I remember when I heard about the concept of "unlimited pto puts more pressure on you not to use it." At that time it was something I'd never considered and it seemed smart and right to me.

Fast forward five years and now I have no qualms taking PTO whenever I want. I like unlimited PTO. No one is firing me for taking PTO. I have my own definition of what a reasonable amount of PTO is in a year and I use that definition. If anyone has a problem with how much PTO I take, I'm sure they'll tell me. Personally I prefer being able to interpret the policy in a way that works for me. Better to ask for forgiveness than permission.

I think a big problem with this is that you need to be on the same page as your boss. You might think 4 weeks is fine, they might think 2. But since some CXO announced unlimited PTO they're not going to tell you that they think you're taking too much, they're just going to channel that into your performance reviews and general feedback.

In order for unlimited PTO to work you need an incredibly high trust environment which is very hard to create.

If they think 2 is fine imma refer them to the unlimited PTO policy! :)

Well sure, you can do that, but that isn't going to change their impression of you when they're doing your annual review. And it won't be "You took too much holiday", it'll be "I don't think you're bought in to the team" or "I'm not sure you've really delivered at the same level as other team members this year". It might not be fair, but I could definitely see that happening for some managers.

Those concerns don't really apply to me because

1. My manager in particular would never do that, but even if they did:

2. I know how much I contribute relative to my team. If my manager told me I was underperforming - for any stated reason, but especially if I suspected it was for taking "too much" PTO - I'd almost certainly find a new team, because that just ain't so.

To elaborate on 2 a little bit, it's worth pointing out that you're definitely more vulnerable to shitty management tactics like that if you aren't sure of your own market value.

If your main point is that "unlimited PTO" can be a weapon in the hands of a bad manager, I concede that. But my counterpoint to "unlimited PTO is bad" is that, within the bubble world of tech, we as employees have so much power to dictate our working conditions there's very little reason to put up with any such bullshit in the first place. And most employers are aware of this right now.[0]

[0] https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/business/story/2021-07-...

That's why I was saying it only works for high trust environments, and it's not just about you. Is your manager confident their manager and HR department really back them? Do other people in your team see you take more and trust that you're being reasonable. It all adds up to require a lot of high trust relationships where there are lot of downsides if it falls apart.

That’s where you have to push back very rigidly. In an environment with unlimited PTO, that is a completely invalid criticism and can’t be accepted.

I’m glad it’s working for you, but there are a couple of additional things to keep in mind outside of your specific situation: 1) not everyone has the same comfort level asking for PTO. And that distribution is not random, so your company better be taking this stuff. Ex. How many days are under represented minorities taking off compared to the average? 2) Managers will not apply this policy equally. By making the line for what is a reasonable amount of PTO fuzzy, you give managers more power that bad managers can abuse.

> not everyone has the same comfort level asking for PTO.

I don’t get it - some would be comfortable and thus would enjoy more PTO

> bad managers can abuse

That’s an issue of bad managers more than PTO policy

Yeah, you’re right on. I think the article can be right sometimes, but at a good company with solid leadership and excellent culture, unlimited PTO is absolutely better than the alternatives. Here’s why I like it:

- It’s self-serve, so I don’t need approval from anyone to suddenly take a day off for any reason.

- I never have to worry about when to plan trips, as I can work around everyone else’s stringent time off policies.

- I can see my friends and family more frequently.

- I can take mental health days without feeling like I have to prove something to someone.

- You don’t run into weird conversations with your peers about why you were away. It’s normal for people to take PTO.

I don’t think there is any pressure from the company for me to take less PTO. In fact, I’ve experienced pressure from my leads to take more PTO.

Any company which has informal limits on unlimited afk isn’t doing it right. Maybe their limit is 4 weeks, and they’re strict about whether they approve it. Well, they’re lying about the policy, so you could nearly say it’s not even a proper unlimited-afk policy.

In other words, the bad examples of unlimited afk happen when a company doesn’t actually do unlimited afk. They just say they do. So I don’t think that should be treated as a critique of unlimited afk specifically.

Just curious, what is that limit? On avg, how many days off a year do you take?

I'm not the person you asked, but IMO, 25 days seems reasonable.

That would allow for a week off between Christmas and New Year, two one-week vacations, and some extra days scattered around the year.

