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Author here. Thank you so much for the feedback. For the email policy, I see that point. I hope that under 20 employees that won't be an issue considering Gmai

Author here. Thank you so much for the feedback. For the email policy, I see that point. I hope that under 20 employees that won't be an issue considering Gmail auto complete, and mailing lists, but I'm going to have to be careful about it. I agree with the vacation issue. I wonder if there is a way to encourage people to take any time off they need, but not worry so much about allocating individual days to it? Also, I don't love "earned" vacation as it seems to say we don't trust you enough yet to take vacation (if they are an early employee), and it's annoying having to delay vacation until you've put in an arbitrary amount of hours.

mdkess 14y ago
For 20 people, you don't need policies at all. But probably you're not planning on being a 20 person company forever, and the more people, the harder it is to change things. As for vacation, why not - you get 2 weeks vacation as a signing bonus, plus 3 weeks/year. This accrues up to X months. Seems to solve all of the problems. If you want to stick with the no vacation policy, assuming you're the founder, it means that you have to take long, extended vacations. If you want your employees to be comfortable taking two weeks off, you have to take two weeks off and make people know that you're taking two weeks off (and not work those two weeks, at least as far as people can tell). There are always deadlines, always important meetings, and I find it impossible to justify taking an arbitrary amount of time off with no guideline. The point of vacation time isn't trust, it's to set that guideline - I am here to work, but I need to know what the expectations are. You can deal with the outliers as they come up - if one of your good employees wants to take two months off in the summer, you guys'll work something out. Then I think having no sick day policy ("come to work sick and you're fired") and a flexible work from home policy makes this less about beancounting and more about taking time off to energize. Everyone loses a few days a year to appointments, a cold, a sleepless night, etc., and hates having to take those out of their vacation days (or are forced to lie about being sick).
- lmm 14y ago
  3 weeks/year is what passes for lots of holiday in the US? Wow. I took 31 days this year (not counting public holidays) and it was less than I'd've liked.
  - DougWebb 14y ago
    In the US vacation time is in addition to public holidays. Most companies have 10 holiday days off per year. Salaried employees usually get a minimum of two weeks of vacation time on top of that, which often includes sick days. Extra weeks are earned by long-time employees. So you start at 20 days and get to 25 and 30 over some number of years with the same company. It's also often possible to negotiate the starting amount when you're hired, if it's not your first job. Most good companies/managers, at least in the software industry, also recognize that developers often work overtime and/or odd hours, so when you're sick or can't work for some other reason you can usually "make it up" by working off-hours. That way you can save your vacation time for when you're actually on vacation.
    - lmm 14y ago
      >Salaried employees usually get a minimum of two weeks of vacation time on top of that, which often includes sick days. Extra weeks are earned by long-time employees. So you start at 20 days and get to 25 and 30 over some number of years with the same company I said not counting public holidays, i.e. 31 days holiday + 8 (I think?) days public holidays. If you start at two weeks, isn't that 10 days rather than 20? And I wouldn't even dream of including sick days in that. When you're sick you get the day off, paid, without affecting your holidays; I think that's a legal requirement, but if it isn't it's certainly industry standard (If you're sick when you've already taken a holiday you can claim another day off in lieu, though that's a little more complex). The US just seems to overwork immensely from where I stand.
      - cookiecaper 14y ago
        The US just has an attitude more consistent with upstarts/bootstrappers. While it'd be great if we could all afford to work only for 10 months of the year and to pay our employees for 2 months+ of time with no productive output, that's not how it works when you're a small business scraping by. Once you get to the F500, of course, things change, but mandating vacation time makes it really difficult for small companies to afford new hires. Most people do not "overwork immensely".
nollidge 14y ago
You could have a corporate standard e-mail address (fmlast@company.com) as well as the option of a colloquial one if desired. As to vacation: I'm not speaking from experience here, but I think creating a culture of vacation could do it. If the founders are seen taking time off (off-the-grid off, not emailing-from-the-poolside off), that could set precedent.
- yesimahuman 14y ago
  Great idea! I think this is what I will do.
cookiecaper 14y ago
Earned vacation is a hedge against an inadequate supply of value from the employee. Many states have specific requirements for the payout of vacation, and if you start someone who turns out to be a deadbeat (or someone who leaves within a few weeks for other reasons, like a competing offer came in) with 4 weeks of vacation, you may end up having to pay him an extra 4 weeks of pay for nothing when you fire him, on top of the time you kept him onboard.

