Unlimited vacation policies

[Daisy]

I see a lot of tech startups have a new policy regarding time off. They call it "unlimited vacation".

Of course, we all know that FIRE is the ultimate unlimited vacation policy.

I wonder how these policies are actually implemented. I'm guessing the time off isn't as unlimited as they advertise.

Considering I have about 6 weeks of paid time off (sick and vacation time combined), I think that's about as unlimited as you could get in the corporate world. I wonder how this would compare with working somewhere with unlimited vacation.

Anyone have experience with how these policies are implemented in reality?

[Bruinguy]

I have experience with "unlimited vacation plans" in law firms.  In a law firm, there is generally a billable hours expectation or goal.  People generally took one or two weeks off a year and were expected to meet their billable hours expectation, regardless of how much vacation time they took.  Weddings and honeymoons were probably the only exception, where you might be able to get away with three weeks.

In the startup, I would expect the same would apply.  I would tend to agree, 6 weeks is probably a lot longer than what you would get in an "unlimited vacation" policy place.

[bacchi]

I'll give the cynical version.

Unlimited vacations are for the benefit of the employer. 1) They don't have vacation on their books as a liability; 2) Because there's no set policy and no accrued liability, vacation days are completely at the discretion of the manager and project. Now, how often do you have downtime at a startup? Right, rarely.

[forummm]

Netflix has one of those policies and they also pay really well. But they also let people go really quickly too. So people work really hard (and probably don't take much time off) because they want to keep the good job. I saw a stat where most Americans don't take all their paid time off each year. I guess I'm guilty of that too. I don't always take nights and weekends off.

[Dollar Slice]

I theoretically have unlimited vacation but I've had a hard time taking any at all for the past year or so. In an industry with absolutely-have-to-be-met deadlines there aren't a lot of options, so they can give you all the time in the world and know you won't take off much.

[seattlecyclone]

I would never work for a company with "unlimited" vacation. "Unlimited" vacation means "vacation if and when your manager says it's okay." I like having a number of days I can point to rather than hoping my manager's opinion of my recent job performance is good enough that he would think it's appropriate for me to take a couple of weeks off right now.

[earlyFI]

Unlimited vacations are for the benefit of the employer. 1) They don't have vacation on their books as a liability; 2) Because there's no set policy and no accrued liability, vacation days are completely at the discretion of the manager and project. Now, how often do you have downtime at a startup? Right, rarely.

+1

I have 3 close friends with unlimited vacation time, all who work at established larger companies.  They end up taking less vacation time than me every year. "I have to have face time in my office, so I can't go on vacation". "It is near the end of the quarter, I can't lead now". I think it is easier to take vacation when you know you have a set amount that you are allowed or have earned rather than always worrying if you will look like you are taking too much.

Bonus for the company... No payout when an employee leaves, employes can often be more strict with themselves, and people end up taking less.

On the other hand I do have a friend who owns a very successful start up with unlimited time off and if his employees aren't taking enough time he will tell them to take more time, and basically won't let them come to work. That is all in addition to the entire company closing down for 2 weeks around Christmas. So it may depend on the company culture.

[ender]

In situations with reasonable vacation, I would always prefer to have specified vacation for all these reasons.

I can tell my manager, "I have X days to take before XX/XX/XXXX. I need to plan how to use these" and basically it's a guaranteed thing to use them.

[Elderwood17]

It is odd how different cultures are on this topic.  My current situation (and hopefully last) everyone does a sick humble brag about how little vacation time they took the past year.  When you do take off your secretary is assaulted with requests to get you to join a "quick call" several times a day.

I have been in the same industry for a while and each place has a different culture on time off. 

[Vilgan]

For most people and in most companies, unlimited vacation is way worse than a regular PTO policy. There is no vacation time payout if you leave and most people are going to minimize the time they take to appear like they are "good employees" or whatever. If I became an employee again, I'd be fine with an unlimited vacation policy because I'm fine with boundaries and feel like I'll prosper regardless but very few people I know would not cave to peer/manager pressure and take a proper amount of time off.

There are a few companies w/ unlimited vacation that strongly encourage people to take the time off, but they are pretty unusual.