Usually ends up around 20-30 days

ah not terrible

~4 weeks

That's...a fairly low annual PTO for a senior level person in a place with quantified PTO, so if that’s your “reasonable limit” in an unlimited PTO environment, it seems to confirm the “unlimited PTO means less PTO” suggestion.

Yea 20 days is great for jr level but if you're with the firm for more than 5 years or above manager level it's kinda low for how many days you'd get (and thus be compensated for if you leave)

How much do you think is reasonable?

"Scam" is perhaps a harsh term, but the article does have a point. When you're told it's unlimited, you know there's a limit, you just don't know what it is. Clearly your boss won't be happy with you taking the next year off. So where between 0 and 365 is it?

What will happen is you end up asking someone else what they take. And you're new, so you don't want to be seen to be taking advantage. Poof, everybody takes minimal vacations, only obviously needed days like when there's an illness or life events.

In some countries (at the least the countries that are European Union members, but probably most countries on the continent) the minimum vacation days is set by law (labor code).

In the countries I have experience with it’s 20 working days per year, sometimes with extra days given based on time spent with the same employer. Also, some employers give extra days from the start. But, importantly, it can never be less than the labor code specified number.

So, unlimited vacation may be a trick in the sense that people will rarely take days off, but you can’t be cheated out of the law mandated vacation. Social protection isn't that bad, after all.

I believe the US is one of 7 countries in the world that _don't_ have minimum vacation days (although I believe individual states could/do have their minimums?).

The others are (per Wikipedia):

* Kiribati

* Marshall Islands

* Micronesia

* Nauru

* Palau

* Tonga

That said, your ability to actually _enforce_ your right to minimum holidays is going be pretty variable.

Its noteworthy that, of the other 6 of those 7, 4 are recently (late 20th Century) independent former US (or US-administered Trust) territories.

We have an average of 40 days off in France and it is still not enough to sustain school vacation.

In that "No Rules" Netflix culture book, they talk about how Netflix doesn't have an expense policy, they just tell people to be reasonable and leave it up to them. That struck me as a harmful way to do it - basically forcing most people to err on the side of caution because they are worried about being seen as wasteful. Unlimited vacation policy is the same IMO.

It's captured perfectly in "17 pieces of flair is the minimum, some people choose to add extra to express themselves"

I feel like this idea that the limit must be set in stone comes from anchoring bias. Obviously drinking 10 bottles of beer in one sitting will get you totally wasted, so there must be a limit between 0 and 10 bottles. Where exactly is it? Well, it depends on the person. Tolerance levels differ and people moderate to different degrees (and levels of moderation may not even be proportional to levels of tolerance).

With work, there's also different degrees of how much vacation one needs and also how much they feel comfortable asking for. A workaholic might be less inclined to take vacation than someone who likes to travel, and a more confident person might be more inclined to book more vacation days than one who isn't as confident.

Let's not generalize and assume everyone is too spineless to ask their boss for vacations they're entitled to.

If you can take higher than the typical counted vacation days offered from other companies then it’s a relative benefit yes? If that was a consideration in hiring on there little reason to be afraid of using it. If it turns out you can’t use it that way then that tells you important information too.

It varies very widely based on the company you work for.

At the company I'm at, I haven't heard of vacation requests being denied, but I've also only been here for 3 months. I did ask about the policy during the interview process, and they said the CEO has created a culture that encourages people to take the time off they need. They have two "quiet weeks", one between Christmas and New Year's, the other in August, where everyone is forced to take a whole week off, supposedly because they know that otherwise, some people would feel guilty about taking time off. In addition, the first Friday of every month is a "Fresh Air Friday", where they strongly encourage you to walk away from your computer after 1 PM, and regular meetings after 1 PM are not allowed.

Ask me about the policy in a year and I'll tell you how well it's actually been working.

Sounds like good ole Rito.

I’m curious to see if policies like this become the norm. Anecdata, but people absolutely seem to be happier when they get time off without having to question it. (I.e. “do I have enough left over for a potential holiday alter this year?”)

My company has "unlimited" time off and it was a red flag for me before joining. The thing that got me past the red flag was that both founders saw it as their responsibility to set the standard for the amount of holiday taken, and would take significant holidays in order to define the culture.

