
Ask HN: What is your company's maximum vacation (at one time) policy? - danesparza
My company (which shall remain nameless for obvious legal reasons) has recently implemented a policy that limits the &quot;maximum amount of vacation time you can take at once&quot; to 2 weeks at a time.<p>This hasn&#x27;t affected me (I tend to take vacations shorter than 2 weeks at a time). The policy really seems to disproportionately affect my Indian co-workers -- who save up vacation and tend to take it in 3-4 week increments to visit family overseas.<p>I started to wonder:  Is this a common practice to limit the maximum vacation time that can be taken at once?  What is your company&#x27;s policy on the subject?
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sarreph
If you want to increase burnout (and its inevitable resultant churn) in an
organisation, capping vacation length sounds like a surefire way to achieve
that.

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itake
I think its better to take 1 week off 4x per year instead of 4 weeks off once
per year. Working 11 months without a single vacation would cause me to burn
out.

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sssilver
I'd rather take 2 months off once every 2 years and go on an offroad
motorcycle journey through Mongolia, than do small things a week at a time.

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zschuessler
I'm from the US, and I've never worked for a company that regulated a limit.
You only had to check with HR first & ensure you weren't negatively impacting
your projects.

Sounds to me like your company got burned by someone taking advantage of their
PTO, then overcompensated with this rule.

If your other coworkers aren't happy about it either, band together and bring
it up as something to talk about. Explore other solutions together as a
company.

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orangehour
All the coworkers bargaining for benefits with management like a group? That
sounds like a union (not that it would be a bad thing).

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logfromblammo
As I no longer get vacation or sick leave, and get PTO instead, I can use it
all up in one stretch if I want.

Previously, when the vacation time was actually vacation time, you had to get
manager approval in advance for anything more than five consecutive business
days. For us, it was a matter of filling in a form and getting it rubber-
stamped, but I can see how that policy might be more selectively enforced for
different classes of worker.

The common practice now is to limit the amount of PTO that accrues per pay
period in the first place, and then cap the amount you can bank for the
future. I have never had enough to take more than seven consecutive business
days at once. And that has happened exactly once.

American employers (overgeneralizing) _do not care_ about employee morale.
They will use us up and throw us out if they can. The onus is entirely upon
the employee to avoid their own burnout.

The letter-of-the-policy move here would be to take two weeks, work remotely
or from a satellite office for one day, then take another two weeks. But I
think this company may be treading on thin ice, legally. If the policy _de
facto_ discriminates against Indian employees, they may want to consult with
an employment-law lawyer.

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6DM
In my personal experience, traveling from the US to another country for a two
week vacation isn't worth it. One week's worth of time is literally consumed
by travel and jet lag. So the cap should impact more than just your Indian co-
workers, assuming other people want to get out and see the world.

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leonagano
Sounds illegal in the UK. Workers are legally entitled to have 5.6 weeks
([https://www.gov.uk/holiday-entitlement-rights](https://www.gov.uk/holiday-
entitlement-rights)).

ps. I have a tool to help workers get the longest possible vacation. Am I
allowed to publish the link here?

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dghughes
When you wrote "help workers get the longest possible vacation" I thought of
the trick of padding or extending vacation days. Taking vacation days on both
ends of a holiday but not in the middle since they are mandatory days off
anyway.