[frpeebles]

https://www.backblaze.com/blog/unlimited-vacation-time-the-backblaze-way/

[minority_finance_mo]

Is it unlimited paid vacation? If so, what's to stop someone who doesn't G.A.S. from showing up for the first week and taking a few months of paid vacation until the paychecks stop coming?

[seattleite]

We tried implementing "unlimited" vacation at my previous (small) company. The effect was that people didn't take many vacation days because they never knew where the line between ok and too many was. And while on vacation they were stressed about the perception of them being gone that day. In fact, one of our employees left and cited the stress of not having any vacation days that were free and clear being a factor. At the time I didn't quite understand this, but now that I'm at a company with a set number of vacation days I can understand how freeing it is to know that there's an expectation that you take all of your vacation days.

Cynically, I'm beginning to think that "unlimited" vacation is a ploy to get people to take as few vacation days as they could possibly talk their family into.

And in my experience even with a set number of vacation days, it's always possible to take more. So, you can think of your set number of vacation days as the floor of vacation days (you'll never get fewer than this amount) and most of the time you can take more assuming you are doing your job well.

That makes be think even more cynically about the "unlimited" vacation days policies.

[Noodle]

At my employer, we have set vacation, and then we also have a second type of time off where, if a salaried staff member has been working more than the normal schedule of hours, the manager may grant extra time off at his or her discretion. The problem is that no one can agree on how much extra work justifies time off, and since we have some supervisors who regard the policy as being for "extraordinary effort only" and some staffers regard it as "one hour over my normal work schedule" there is constant conflict. Yuck. I can only imagine what it would be like if all vacation were at the manager's discretion.

[firelight]

I've been in companies with set vacation days and unlimited vacation days. I prefer unlimited. That eliminates all the worrying if I have enough vacation days when my kid gets sick or when I have to take a day off. Also my team was good enough that people took vacations regularly, starting with the managers. OTOH, one of the reasons I left the previous company (a huge company so no leeway on vacations) was the set vacation policy. I wanted to take four weeks off for wedding and had three. I even asked them to count that one extra week of vacation as unpaid but they cited too much paperwork and I had to rebook my tickets and change all my plans. And I was a star employee in my team. My manager wanted me to take that one week but was afraid of breaking the rules. When it was time to move, one of my criteria was unlimited vacation time. And life is less stressful as a result.

Further, I think its the attitude. Now if my manager decides to fire me for taking a week extra of vacation, I'm ok going to a different job (thanks FU money) but I'm never going to give up the flexibility of unlimited vacation times.

[Megma]

We had unlimited vacation days at my last employer, I do not like it. Overall it was a good place to work but I always felt pressure to not take off whole weeks because someone had to cover for me and my boss was grouchy about it. It was never a good "time." It was one of the things I said I did not like when I gave my exit interview.

However, there were also more days when I came late or left early and took a few hours of vacation because I had gotten my work done. Now that my job is more clock punching, I stay even when there's not much to do.

Overall, I prefer to have my set number of days.

[letired]

I currently work at a small tech start up with unlimited paid vacation. I took a 3 week trip overseas over the holidays and multiple shorter trips during the year, and it was fine. A coworker took a 3 week honeymoon ~4 months after they started. I currently have a coworker taking a 3 month trip, but they are going to work remotely for part of it. So for my company, the culture is very relaxed as long as you are getting your work done, it's all cool. I definitely think this is the exception, not the rule, for all the reasons people pointed out above.

That said, I do sort of resent not accumulating vacation time. It is a bummer to not be able to count on the vacation payout as a nice quitting bonus and/or bump to tide me over till my next position. :P However, I'm currently not planning on leaving without another offer in my hot little hands, so I guess it'll work out?

[big_slacker]

Our company has effectively unlimited vacation time. We do have set hours we accumulate but they're pretty much ignored by the consulting type folks like myself. If we're not booked for a project (bench time) we're pretty much free to do a we will. If you want something ahead of time it's a note to the boss saying, "Hey, can you not book me for anything this week, I'm gonna be on a road trip, or camping, etc..." There is a target billable rate (from 60-70%) you're supposed to be working but thats kinda up to the sales and project management folks to handle, I just work when I'm told to.