mdkess 14y ago

For 20 people, you don't need policies at all. But probably you're not planning on being a 20 person company forever, and the more people, the harder it is to change things. As for vacation, why not - you get 2 weeks vacation as a signing bonus, plus 3 weeks/year. This accrues up to X months. Seems to solve all of the problems. If you want to stick with the no vacation policy, assuming you're the founder, it means that you have to take long, extended vacations. If you want your employees to be comfortable taking two weeks off, you have to take two weeks off and make people know that you're taking two weeks off (and not work those two weeks, at least as far as people can tell). There are always deadlines, always important meetings, and I find it impossible to justify taking an arbitrary amount of time off with no guideline. The point of vacation time isn't trust, it's to set that guideline - I am here to work, but I need to know what the expectations are. You can deal with the outliers as they come up - if one of your good employees wants to take two months off in the summer, you guys'll work something out. Then I think having no sick day policy ("come to work sick and you're fired") and a flexible work from home policy makes this less about beancounting and more about taking time off to energize. Everyone loses a few days a year to appointments, a cold, a sleepless night, etc., and hates having to take those out of their vacation days (or are forced to lie about being sick).

lmm 14y ago
3 weeks/year is what passes for lots of holiday in the US? Wow. I took 31 days this year (not counting public holidays) and it was less than I'd've liked.
- DougWebb 14y ago
  In the US vacation time is in addition to public holidays. Most companies have 10 holiday days off per year. Salaried employees usually get a minimum of two weeks of vacation time on top of that, which often includes sick days. Extra weeks are earned by long-time employees. So you start at 20 days and get to 25 and 30 over some number of years with the same company. It's also often possible to negotiate the starting amount when you're hired, if it's not your first job. Most good companies/managers, at least in the software industry, also recognize that developers often work overtime and/or odd hours, so when you're sick or can't work for some other reason you can usually "make it up" by working off-hours. That way you can save your vacation time for when you're actually on vacation.
  - lmm 14y ago
    >Salaried employees usually get a minimum of two weeks of vacation time on top of that, which often includes sick days. Extra weeks are earned by long-time employees. So you start at 20 days and get to 25 and 30 over some number of years with the same company I said not counting public holidays, i.e. 31 days holiday + 8 (I think?) days public holidays. If you start at two weeks, isn't that 10 days rather than 20? And I wouldn't even dream of including sick days in that. When you're sick you get the day off, paid, without affecting your holidays; I think that's a legal requirement, but if it isn't it's certainly industry standard (If you're sick when you've already taken a holiday you can claim another day off in lieu, though that's a little more complex). The US just seems to overwork immensely from where I stand.
    - cookiecaper 14y ago
      The US just has an attitude more consistent with upstarts/bootstrappers. While it'd be great if we could all afford to work only for 10 months of the year and to pay our employees for 2 months+ of time with no productive output, that's not how it works when you're a small business scraping by. Once you get to the F500, of course, things change, but mandating vacation time makes it really difficult for small companies to afford new hires. Most people do not "overwork immensely".

nollidge 14y ago

You could have a corporate standard e-mail address (fmlast@company.com) as well as the option of a colloquial one if desired. As to vacation: I'm not speaking from experience here, but I think creating a culture of vacation could do it. If the founders are seen taking time off (off-the-grid off, not emailing-from-the-poolside off), that could set precedent.

yesimahuman 14y ago
Great idea! I think this is what I will do.

cookiecaper 14y ago

Earned vacation is a hedge against an inadequate supply of value from the employee. Many states have specific requirements for the payout of vacation, and if you start someone who turns out to be a deadbeat (or someone who leaves within a few weeks for other reasons, like a competing offer came in) with 4 weeks of vacation, you may end up having to pay him an extra 4 weeks of pay for nothing when you fire him, on top of the time you kept him onboard.