At some companies employees with seniority abuse that trick. They use vacation
days before and after statutory holidays so it works out to be one long
vacation. They often do this when lower ranks don't have first pick forcing
them to use bigger blocks of vacation time. It creates a toxic work
environment because everyone knows when a holiday is coming up "you know who"
will be gone longer.

~~~
mcintyre1994
Do people consider this abuse? I go home over Christmas to see family, it's a
complete no brainer to use about 5 days holiday and get 2 weeks off. Though my
holidays don't interfere with anyone else's, I can see why that would
frustrate others if they did.

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bri3d
I work at a medium-large US company. We have a standard "soft unlimited"
vacation policy where the questionable policies like this would get farmed
down to the individual management level. Up to 6 weeks is no questions asked
at the corporate level.

In my division many people take one calendar month off, especially those with
family overseas.

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seattle_spring
Would you mind sharing the name of the company? This is a despicable policy
and I think people looking for jobs should know who to steer clear from.

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hoistbypetard
I've never worked at a company that capped the maximum vacation that could be
taken at once as a blanket policy. Though time off generally needs to be
approved by a manager in advance, and I could imagine challenges getting some
managers to approve very long vacations, people have always been able to work
it out with advance planning.

I did work one place that mandated you needed to be out of the office for at
least 5 consecutive days each calendar year. I'm not sure if it's still
required, but there was a banking regulation that mandated it. The rationale
was that if you were out of the office for at least a week, it would be harder
to commit and easier to discover fraud.

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elmerfud
I don't know what my current company's policy is, but my last company had a
two week at a time maximum. Although, all policies were flexible at
managements discretion. Just by asking I was able to take 3.5 weeks off.

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maxxxxx
We have people going away for 4-6 weeks to visit family. Limiting it to 2
weeks as a policy seems a red flag to me.

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manyxcxi
I don’t recall ever encountering an explicit “you can not exceed a vacation
longer than X” policy- but most places I’ve ever worked have had a policy that
generally sums up to “if you’re going to be taking a long vacation we need to
review/plan around it a little differently than the typical process”

I took a month off for hunting and camping a few years back (possibly a decade
ago) and what it amounted to was: go document the little things that no one
knows you do to keep the ship afloat and cross train this guy in how to do it.

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thisisit
Interestingly, in terms of vacation I found banks to be better than technology
companies. I have worked with two of them and both had instituted a policy
where employees were compelled to take at least 2 weeks of leave. If not,
upper management got involved and started asking question about work pressure.

My last job was at a technology company. While there was no limit of vacation
time, the unsaid rule was to limit it to 1.5 week - 2 weekends + 5 days.

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ivanche
Those 9 days were upper limit or lower limit?

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thisisit
upper limit.

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jaymzcampbell
Places I've worked previously (am independently contracting these days) had
similar policies in theory but they were really more guidelines to try and
keep continuity in place. If you planned in advance and had cleared it with
your colleagues then a 1-month or longer break was completely do-able. I
should add I'm speaking from a UK point of view.

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asherkin
UK, more than 10 working days consecutively requires director approval
according to the written policy, but I can't imagine it ever being denied or
enforced (I have never had or heard of a holiday request being denied at all).
We're not allowed to carry days over though, so people do not generally accrue
large holiday allowances.

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piva00
By Swedish law we are allowed to have 4 uninterrupted weeks of vacation during
July/August, my company doesn't care and if I wanted I could take even my
whole 6 weeks at once.

Or even more, I could get my 6 weeks and negotiate some more unpaid vacation
days if/when needed, I know people who took 3+ months off for personal
projects.

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the-dude
I believe in NL, there is also a minimum : each employee should at least have
a 2 week vacation, uninterrupted, each year.

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tszymczyszyn
Same in Poland, although it is often not enforced in practice.

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the-dude
I forgot to mention : this is also a very effective policy to uncover
fraudsters.

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mnm1
Considering how little vacation US workers get, this is disgusting. What a
shitty policy at what I imagine can only be a shitty company. I've never heard
of such a policy anywhere, except in companies that pretend to offer
"unlimited" vacation (obviously no company in the world ever has or ever will
offer unlimited vacation). Shitty policy but not any worse than say cutting
vacation days in half because people aren't using them quickly enough,
pretending to have unlimited vacation that's highly limited, not giving
employees any time off whatsoever, suing states to avoid complying with their
time off laws, etc. The bottom of the shit barrel for US companies goes so
deep, no one knows just how deep.

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atwebb
I don't know of a set in stone amount, it's not uncommon for people to save up
a month to go stay with family in Asia. US based company. The team plans
accordingly, I think it's a good idea, though I tend to not take as much time
as I should sometimes.

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BrandoElFollito
France : this is all regulated. The law says that

\- you have a certain amount of days off (varies by job, in my case about 40
days a year)

\- you have to take 10 days in a row (2 weeks) during the "hot season" (June
to September IIRC)

Beside that this is an agreement between you and your boss. I guess it would
be illegal to formally set a cap on continous vacation, in practice it may
happen but I've never heard of that.

People will typically take 2 to 4 weeks during summer (with an average of 3).
In smaller companies one can be forced to go on vacation in August when the
company closes.

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carlmr
No limit, except the 6 weeks vacation a year. This is in Germany though so
YMMV. I usually take a long 3-4 week vacation, 1-2 weeks over Christmas, and
the rest of the days I use to make weekends longer going camping, skiing,
climbing and hiking.

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randomdata
The internet suggests that in Germany it is up to the employer when employee
holidays are taken. For example, if the business wants to shutdown over
Christmas, it is well within its rights of that business to have its employees
take holidays at this time. The minimum number of holiday days must be taken
by the employees over the course of the year, but when the employer says it is
acceptable to. As such, there seems to be nothing stopping them from allowing
no more than two weeks at a time, just like the business in question here.

Is this information outdated/incorrect?

~~~
carlmr
I don't think it's incorrect, but from my experience it applies more to
factory jobs. They'll have a 2 week shutdown in summer, and a 1-2 week
shutdown over Christmas. Everybody has to take vacation then, which sucks in
terms of traffic and flight prices.

My employer does officially close on some days on Christmas, but you are
allowed to work from home (if you have a job where home office is possible).

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LandR
Don't think we have a limit, but it's probably reasonable.

I took 3 weeks over xmas.

The most annoying thing here is they say they want 4 weeks notice for any
vacation, even just a day, however I've not really seen it enforced.

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onion2k
Current company - don't know. Previous company - 12 weeks (approx. 4 weeks
annual leave that would carry over for a year, so it was possible to take 3
years worth consecutively.)