Personally I love the idea, I've always been of the opinion that I should set my own schedule and bang out my work as needed. No one will mind if I'm doing a good job and finishing on/ahead of deadlines.

[Johnez]

I did not know there was such a thing till I opened this thread. Where I work there are 3 ways to take time off: paid vacation, paid sick leave, unpaid day off. It's the same with my girlfriends job. I'd much rather have my 3-4 weeks of guilt free days off and whatever else I might need being unpaid guilt days than ALL my days paid and guilt ridden...

[penguins4everyone!]

one more vote for these policies being bullshit.  My husband's company has this and it just means you get to feel guilty 100% of the time you take a day off.  Not awesome.  We've actually gotten in bad arguments about it, he never feels like he can be away, like ever.  At least if you work your ass off at a company that has a decent vacation policy you get paid out for all your sacrificed time off when you leave.

[Daisy]

Great viewpoints and differing experiences!

I also suspect that the unlimited-ness of unlimited vacation time is suspect. I was reading an open job posting that mentioned this "perk" so I was curious how they were implemented.

I am one that uses every last hour of my paid time off. We can only carry over 5 days from one year to the next, so I make sure to schedule my paid time off throughout the year so that I can use all of my extensive days. I feel by having the set number of days spelled out in the policy, no one can come to me and complain about the time I take off. I'm used to this time off, so I worry that in an unlimited vacation world I'd be discouraged from taking this amount of time off.

Believe it or not, I have many coworkers that lose days and weeks of paid time off that they didn't use when the end-of-year rollover happens - same thing happens year after year. That just blows my mind.

I am quite fortunate to have 6 weeks off. It's one of the main reasons I wouldn't want to work anywhere else right now, even though morale at work is low and some of the job openings out there sound interesting.

[Krnten]

My nonprofit job has this.  I don't mind it so much but I can see why people prefer structure instead.  I don't keep good track of my vacation days but need to get better.  Every few months people will start asking "what does this really mean???  How many days can I take??" And eventually our ED set a floor. All of us are expected to take at least x days.

I also never take long vacations.  About a week is my max, then I'm ready to come back.  Unlimited works well for people like this, I think, because you can build a lot of vacation around long weekends, etc and not raise red flags.  I probably take 6 weeks this way.

[I'm a red panda]

I've never worked somewhere with unlimited vacation, and I don't think I would like to.  Right now I have 20 days, but I used to get 25.  25 was really nice, and really all I needed.  We can roll-over 15 a year, and we get paid out (if we have them) 15 when we leave.

We are encouraged to take our vacation, but with obligation to work, it can be hard to get away... so I'm glad that I know they are banked, and that we get some of that if we leave. With unlimited, if you don't take them, you just don't get anything.


I worked at a company that had unlimited sick time.  I liked that a lot, because you didn't have to worry about whether you were "sick enough" to use up your sick time- if you were sick, you were sick.  But then the board decided it was too big of a liability to the company and changed us to 10 days per year.  The next year the company got reprimanded because the average use was 7 days, where the year before it was 3 days.  Well yeah.  With unlimited sick time (which is NOT vacation time) you don't want to abuse the system because you want it to be there if you really need it.  Give us 10 per year, no roll over, and now that becomes part of the benefit package.  If I have a little headache, it is near the end of the year, you bet I'm taking the morning off- I don't get those days in any other way.  (For the record- I took an average of 2.5 days the 3 years we had unlimited and I took 5.75 when we had 10 days.)

[golden1]

I agree with a lot of the PPs.  I think the best scenario is a mix of unlimited sick/personal time combined with a fixed amount of vacation time.  I definitely think unlimited sick time is a wonderful benefit, especially for those with young children.  Plus, it encourages people to stay home and not spread germs all over the place.  However, bringing that to vacation time just sets up a tense situation where people don't really know what is acceptable to take, so out of fear end up taking very little. 

[mskyle]

I've heard of a few places where they have unlimited vacation and a *minimum* amount of vacation that you *must* take every year. That I could get behind. My boyfriend has unlimited vacation, and as others have noted, it mostly means he just doesn't take that much vacation, and when he leaves they won't have to pay him out for the vacation he didn't take.

