[superfrank]

> But what happens in practice is no one feels like they are entitled to the time they should be entitled to, and negotiations from the employee side always come from a place of weakness. It's a terrible system

> Undoubtedly someone will respond to this post with just how amazing their manager is and that they have never had a problem.

That me! Except I don't think it has anything to do with my manager or company.

I've worked 5 different jobs over the last 12 years with 8 or 9 different managers and literally never had an issue with taking the time I want while taking 6-8 weeks of PTO a year. I've hit the point where when I'm looking for a new job unlimited PTO is kind of table stakes.

I manage a few teams now with some people in the US where my company does unlimited PTO and others in Canada where our company cannot give unlimited PTO. Looking at my teams, the amount of PTO people take has almost no correlation to whether they have unlimited PTO or a set number of days. I have US employees who take a ton of PTO and Canadian employees who have burned through their entire balance and then some and I have employees in both places who take essentially none.

I get that if you're in that second group it's preferable to be in a place where you'll get paid out for the days you didn't take, but I'm pretty convinced that unlimited vs set days has almost no bearing on how many PTO days someone will actually take.

[cortesoft]

> Looking at my teams, the amount of PTO people take has almost no correlation to whether they have unlimited PTO or a set number of days.

If the number of PTO days taken is the same between the groups, isn't it CLEARLY superior from an employee perspective to have a set amount? That way, you get paid out if you leave or are fired.

I know quite a few people who use their PTO as a sort of emergency fund if they are laid off... they will at least get paid that amount to hold them over until the next job.

[superfrank]

> If the number of PTO days taken is the same between the groups, isn't it CLEARLY superior from an employee perspective to have a set amount

For me, no. I take more PTO than most companies with limited PTO offer. Most big tech companies offer 20-25 days and I'm taking 30 minimum. I take 6-8 weeks a year and the year I got married, I took 10. A normal year of PTO for me is 2 weeks during the summer for a vacation, a week at Thanksgiving, a week in April or May since my family has multiple birthdays in that window, 2-3 weeks in the Christmas/NYE period, and then random days here and there for the rest of the year.

For my team, for the people on the low end banked PTO is probably better. For the people on the high end they often take more than the allotment for CA employees, so no.

Everyone's experience will be different, but in my career I've always found that unlimited PTO often means no one cares how much PTO you take as long as you're getting your work done. I value that freedom. I know it's not for everyone and I'm not saying that every company should be unlimited PTO, but I just hate this narrative that it's a scam.

[BoiledCabbage]

So "unlimited" for you is literally one week more than 5 weeks tech companies cap at?

Why not take 10 weeks or 12 weeks? If it's unlimited?

And how many other employees are only taking half of what they would be taking because they feel silently pressured to - and do all of those missing weeks make up for the single extra week you're taking?

[compiler-guy]

Some people do like it, and I'm glad it's working out for them--I really am.

But adding all that manager and corporate discretion sets one up for abuse when things go wrong at either the manager or corporate level. For some, I suppose the benefit is worth it--but if "unlimited vs set days has almost no bearing on how many PTO days someone will actually take", then people are giving up a lot of guarantees for very little benefit on their side. Especially the payout when you leave.

[superfrank]

> But adding all that manager and corporate discretion sets one up for abuse when things go wrong at either the manager or corporate level

I have never worked at a place where I didn't need manager approval for my PTO. That includes places where I had a set PTO balance.

In my experience, having banked PTO days doesn't actually give you any real protection from abuse. A manager can still deny every single PTO request or load you up with so much work that taking any PTO will result in you falling behind. The only difference is that the company then needs to pay you out for those days, which isn't nothing, but it's also not a ton of protection from abuse.

[gambiting]

>>A manager can still deny every single PTO request or load you up with so much work that taking any PTO will result in you falling behind.

I was once on a team where the manager thought he was being tough by really discouraging PTO taking in their team, and it was all great until we got to the end of the year with pretty much everyone on the team still having 20+ days of PTO left. HR just made everyone take the entire december off to use those days up, after that once incident no one had any issues booking PTO the following year.