interaction with one's manager, a good rapport between coworkers, and good self-management on the worker's part. Perks or vacation quantities really have little to do with it.

rwg 14y ago
This. Free lunches and "unlimited" vacation don't increase job satisfaction when you haven't seen your manager in months, your coworkers are yelling and screaming at each other, and you stop using vacation time because you're still expected to be within arm's reach of an Internet-connected device to answer e-mails when you're not in the office. (Yes, that's experience talking.)

JimmyL 14y ago

Re: Vacations, the place I work uses a combination of both, which seems to work out pretty well - everyone gets their yearly (competitive) fixed amount with some rollover (which is mostly for accounting purposes, so the accountants can quantify the liability of outstanding vacation days), and if you want to take more, then...OK. The yearly fixed amount is good for anchoring/expectations-setting. It's a way of publicly saying the amount that people "should" take, and it means that for people who are worried that taking vacations will come back to haunt them in a review (which is a separate problem), they've got a company-sanctioned minimum. For people who want to do more ROWE-style and take more vacation, that's OK too. Management is on-board with it, and the culture is there. For some people, this means working their ass off for a few months, and then going to South America for two months and working two days a week remotely. Some people "work from home" every other Friday, when they're really working for two hours on a plane or a train while they go see their significant others in different cities for a full weekend. We have one guy who just doesn't like Wednesdays, never comes on in on them, and gets his shit done in the other four days. Edit: Mistyped the significant-other example; meant to say that they do that on Fridays so that they can get to wherever they're going for dinner on Friday nights.

deleted 14y ago
[deleted]