> It's also why many companies hate carrying vacation days over - they don't want someone to save up three months of vacation that they earned at a low wage from getting promoted, and then receiving it in cash when they quit at a higher wage.

This can be a nasty carrying cost for companies.

I worked at a place that went from the standard accrual of vacation to "a minimum of 20 days/year, no carry-over."

To keep employees from engaging in open rebellion, they had to offer two tiers: either 1) you agreed to the new plan and gave your accrued time back, or 2) you keep your accrued time to date, received no more, and could join the new plan only when your vacation time balance hit zero.

The new employees, including me, quickly picked option one. The long-timers all picked option two, sat on their time, and cashed out when they went to other jobs.

I'd advise anyone in this situation to go with option 3) - find new employment and get the company to immediately pay out all that vacation time in cash possibly by booking your last three months with the company as solid vacation time. Once that's cleared up feel free to rejoin the company on option 2).

Earned vacation time is earned - companies trying to reclaim it are acting dishonestly and need to be avoided at all costs.

When my company switched to a use it or lose it system (with some extra days thrown in), they let everyone who had accrued vacation keep it in a separate category. I don't know if I'll ever use it but it's nice to know I have an extra bank of 3 weeks vacation if I ever want it.

Heh. $DAYJOB lets us accrue vacation and then get cashed out annually for anything over 160 hours (so it is "use it or we will cash it out for you"). It pays out at your new rate as well (since annual raises are on the same schedule). It used to be tied to your work anniversary date, but it is now "just after New Year's" for everyone to make budgeting easier. I understand why companies hate it, but I also like the way I get treated as a human rather than a nameless cog in a multi-billion-a-quarter monstrosity. I, personally, prefer the "let's be human" than "$$$ at all costs" end of the spectrum. Others seem to disagree.

As for how it gets used, apparently it's very bimodal and "everyone" is either a "keeper" or "flirts with having none".

Employers can always chose to force annual vacation payout - or have reduced hour rollover (i.e. halved if rolled over). I absolutely despise any sort of vacation reduction (or full disappearing on expiration) but having the hours paid out is a pretty equitable situation. If I want to take a vacation in January and am forced to take it using unpaid hours (I'll always talk to managers about carrying over hours for some fixed vacation if they're willing and usually get positive feedback) then I'll at least end up neutral at the end of the year (or employment) when those accrued hours get paid out.

Employers don't want to force payouts for the same reason that they don't want all the other sources of variability I listed. They budget for a payroll of X, not X + 7%.

I believe in California (and maybe one or two other states), you can't do use it or lose it. Though AFAIK, you can still cap accrual at some maximum. (i.e. once you've given someone a day of vacation you have to pay it out if they leave and haven't taken it.)

Personally I don't have a problem with "unlimited PTO" but (big but) there really does need to be a culture of people taking a reasonable amount which I would define as a month or so.

>>you can't do use it or lose it.

Which is why unlimited was born, because now you never "earn" any so you never "lose" any, and thus can never accrue any either

Right. Not that I personally care much for use it or lose it myself. It definitely requires more deliberate planning and potentially taking time at suboptimal times than an accrual/cap system assuming the cap is set at some reasonable level.

True, but this is an side effect once again of government meddling and it having unintended consequences

See the government saw employers with "use it or lose it" policy as "screwing over" the employee, so they ban it believing all companies would just accept they would have to allow accrual of PTO / Vacation time

Reality is that is not tenable for most companies and many people (like me) would just rack up years of time because we never take any off (when Possible I just cash out any PTO / Vacation I get, but many company stopped doing that as well)

So in response to the government banning employee lost their access to guaranteed number of days, instead how have this "unlimited" which is also an impossibility.

IMO "unlimited" is many many times worse than use it or lose it with a guaranteed number of days every year

Maybe you should take time off. In general, it seems pretty reasonable for companies to cap PTO and encourage people to take time off.