[Mississippi Mudstache]

I work in a very traditional (and generally low-stress) industry, where paid time off with most companies maxes out at 4 weeks/year, after 10 years of service. There are a lot of old-timers who still have 5 (or even 6) weeks of vacation per year, because they got grandfathered in from a time when vacation policies were more liberal. I do know one fellow who does exactly what I do for a smallish consulting firm that has an unlimited time off policy. He said most people were scared to take off more than a week at a time, but last year, he worked hard to get ahead, then took a month off to travel South America. He said he was nervous about it, but didn't get any blowback from management, and his co-workers started being more aggressive in requesting time off afterwards. Sounded pretty awesome to me. I suppose it would depend on your managers whether on not it was a good policy for employees.

[somepissedoffman]

hmmm.  I just accepted a job at a startup with an unlimited PTO policy.
I pestered them to give me a ballpark estimate of average PTO usage, and they said some people 'just take a few weeks off' a year, which is all I have now anyways, so hopefully this is better.
The gf and I are about 2 years from FIRE (ish?), so not too worried.

[Dollar Slice]

In the midst of one of the worst days I've had in a long time - had to take a day off work, for various related reasons - my boss e-mailed me at home to tell me that two of the people in our 6-person business are taking a vacation the week between Christmas and New Years "so I hope you can be there as much as possible that week."

Our company has always, forever and ever, been closed that week. So I wrote back - aren't we always closed that week? You want me to work then?

So she wrote back something about "oh, you always say you don't have anything to do over Christmas" (since I'm Jewish) so she thought I might work that week and take another week off later instead.

That would make sense if I didn't have that unlimited vacation policy...

[cheddarpie]

My current office has unlimited vacation. I was nervous about this, for all the reasons discussed above. I had four weeks at my prior employer and wanted to make sure I would still be able to take that much -- I asked in the interview and was told that was normal but they didn't even track how much time people take ... fast forward a few years, and it has completely varied. Last year I took maybe 10 days off, almost all of which were guilt-ridden. This year, I've made a point of taking better advantage of this policy and have taken close to 25 days off already, without much guilt although I'm always connected and checking email wherever I am. My colleagues generally don't bother me, but sometimes clients do (which is fine -- that comes with the territory of a client-service business). Work has been slow this year, so that helps the guilt factor, but I'm also starting to get in the groove more (and want to make sure that I don't feel like I'm leaving anything on the table if I quit, since there would be no payout). I would prefer to have a policy with an actual number of days (6 weeks sounds perfect!), but I also know it will be hard for me to go back to that if I do ever switch jobs ... all in all I think it just depends, like so many things, on the intangibles of workplace "culture" and how people use the vacation they do get, whether unlimited or not.

[tonysemail]

my company changed to unlimited vacation a few years back.
when I was younger, I used to hoard PTO and cash in unused days for extra cash.
So I guess I can empathize with people who miss the flexibility... although I doubt I would take such an offer these days.

Otherwise, the change in vacation policy has been of no consequence to me.
every year, I take as many vacation days as I think is reasonable.
I've never been asked to change my vacation plans.

I agree with the other posters who said this policy serves its purpose for the corporate balance sheet.
It shouldn't really play into an employment decision and as a perk is totally negligible.

[turketron]

My company (post-startup Silicon Valley tech company, ~1,000 employees) switched to this policy about a year ago for salaried/exempt employees. I'm hourly so it doesn't affect me, but it seems to be going just fine for everyone else.

I've never taken a day of sick time in my life so I've always had more PTO than I've known what to do with, but for my coworkers who get sick or have kids to worry about, it removes some of the worry that a PTO bank comes with- can I afford to take a week of PTO right now? What if my kid gets sick shortly after returning and I don't have enough PTO to cover it? etc. etc.

Obviously this depends on your manager as you still have to get approval from them, but everyone I've spoken with hasn't had any problems requesting time off. I can see how this could be a completely different experience between separate businesses, but in our case the policy change hasn't been an issue so far.

