[mathattack]

Unlimited Vacation policies borrow from the Unlimited Sick Time. Most companies used to be explicit about sick days. "You get 6 per year." Then a few companies started with a more enlightened policy of, "We don't count, we trust you." Perhaps the early adopters of this policy viewed it as a trust issue. Then the data started coming in... On average people took a lot fewer than 6 when nobody was counting. The policy then turned in to a cost savings plan, and everyone started doing it.

The "You get as much vacation as you want" seems to be going that direction too. The early adopters were enlightened, thinking, "The value of showing trust to an engineer will more than pay for the rare abuse." It does save money, and now the cost cutters are seeing it too.

I've worked in several places where you get a month of vacation, and never get to use it all because you're too busy. Changing that to unlimited does not help much.

Some things that do help: - Mandate everyone takes a 2 week continuous vacation. This is done by banks for compliance reasons. (Harder to hide fraud if you're out 2 weeks in a row.) It is very beneficial, because this forces you to take at least 2 weeks of your allocated 4. - Allow paid sabbaticals. "After X years, you can take 2X weeks off for a continuous sabbatical that we pay for, and we'll pick up half of any coursework or travel costs." - Lead by example. This is VERY tough, because most good leaders like to lead by example showing that they're not above working hard. They can also lead by example taking their vacation.

In the end, none of this is altruistic. It's a way to keep talent motivated and feeling valued when they have lots of options. If you stiff a good engineer 2 weeks of vacation, they can always make it up by taking 2 weeks off before starting another job. :-)