[haswell]

Working at a SV company that recently instituted an unlimited vacation policy, I can't agree more.

This is probably an indication of other issues, but half of the team didn't realize there was a new policy, one team lead thought the guidance was "generally, this means about 3 weeks", the manager thought "generally, this means about 2 weeks", the actual policy states "generally, this means about 4 weeks".

It apparently simplifies things from a financial standpoint - not having PTO on the books, etc. but I'm of the opinion that it's a very anti-employee policy.

Edit: I very much agree with the "unlimited with a minimum" concept mentioned in the sibling comment. Without something like this, it's hard to see the policy as a real perk.

[kapitalx]

Netflix employee here. I've been at a company that changed vacation policy to unlimited from 20 days [Nvidia] and now at netflix which has the freedom and responsibility culture and unlimited vacation policy quite established in the culture and it's a different experience. During the interview I asked our VP what he thinks of the unlimited vacation policy and his response was along the lines of `When I got back to [far away country] to visit family I can't just go for a week, it takes me 2 days to get there and the rest of the week to recover, and again on the way back, so I take the whole month`. Having been here 2 years now, I can tell you it is quite common to take long vacations at netflix and no one has blinked an eye or tried to make me feel guilty when I take them.

My experience at Nvidia's was more like what you describe, where my manager said that even though the vacation policy was unlimited now, he thought it would be unfair to others if I were to go over 20 days, and it was always a guilt trip taking a few days off.

[plonh]

Why not just give everyone 6 weeks vacation a year, like a civilized nation, and meter it to avoid politics?

[Veratyr]

Because US policy is generally pretty worker hostile and few (definitely some) employers have any motivation to change that.

[abhorrence]

"not having PTO on the books" inherently makes it an anti-employee policy, since the employee no longer will receive anything upon leaving. In theory it could come out better for the employee, because they may get more vacation time than they would otherwise, but my experience has been that unlimited vacation means less vacation.

[MaulingMonkey]

> since the employee no longer will receive anything upon leaving

Even when it replaces non-reimbursable PTO (i.e they already would not recieve anything), it feels lame.

[Domenic_S]

In California there's no such thing; Vacation and PTO is earned as it is accrued and must be paid upon separation. Sick leave specifically does not fall into that bucket, but lots of places use a single PTO bank as the combo sick/vaca bucket which makes it all payable.

(I mention CA because that's where Netflix is HQ'd)

[bpicolo]

"the actual policy states "generally, this means about 4 weeks"

Sounds like they should just make it 20 days.

[haswell]

Agreed. I'm not sure if similar "unlimited" policies typically give a "generally this means" kind of statement, but it seems to nullify the point of such a policy right off the bat.