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ragelink
I work in a place with an "unlimited" vacation policy, your release being
discretionary by your manager per your delivery and current work load, etc.
However its also been shared that you may only take up to 2 weeks at a time,
essentially killing someone's opportunity to work for a while and do an
extended euro trip or something. I tend to do 1 week at a time so I get maybe
2 and some odd extended holidays here and there.

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ChainsawBaby
We have 5 weeks of paid vacation, which usually occurs in July (Norway). But I
can take longer vacation if I want, just without pay and that's no fun.
Usually I have about 2-3 weeks overtime during a year. So technically I could
take a 7-8 week holiday, but I prefer to spread it out evenly.

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maaaats
I live in Norway. State mandated 25 days off / 4 weeks + 1 day (paid). Can
demand 3 of those weeks at once during summer, and 1 whole week at once any
other time.

Most companies more lax than that. I have two extra weeks over the mandated,
and can take them basically how I want as long I ask in advance.

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planteen
I have never worked anywhere with that policy in the US. I have taken month
long vacations at two different companies. I gave months of advance notice and
got it cleared before hand. At your company, I would still try to ask for a
month off well in advance and see what their response is.

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jtwaleson
A team member is currently on a 7-week vacation. No questions asked
whatsoever. This is in NL.

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gwbas1c
Do they define a longer vacation as a sabbatical? Or is there a specific
business reason why someone would be limited to just two weeks? Is your
employer in the US or another country? What state is your employer in, if it's
in the US?

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overcast
I can take my full amount at any time, assuming it's not in the middle of some
massive project already scheduled. But those are rare. I don't think it's
common, and you're just being taken advantage of.

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tjridesbikes
No limits here. In the US with 4-5 weeks (depending on length of employment)
of vacation per year. We have people who say "see ya" at the end of November
and we don't see them again until mid-January.

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chrisjshull
[https://www.nlrb.gov/rights-we-protect/protected-
concerted-a...](https://www.nlrb.gov/rights-we-protect/protected-concerted-
activity)

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stctgion
UK. No limit. All vacation has manager approval though never heard of it being
denied. Also have a various schemes for large amounts of unpaid leave while
still returning to your original position.

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b_t_s
No limit, though most of us who do 3-5 weeks take it over xmass because we're
visiting family overseas and work is petty dead for 2 or 3 weeks then so it's
less disruptive. US company.

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tjalfi
I work in the legal industry and my employer has sabbaticals.

Employees who have been here for X years (10 for salaried, 13 for hourly) get
two months of PTO.

An additional month of PTO can be taken at the same time.

Edited for formatting.

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oeuviz
Switzerland: 4 weeks/year by law, two of them must be granted consecutively.
By law time and length can otherwise be decided by the employer, even though
it is rarely enforced.

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TomMarius
None, a limit like this would be illegal in my country.

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pbhjpbhj
Where?

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TomMarius
The Czech Republic and basically anywhere else in the EU.

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pbhjpbhj
I can't readily find anything to confirm this for UK. Sources like Gov.uk and
the TUC say employers can say when you take your leave.

Eg [https://www.gov.uk/holiday-entitlement-rights/booking-
time-o...](https://www.gov.uk/holiday-entitlement-rights/booking-time-off-)

[https://worksmart.org.uk/work-rights/hours-and-
holidays/holi...](https://worksmart.org.uk/work-rights/hours-and-
holidays/holidays/can-my-employer-make-me-take-my-holidays-when-they-want)

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TomMarius
I meant continental EU, I'm not sure about the UK. While these websites says
nothing about forbidding the employer from setting a limit, they also don't
say that it's allowed.

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pbhjpbhj
Frustratingly silent on this point, all the examples I saw are 2 week holidays
too.

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zantana
I encountered this policy at a previous job at an MSP. A good portion of the
workforce were from other countries so the situation was very similar.

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elros
That sounds completely insane and abusive to me. Where I live, I'd assume –
though I'm not sure – that this is illegal to mandate.

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eli
I think many US companies especially small companies have some version of
"check with your manager first"

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hellweaver666
We advise 3 weeks but you can take longer if you have it available and discuss
with your manager first.

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goshx
10 days per year after 5 years of employment, maximum of 10 days at once.
Great, isn't it?

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fsloth
No cap. I can take 5 weeks on a stretch if I want to (and have enough extra
bits in store)

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baxtr
This is ridiculous. What reason did they give?

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pbhjpbhj
I don't agree with the policy but surely it makes it harder to manage staffing
levels and re-engagement will take longer for longer absences. I'd call it
mean rather than ridiculous.

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baq
sounds illegal where i'm from.

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amygdyl
Sadly this was the policy of my last defunct startup. We did get to enjoy the
benefit, tho, twice:

For every day early we delivered a point release, the whole team got double
days holiday, half paid for bonus.

Editing got in s twist somehow I have dumped the context in my profile because
have to go away just now.

