[harrylove]

This would seem to echo Hastings' Netflix culture slide deck published in 2009[1]. It's worth reading even if you disagree. The deck was the first time I had heard of a major company having a "no vacation tracking" policy. It was presented in the same context as the HR manual. The policy of having no policies is built on employee trust. Employee trust is built on the standard of only hiring top quality employees.

I've never worked for Netflix or any other company willing to make such bold statements so can't speak to the reality. It would be interesting to read a first-hand account from someone who has been at Netflix since the time such non-policies were enacted. At the time, it sounded like a fantastic experiment. I would love to see the results.

1. http://www.slideshare.net/reed2001/culture-1798664

[ryandvm]

Kind of a tangent, but having worked at two companies that have a "unlimited" vacation policies, I can say that I detest the concept. It's basically an anti-policy.

There are two major ramifications of unlimited vacation policies:

1) It changes how you feel about taking time off. Rather than paid time off being something that you have "earned", you evaluate your PTO in comparison to your teammates - specifically most people try to make sure they are not taking off more than the average. The end result being everyone is subconsciously competing with everyone else to consume less PTO than average.

2) Since you have not accrued vacation time, your company does not owe you financial compensation for vacation time not spent when you leave. As someone that changes jobs every 3 or 4 years, this is more painful than it sounds.

If I ever decide to be in a position that affords me the opportunity, I think I would enact a "minimum vacation policy". It's still unlimited, for whatever that's worth, but employees will be required to take a minimum amount of vacation every year.

[rodgerd]

> It's still unlimited, for whatever that's worth, but employees will be required to take a minimum amount of vacation every year.

It's worth noting that in some sectors (including the one I work in), minimum chunks of leave are considered an anti-fraud measure. A non-trivial amount of internal fraud is uncovered when someone is required to take 1-2 weeks off in a block, which is enough to require someone else to stand in for them. At that point, oddities get called out.

[sgentle]

There's an important related point there: regular vacations are the business process equivalent of the Chaos Monkey. Repeatedly having to do without employees for a short amount of time forces you to make your processes robust.

I've previously asked co-workers and even bosses who work too hard to take time off for exactly this reason.

[harrylove]

Seems like #1 would be a symptom of having the policy without the culture to back it up. Was that your experience?

For #2, I've worked for several companies, only one of which had a compensation package for unused vacation. All the rest have been use-it-or-lose-it by the end of each year. Getting paid for unused time sounds like a luxury.

But I also recommend negotiating for more time off when you sign on, especially if you have several years of experience in the industry. Even if a company says first-year employees get X days of vacation you can still negotiate. Especially for cash-strapped companies, vacation may be the only part that can change.

[ryandvm]

#1 sounds like it could be solved with culture, but actually good culture works against solving it. Good culture means you hire considerate people and considerate people don't take more than their "fair share" (i.e. the median).

[15155]

Yes, most are use-it-or-lose it, however, legally in some states you MUST be paid for the time unused (if you leave before the end of the calendar year.)

[a_c_s]

Re: #2: in some US states, if you are laid off you are entitled to be compensated for vacation days you have accrued but not used.

[taeric]

This goes to the point that time off is something you have earned. It is literally part of your compensation.

So, having a policy of "take only what you need when you need it" would be akin to giving everyone access to the same bank account that runs the company and trusting them to use only what they need and/or feel is fair.

[makeitsuckless]

The so-called "unlimited vacation" is manipulative to the extreme. It would be illegal in most countries outside the US, because it's effectively taking worker's rights away.