I've been doing this every summer for the past few years:

  +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
  | S | M | T | W | T | F | S | 4-day work weeks:
  +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
  | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 4-day weekend
  +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
  | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 2-day weekend
  +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
  | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 4-day weekend
  +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+
  | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 2-day weekend
  +---+---+---+---+---+---+---+

I've never minded when my employees do this (and can't imagine why I would). I've also done it myself fairly often because of the PTO rollover limits.

You've earned the vacation days. If your vacations happen to be every Friday for 8 Fridays in a row because that's what you prefer, that's none of my business.

Some employers ask you to take holiday in longer blocks because they want people to be able to properly relax and recharge and they think you can't do that in just blocks of one day.

(Not saying I agree, but that's what they say.)

Some jurisdictions even require it, e.g. in my country you get 26 vacations days per year, but you are expected to take at least 10 of them continouosly (which, if you add weekends typically results in 16 days without work)

There's also the theory that if you are doing something illegal, improper, or incompetent, having your assignment covered by another individual for a bloc of time increases the likelihood of revealing any problematic issues.

That sounds like a grotesque lack of trust and set of priorities. If I ever found out an employer used my absence in such ways, I’d immediately start looking for new work.

It appears to be strongly encouraged by the FDIC in the US as a mandatory banking policy. Websearching "mandatory vacation" will turn up other examples.

https://www.fdic.gov/news/news/financial/1995/fil9552.html

You should probably take it up with regulators then who, especially in the financial services industry, recommend or require it. e.g. https://www.fdic.gov/news/news/financial/1995/fil9552.html

That’s fair enough, you know what you’re getting into. Thanks for the info!

I suggest not working for employers who attempt to dictate how you use your PTO without a legal leg to stand on.

In some countries it is mandatory by law to have 14 days in one block per year.

One finance job I worked in had that regulation. (But it wasn't a general thing in that country.)

Policies like that are often designed to (or at least conceived/fantasized to) ferret out/prevent single-actor fraud.

Forcing someone to take two contiguous weeks out of the office means that someone else will need to be briefed for continuity and there's an enhanced chance of detecting "weirdness" that might be associated with a fraudulent scheme.

Yes, 'conspiracies' of more than one person are much harder to keep under wraps. That regulation was directly in response to the high-profile cases of rogue traders.

> without a legal leg to stand on

What makes you think they have no legal leg to stand on to dictate when you take your holiday?

My understanding is unless you have some contract saying otherwise, they can tell you to take your holiday whenever they want to, and you have no inherent right to take it whenever you want and for whatever length you want.

That's not even just the US - even in countries with stronger employees rights like the UK I believe this is the case.

For example this is the guidance from a union in the UK

> You do not necessarily have the right to choose when you take your holiday and your employer can tell you when to take your leave.

https://worksmart.org.uk/work-rights/hours-and-holidays/holi...

Following up: Vacation time isn't a required benefit (in the US), so as long as your employer doesn't prevent you from taking accrued vacation time without compensation before it expires, they can otherwise control when you take vacation. An employer that prevents an employee from using expiring PTO must either compensate them for it or they violate state and federal DOL rules regarding (contractually guaranteed) benefits. Generally the punishment is that the have to compensate the employee, any legal counsel, and pay a rather hefty fine to the appropriate DOL, so it's never worth it to prevent an employee from using expiring PTO. (And if the employee is so valuable that the employer can't afford for them to take PTO, that should have been negotiated into the contract.)

However, if the employee "chooses" not to use up all their accrued vacation time before it expires, generally compensation is not required...

Some employers ask you to sit at long sweatshop benches instead of giving you a proper desk, let alone office, because it "fosters collaboration".

Your boss's stated reasons for compelling you to do a thing are often not his real reasons.

I did this this Winter. The year before I tried dealing with Winter depression by remaining sober, but four day weeks seemed to work better. Granted where I'm at in my life has varied quite a bit between those two years

Employer prefers this arrangement. I'm at a small company, if someone leaves for a week.. it's hard, because a client may call & you're the person who can handle their issue an order of magnitude faster than anyone else

When you take a week off, it's hard to readjust to being back. & now you've blown most of your vacation time, so there's nothing to look forward to. Whereas I spent every week feeling a day fresher than everyone else (I took Mondays off, not Fridays). Additionally during Winter I find that a two day weekend isn't long enough for me to recharge, the first day I spend exhausted, & the second day I spend resigning to the fact that it'll all be over the next day. Yes, I realize this is a terrible mentality. But with a three day weekend I was able to really enjoy the middle day

Some industries have mandated downtime (reduce the impact of finding backfills and no flooded inboxes).

Financial Services sometimes require everyone to have a mandatory 2 week continuous vacation with the idea that fraudulent transactions may turn up.

In both cases I bound it’s a majority.

Two scenarios but both related to having kids.

My brother in law works at Deloitte in Australia and is taking Fridays off for most of the rest of the year using his paternity leave. Sounded like they were pretty supportive but may have to keep an eye on email during that day...

My sister is at a big bank and does 4 days a week but as she describes it "instead of doing 5 days a week and 60 hours, I do 4 days a week and 40 hours". She's still on calls and definitely on email on that "day off".

Vacation days are fine for short-term, but why not negotiate a permanent 4-day workweek? Lots of programmers have done it, e.g. https://codewithoutrules.com/2018/01/08/part-time-programmer... (also linked elsewhere in the comments).

A lot of them don’t like that kind of stuff.

Most are reasonable, if your department has coverage you’re okay.