[vivian]

I work for a university and faculty effectively have unlimited vacation (work whatever hours/days you want as long as work gets done) while staff have set hours and paid vacation. Two years ago I had the opportunity to change positions from staff to faculty. Several high level administrators tried to tell me this was not to my benefit since I lose paid vacation. But since faculty also get paid more and get unofficial breaks around semester breaks, I asked why they stayed as faculty if the benefits of being staff were so great. I never got an answer to that.

In another job, my employer combined vacation and sick time into one pot. I can see how that would be nice for folks who don't get sick often. But my boss kept trying to give me work to do at home when I was sick so I wouldn't have to use vacation time. He meant well, but eventually I had to tell him I was really sick!

[Cathy]

I've heard of a few places where they have unlimited vacation and a *minimum* amount of vacation that you *must* take every year....

This reminds me of a claim in a government publication that I read some time ago. The publication in question, which is titled "Vacations and Vacation Pay", claims at page 4 that, in the province of Alberta, "employees must take the vacation time to which they are entitled" (internal comma omitted). I thought this was a very interesting claim. The same publication explicitly states that "[t]he Government of Alberta will not be responsible for any loss or damage arising from your reliance on this information", but a review of the relevant statute reveals that the claim has some possible merit.

In Alberta, an employee is "entitled to an annual vacation of at least (a) 2 weeks after each of the first 4 years of employment, and (b) 3 weeks after 5 consecutive years of employment and each year of employment after that", subject to certain exceptions that will not be discussed here. Employment Standards Code, RSA 2000, c E-9 ("AESC"), § 34. "Employers must give employees their annual vacation in one unbroken period no later than 12 months after an employee becomes entitled to it". AESC § 37(1). This is subject to the fact that "[i]f an employee so requests in writing, the employer may provide the vacation in two or more periods, so long as each vacation period is at least one day long.". AESC § 37(2). If the employer and employee cannot decide when the vacation should be taken, then the employer "must" decide on the date (within a year after the entitlement to the vacation was earned) and "the employee must take the vacation at that time". AESC § 38.

There is nothing here that contemplates an employee not taking a vacation within a year after it was earned. However, people are frequently allowed to waive statutory rights in other contexts, which brings us to the final piece of the puzzle, which is that the statute provides that "[a]n agreement that this Act or a provision of it does not apply ... is against public policy and void". AESC § 4. Given that the statute says that employers "must" give a vacation and that if a date for the vacation cannot be agreed upon, the employer "must" propose a date and the employee "must take the vacation at that time", an agreement not to take a vacation might be void under AESC § 4. This does seem a bit strange though.

[kudy]

I like having allotted PTO.

[Dollar Slice]

Is there any way you could spin that into something that might benefit you? Extra pay, for example? If not, maybe "well since we've always been closed that week I planned to do ..." might work.

I've always enjoyed working that week because (1) no one else is ever in the office and (2) none of my clients are ever in the office. I get paid to sit around and goof off for a week or so.

I wouldn't mind working a 2 or 3 day week that week if they really needed me for something, but since most of the important people will be away and we'll likely schedule nothing to be due that week, it's kind of dumb. It's actually kind of sketchy now that I think about it - if she really thought I would work that week because I don't celebrate Christmas, does that mean I'm the only one in the office for the whole week since everyone else is Christian? Or she'll make the other employees work too, in which case me being Jewish is completely irrelevant and she was lying/trying to distract me with that line. :-/ 

We've always been told we get that week off instead of a Christmas bonus, so if we're not getting that week off I would damn well want a good-sized bonus.

I should tell her I'm taking the week of Chanukah off instead, it's precisely the 8 days leading up to our big December deadline. Ha.

[somebody8198]

Is it unlimited paid vacation? If so, what's to stop someone who doesn't G.A.S. from showing up for the first week and taking a few months of paid vacation until the paychecks stop coming?

Uh, they would fire you. They can fire you whenever they want, for whatever reason.

I have an unlimited vacation policy. I almost never take time off. Maybe two weeks a year, including time around the holidays. People tend to burn out in startups so the company doesn't really care about your vacation time, they assume you'll be gone in 1-2 years. At a previous job I actually got reprimanded for taking vacation, even though I had planned it months in advance.

[Guses]

I am suprised by the answers I have seen so far about people only taking a few weeks vacation every year. How do you manage that?!?!?!