The thing I've enjoyed most about "unlimited" holiday though is not the length, but the fact that I don't need to differentiate between holidays and sickness. That may sound like an obvious distinction, but it's not. Sometimes I know that for my own (mental) health I need a day off, but I'm not _sick_, it doesn't need to be a specific day, it could be any day in the next week maybe. Justifying it as a sick day would be tricky if there is a distinction made, and taking it as a holiday is a bit unfair on the employee because it's not really about the holiday. Unlimited time off means there is no distinction and you can just do it without thinking about it.

Another thing that improves our approach is that while we don't technically have a minimum (there are guidelines), if someone leaves they are entitled to 4 weeks paid leave in their last year and we make this up in time/salary to ensure leavers don't lose out. Last time I checked we hadn't actually had to pay anyone as all leavers had taken enough holiday.

It takes a lot of discipline to get right, and so it's still a red flag for me, but it's one that can definitely be overcome and can be a strong positive if the company has the right attitude.

Having unlimited vacation, for the first time this year, I'll say I kind of like it for a couple of reasons:

1. At previous jobs I treated the PTO like an asset. When I'd eventually leave the company, that asset would get paid out to me. So I'd be balancing the worth of a week off provided all of the overhead associated (such as coverage plans), with just finding another job in a year and getting a big check for the unused time, and finally taking a real break.

2. It is surprising how much I appreciate simply taking a day off without going into an inane HR system to log '8 hours PTO' and submit for approval or whatever. It makes me feel less like a row on the CFO's cost sheet and more of an autonomous person who's contributions are assumed.

> A study by Namely found that employees with unlimited PTO took an average of 13 vacation days, compared to 15 days for their fixed PTO counterparts. Why would this be?

The article implies that it's from fear of seeming lazy by comparison; there's probably truth to that but also working your life away is simply more cultural in the U.S., and people tend to behave as others do. Which is why we need a better standard for our workers as a country.

The way I’ve seen this work well is for the prospective employee to state their intent (in writing, can even have HR include in the offer letter) before they accept the offer, as in “I will plan to use on average 12 weeks of PTO per year, consistent with your unlimited PTO policy. Everyone is good with that? Great!”

I think calling unlimited vacation days a scam is a bit extreme. It's more like a bad deal and it's worth negotiating against, which is easier said than done by an employee with no bargaining power.

My (previous) employer switched to Unlimited Vacation midway through the COVID pandemic. Many coworkers, including myself, assumed that this was a cost-saving measure to help cover up the fact that employees were not taking their usual vacations during pandemic--largely since they had nowhere to go. The legal stipulation was that you had the existing bucket of legally accrued vacation that you would continue to drain until you ran out, after which you would switch to the "unlimited" pool. Many people rushed to use their time off--I was a little suspicious of it, and continued to ration my time-off as I usually did (which is basically only taking a week off around July 4th and Christmas, to see family).

Sure enough, some months later, a large portion of us were sold-off/laid-off, and I still had about 80 hours of vacation time accrued prior to the switch, which was a decent chunk of change when it paid out. The people that had been riding the "unlimited" days got diddly.

I recently switched jobs, but for a while I was working at Okta, a company that has an unlimited PTO policy. In my experience with it, it was awesome! The teams I was on were great: you were encouraged to take ample time off, work reasonable hours, and keep a healthy work/life balance.

As a manager, I routinely checked-in with everyone who reported up to me to make sure that people were taking breaks as much as possible. It felt nice!

I understand that at some companies with terrible management, Unlimited PTO policies can be a nightmare, but if you have a good culture, it can be a huge benefit for employees to know that they can take frequent breaks, go on long vacations, and have a nice work/life balance.

While I'm a bit skeptical of the study - sample bias can happen (companies with unlimited pto may have younger workers who are taking less vacations to hit career goals) - I've reached the point where I, personally, prefer boring, simple contracts with clearly defined goals, perks, bonus, activities. Yes, those may change and naturally evolve in time, but should evolve to other clearly defined terms. No more stock options and vesting schemes, unlimited PTOs with caveats, etc. I'm fully aware companies will have HR and legal people working to create rules that optimize something that's not in my best interest, so I'll stick to what I can understand and predict.

Anecdotal here, but I have unlimited PTO and I've taken off 5 weeks so far this year. I'll probably take off another 2-3 weeks throughout the holiday season. I might be compensating a little bit for last year since I only took 2 weeks off until Christmas where I took another two to make up for lost PTO - but last year the pandemic was in full swing...

