> if anything, they're more productive

I cannot count the times that I've spent the whole Friday on some problem just to have the solution occur to me out of nowhere at some moment during the weekend.

The most productive engineering I ever do is while I'm washing the dishes.

Could you please update your HN profile. Usually a member checks it to get in touch. Interesting policy and I do agree that qualified engineers should be able to deliver within a reasonable time frame. That said, the time spent on the problem isn't the best measure to gauge productivity. Each person approaches problems differently and usually well knit teams solve problems faster than geniuses in isolation.

Certainly, and we don't encourage isolation from our engineers. They are free to work further on problems, and often do --- but when the expectation is to work your fill, rather than to work the problem to death, we find our employees excel. Taking the weekend to ignore a problem often leads to a solution on Monday morning.

Your website says that your minimum vacation is three weeks[1]. Have you since changed your policy :P ?

[1] http://apsis.io/blog/2015/04/23/work-sustainably

No. I'm dumb.

I can second this for personal projects. When I had two hours per day to work on personal projects I accomplished more than when I moved to work part time and thought an extra 3 hours would be beneficial. They were the opposite.

How do you enforce the minimum, and also how do you make sure people don't mistake the minimum for the expectation?

A lot of yelling. We find people respond well when you yell at them to stop working and take time off.

What and where is this land you speak of?

The internet. We're at http://apsis.io

Can you tell us what is your company?

Apsis Labs, http://apsis.io