Just this year, I have taken 4 continuous weeks paid vacation time over the summer, 3 weeks of paid sick leave for two unrelated minor surgeries, at least 4 sick days (2 colds, 1 migraine and 1 food poisoning) and a couple of (paid) days for my son who was sick.

We do have a generous allotment of days where I work. It might be more generous in Canada than the USA.

Do most people go to work when they are sick? If lives don't depend on you being present at work, you should STAY HOME.

 

[turketron]

I am suprised by the answers I have seen so far about people only taking a few weeks vacation every year. How do you manage that?!?!?!

Just this year, I have taken 4 continuous weeks paid vacation time over the summer, 3 weeks of paid sick leave for two unrelated minor surgeries, at least 4 sick days (2 colds, 1 migraine and 1 food poisoning) and a couple of (paid) days for my son who was sick.

We do have a generous allotment of days where I work. It might be more generous in Canada than the USA.

Do most people go to work when they are sick? If lives don't depend on you being present at work, you should STAY HOME.

I've taken roughly 3 weeks of PTO thus far in 2015. I straight up don't get sick, so I haven't taken any sick time this year, or any other. I got the short end of the genetic stick in many other ways, but I did end up with a damn near bulletproof immune system. I'm also single with no kids, so all of my PTO goes towards my own vacation and nothing else.

[NoraLenderbee]

Unlimited vacations are for the benefit of the employer. 1) They don't have vacation on their books as a liability; 2) Because there's no set policy and no accrued liability, vacation days are completely at the discretion of the manager and project. Now, how often do you have downtime at a startup? Right, rarely.

+1

I have 3 close friends with unlimited vacation time, all who work at established larger companies.  They end up taking less vacation time than me every year. "I have to have face time in my office, so I can't go on vacation". "It is near the end of the quarter, I can't lead now". I think it is easier to take vacation when you know you have a set amount that you are allowed or have earned rather than always worrying if you will look like you are taking too much.

Bonus for the company... No payout when an employee leaves, employes can often be more strict with themselves, and people end up taking less.

+2. That's exactly what happens.

In the midst of one of the worst days I've had in a long time - had to take a day off work, for various related reasons - my boss e-mailed me at home to tell me that two of the people in our 6-person business are taking a vacation the week between Christmas and New Years "so I hope you can be there as much as possible that week."

Our company has always, forever and ever, been closed that week. So I wrote back - aren't we always closed that week? You want me to work then?

So she wrote back something about "oh, you always say you don't have anything to do over Christmas" (since I'm Jewish) so she thought I might work that week and take another week off later instead.

Wow, that's obnoxious. I'm Jewish too, and I'm usually happy to hold down the fort during the Christmas season so other people can tend to their family things. But if the company is closed, WTF? I can think of plenty of things to do with a week off besides sit in the dark!

[Schaefer Light]

I am suprised by the answers I have seen so far about people only taking a few weeks vacation every year. How do you manage that?!?!?!

How much vacation do you think we get?  There are many companies where people only start out with 5 or 10 vacation days per year.

[Dollar Slice]

Wow, that's obnoxious. I'm Jewish too, and I'm usually happy to hold down the fort during the Christmas season so other people can tend to their family things. But if the company is closed, WTF? I can think of plenty of things to do with a week off besides sit in the dark!

This company has done a couple of similarly boneheaded things in re religion in the past. One year they sent clients Christmas wreaths as a gift... Offending some of the non Christians (only one of which actually said anything at the time). My boss asked me about it when the guy complained to her, she honestly thought wreaths were a non religious item. Hey, it's just greenery!  I said no, Jews don't generally do Christmas wreaths or trees or anything. Couple years later they smartened up (?) And decided instead of a token cash gift (we sometimes would get a hundred bucks in a card if it was a good year, in addition to the week off) they would deliver a wreath to everyone in the company as a gift. Except this one single guy because he was scornful of Christmas generally, and me, because I'm a Jew and they learned that lesson. They claimed that they were going to get me something else but forgot, so the Christians all got a gift and I got nothing. Um, it's the thought that counts? Sorta?