I do make an effort to take off some time every month. I also work really hard and produce a lot of solid work, including mentoring/training others and picking up work from people who have left the team/company. I'm not in a senior role.

Work hard, play hard.

Whether or not you take fewer days off, the actual point of unlimited PTO is that its not an accruable quantified benefit, so that when your employment is terminated (voluntarily or otherwise), you have no claim to compensation for it, whereas quantified accrued vacation must be cashed out (and is therefore carried as a liability on the firms books until used.)

But this is also why you will typically use less with unlimited: if you use too little of accrued PTO, the firm will either:

(1) have a policy with an accrual limit, which will encourage you to to use it or lose it, or

(2) have a must-use policy to limit the liability on their books, ehich will force you to use it, or

(3) take steps (possibly including incentives) to get people to reduce large balances, to limit liability on the books.

And, typically, they’ll have policies encouraging managers to approve requests (and give soft encouragement to take vacation) to people whose balances are approaching the point where the other measures would kick in.

With unlimited PTO, you not using it is a pure benefit for the employer with no cost, so they have no (narrow, short-term balance-sheet optimizing) reason to do anything but encourage it. Plus, in limited PTO situations, the fact of the limits themselves is a factor which encourages managers to be flexible with exercising the “business need” discretion they are generally given over approval in both systems—sure, maybe its a moment you really think Bob would be important, but by taking it now, the balance will be exhausted and you’ve got less chance of him even requesting leave for a while, so you can adjust. With unlimited leave, “business need” is the only constraint, so managers have a lot less reason (even before balance sheet concerns) to be flexible on it.

To the extent there is a broader benefit to the firm of employees taking vacation, management that sees it over the clear immediate costs of people getting paid for not working is rarely a reliable thing across all the relevant layers of management in an organization of any scale. Even if the environment is one where unlimited PTO works well today, there is very little guarantee that will be the case tomorrow.

I think if employers were serious about giving you as much holiday as you need it'd be better to just say "You've got X days of holiday, anything above this must be approved by your manager, but should be fine". That way no one is getting less, but those that want more can take it as long as it is inline with the team's business goals. The underlying subtext of free is always "there's no lower limit and we're hoping you guys average out lower than the previous minimum".

I’d hate to have unlimited PTO because it can mean people try to make a point of taking less than the person at the next desk.

This has a simple fix: have a reasonably high minimum PTO of say 20 or 25 days. That must be a hard minimum as in every employee must take at least that.

Then there is a decent lowest level so if your manager is suddenly the kind of guy that would see PTO as poor performance, then at least no one has to do zero PTO out of fear. When the environment is healthier people can take more PTO, that’s great.

I guess it depends on where you work. I have "unlimited pto" and over the last 5 years I've taken at least a month a year.

Complete scam. Imagine if you had "unlimited pay". Turn up, demand a million bucks, see what happens.

Meanwhile I've been trying to put together a list of companies that do 40+ days' pto and are remote. Hotjar and Todoist are two I've found, but I know there are others. Anyone else have additions?

> Complete scam. Imagine if you had "unlimited pay". Turn up, demand a million bucks, see what happens.

1) Set your pay so incredibly high that you can accrue enough to retire within a few minutes.

2) Get fired like 15 minutes later when someone figures out what's up and freaks out and manages to frantically do whatever's necessary to get you off the payroll.

3) Retire.

Is that 40+ days including 10-20 days of holidays you get off but can't pick, or in addition to?

For my business unit, it's unlimited as long as our customers are happy and taken care of. If you're good at your job and have lucky customers, then it's great. I don't fit that category, so I can take one week off at a time maximum, but a day or two here and there is also fine.

I want the opposite: mandatory PTO.

Every employee gets 4wks minimum. Each quarter, if you have not taken or planned (reserved) any PTO, then PTO is automatically scheduled for you.

Then, during your timeoff, your account is locked out. No fake vacations!

A mandatory continuous week of vacation is standard in some financial jobs. The idea is that it makes it more difficult to conceal fraud/embezzlement, but it also reveals situations where the company is reliant on one person for institutional knowledge.

"Unlimited" like cell phone plans. Use too much, and you'll be cut off. No, they won't tell you how much that is.

It more like "unlimited" data throttle, aka deceptive marketing

Naive at best. Manipulative at worst. Scam isn’t accurate