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At my startup I've decided to have a "take what you want when you want it" vacation and sick day policy. I care about results against goals, not how many hours

by jchung 12y ago

At my startup I've decided to have a "take what you want when you want it" vacation and sick day policy. I care about results against goals, not how many hours you work or when they are. Abusing the policy in a way that affects morale (e.g., deciding only to never show up in the office and spend a year working from your batcave) would be grounds for a warning/replacement. So far it has worked well, but with only a handful on the team. Not sure how it will scale to a team of 100 or 1,000 or more.

miahi 12y ago
Do you have a written policy? Care to share it? What happens if an employee falls on stairs and spends the next two months in hospital and then another one in bed, at home? (happened to a colleague of mine)
silencio 12y ago
Do you set an example for your employees so they actually take those vacation/sick days? I tend to avoid companies with "unlimited vacation" because their employees seem to take even less vacation than they would have otherwise, don't get compensated for it as a result when they leave, and feel pressured to not take it in the first place. (See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7613526 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7613526 and many other stories.) It's even worse when the bosses present a terrible work-life balance to employees. I basically think back to one of the times I've been really sick but not contagious, or my honeymoon, to figure out if I like a vacation policy or not. Minus 1-2x/year for crunch times, assuming I'm keeping up with my workload, would I have taken a day off? Would I have felt like I couldn't take the time off? Would people have been receptive to me working from home? Now double that time off if I want to have kids in the future, am I still okay with it? Sad to say many unlimited policies don't make me feel comfortable on any front here.

by jchung 12y ago

miahi 12y ago

Do you have a written policy? Care to share it? What happens if an employee falls on stairs and spends the next two months in hospital and then another one in bed, at home? (happened to a colleague of mine)

silencio 12y ago

Do you set an example for your employees so they actually take those vacation/sick days? I tend to avoid companies with "unlimited vacation" because their employees seem to take even less vacation than they would have otherwise, don't get compensated for it as a result when they leave, and feel pressured to not take it in the first place. (See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7613526 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7613526 and many other stories.) It's even worse when the bosses present a terrible work-life balance to employees. I basically think back to one of the times I've been really sick but not contagious, or my honeymoon, to figure out if I like a vacation policy or not. Minus 1-2x/year for crunch times, assuming I'm keeping up with my workload, would I have taken a day off? Would I have felt like I couldn't take the time off? Would people have been receptive to me working from home? Now double that time off if I want to have kids in the future, am I still okay with it? Sad to say many unlimited policies don't make me feel comfortable on any front here.