The weird thing is that my current boss is actually really nice to me, and we're quite good friends (we hang out outside work, I know her husband, etc), but she has a huge dollop of cluelessness/lack of thinking things through in her personality and will do dumb, offensive stuff like this now and then. At the same time you could say her bold moves are what make her a successful entrepreneur...

[2lazy2retire]

I see a lot of tech startups have a new policy regarding time off. They call it "unlimited vacation".

Of course, we all know that FIRE is the ultimate unlimited vacation policy.

I wonder how these policies are actually implemented. I'm guessing the time off isn't as unlimited as they advertise.

Considering I have about 6 weeks of paid time off (sick and vacation time combined), I think that's about as unlimited as you could get in the corporate world. I wonder how this would compare with working somewhere with unlimited vacation.

Anyone have experience with how these policies are implemented in reality?

Complete bollix I say - up there with free meals and laundry service onsite for employees- a f@cking ploy to get you to work till death. Now if they offerd unlimited days but you must take a mandatory 15/20 days off - then I might believe they had honorable intentions - otherwise its FU money for the win everytime

[the_gastropod]

My employer does basically that—unlimited vacation with a mandatory 2 weeks. This policy was just rolled out earlier this year, so I'm not sure how it'll continue to work, but thus far it seems ok. Abuse of it has been pretty minimal, but I think most of my coworkers have taken at least a couple weeks off.

I've had a previous employer officially switch to an unlimited time off policy without actually telling the employees, effectively removing accrued PTO from their books. That is pretty nefarious. It actually cost me a few thousand dollars of PTO when I left.

[turketron]

I've had a previous employer officially switch to an unlimited time off policy without actually telling the employees, effectively removing accrued PTO from their books. That is pretty nefarious. It actually cost me a few thousand dollars of PTO when I left.

Wow that's shady as hell. Our company paid out everyone's accrued balances when they switched, which seems pretty fair to me.

[boarder42]

I am suprised by the answers I have seen so far about people only taking a few weeks vacation every year. How do you manage that?!?!?!

Just this year, I have taken 4 continuous weeks paid vacation time over the summer, 3 weeks of paid sick leave for two unrelated minor surgeries, at least 4 sick days (2 colds, 1 migraine and 1 food poisoning) and a couple of (paid) days for my son who was sick.

We do have a generous allotment of days where I work. It might be more generous in Canada than the USA.

Do most people go to work when they are sick? If lives don't depend on you being present at work, you should STAY HOME.

every 1st world country has more generous vacation than the US does.  i Get 3 weeks of PTO .. i use these to travel... if i'm sick i work ... i earn 1 day a year for the next 10 years and will have 5 weeks PTO at that point... my wife gets a crazy amount of US vacation having only worked 5 years she gets 5 weeks of PTO that will hit 6 weeks when i hit 5 weeks.  but i plan to start my unlimited vacation prior to hitting 5 weeks.

[Guses]

I am suprised by the answers I have seen so far about people only taking a few weeks vacation every year. How do you manage that?!?!?!

Just this year, I have taken 4 continuous weeks paid vacation time over the summer, 3 weeks of paid sick leave for two unrelated minor surgeries, at least 4 sick days (2 colds, 1 migraine and 1 food poisoning) and a couple of (paid) days for my son who was sick.

We do have a generous allotment of days where I work. It might be more generous in Canada than the USA.

Do most people go to work when they are sick? If lives don't depend on you being present at work, you should STAY HOME.

every 1st world country has more generous vacation than the US does.  i Get 3 weeks of PTO .. i use these to travel... if i'm sick i work ... i earn 1 day a year for the next 10 years and will have 5 weeks PTO at that point... my wife gets a crazy amount of US vacation having only worked 5 years she gets 5 weeks of PTO that will hit 6 weeks when i hit 5 weeks.  but i plan to start my unlimited vacation prior to hitting 5 weeks.

Yeah, that is a really shitty system. You get no paid sick leave, you come in sick to infect your coworkers and... if they need hospitalization, they get stuck with the bill! Talk about externalizing your cost unto others!

Given how litigious the USA is, I am surprised that there has been no (that I know of) suit against somone for coming in sick and causing other people to need to pay out of pocket for healthcare.

We get 7 weeks PTO every year and it is allocated in multiple banks (sick, vacation and family obligations). After 8, 16 and 25(?) years we get another week vacation. Like the previous poster, I don't plan on being there to reach those extra weeks.

[partgypsy]

The unlimited vacations kind of sound like when I was a post-doctoral fellow. Theorectically you could take x amount of time off (3 weeks?), but no one ever did, from peer pressure and also your mentors discouraged you from, basically taking any time off. Heck the boss I had even wanted to re-classify working on papers or going to conferences as personal time, so I had to work 8 hours a day in addition to those activities.

Knowing my personality, I would rather have paid time off than unlimited, because then I know I can count on it. Right now I could take 2 months off straight just from my sick leave accrued, and 2 weeks vacation time.

[cautiouspessimist]

I am suprised by the answers I have seen so far about people only taking a few weeks vacation every year. How do you manage that?!?!?!

Just this year, I have taken 4 continuous weeks paid vacation time over the summer, 3 weeks of paid sick leave for two unrelated minor surgeries, at least 4 sick days (2 colds, 1 migraine and 1 food poisoning) and a couple of (paid) days for my son who was sick.

We do have a generous allotment of days where I work. It might be more generous in Canada than the USA.

Do most people go to work when they are sick? If lives don't depend on you being present at work, you should STAY HOME.

every 1st world country has more generous vacation than the US does.  i Get 3 weeks of PTO .. i use these to travel... if i'm sick i work ... i earn 1 day a year for the next 10 years and will have 5 weeks PTO at that point... my wife gets a crazy amount of US vacation having only worked 5 years she gets 5 weeks of PTO that will hit 6 weeks when i hit 5 weeks.  but i plan to start my unlimited vacation prior to hitting 5 weeks.

Yeah, that is a really shitty system. You get no paid sick leave, you come in sick to infect your coworkers and... if they need hospitalization, they get stuck with the bill! Talk about externalizing your cost unto others!

Given how litigious the USA is, I am surprised that there has been no (that I know of) suit against somone for coming in sick and causing other people to need to pay out of pocket for healthcare.

We get 7 weeks PTO every year and it is allocated in multiple banks (sick, vacation and family obligations). After 8, 16 and 25(?) years we get another week vacation. Like the previous poster, I don't plan on being there to reach those extra weeks.

That is an insane amount of PTO. I get 18 days a year, and that's on the high side of average compared to other people I've discussed it with. Obviously there's a very wide range, but most people in this industry at least are around 15-20.

Oh, and those 18 days encompass not only vacations but sick days, personal days, etc. My company does provide two floating holidays a year, but that actually leaves me one paid holiday shy of the total days the office is closed.

[Guses]

To be fair, I don't take all my sick leave or my family obligation leave.

Aside from this year with the surgeries, I usually take my vacation time and sick days as needed (1-5 depending). So I leave about 3 weeks "on the table".

[FiguringItOut]

I've read this whole thread and I'm not sure I feel about unlimited vacation days. 

It may be the fact that I haven't felt the pinch in my needed days so far.  At my previous job I had 20 PTO days, no separate sick days. At my current job, I have 25 PTO days.  That's 5 weeks.  I feel that it is pretty generous.

Also, the nature of my industry and my job is such that when the work load is low, we can be very flexible with out time.  Need to take a half day here or there?  No problem.  No need to mark it as PTO.  As long as your work gets done (come in early, stay late another day, etc) everybody is happy.  So that cuts down a lot on those needed time off for various doctor appointments or sitting at home waiting for plumber to show up.  I can also work from home occasionally, so that helps a lot as well. 

When the we are in the crunch time, nobody can take any days off unless there is an emergency or it's a sick day.  At these times, unless you are dying home with the flu, we can't, actually we choose not to, take time off for ordinary colds.  Even a day off at the very busy time will put you way behind the schedule and undue pressure on the rest of the team. 

I truly don't know what I would do with more available PTO time.  We can only roll 10 days to the next year (5 days in previous company).  My finances such that I can't even dream of taking a long vacation (more than 10 days).  May be once I am past the financial accumulation stage of  my journey and feel more secure in my FI future, I'll feel different.