

Ask HN: Unlimited vacation policy – does your company have it? How is it? - msoad

I want to hear from people who are working for companies who advertise &quot;unlimited vacation policy&quot; in their job postings and learn how does that works.
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lpolovets
Reposting a relevant answer that I wrote last year on Quora
([http://qr.ae/I5tZ7](http://qr.ae/I5tZ7)):

I work at Factual, which has an unlimited vacation policy. The amount of
vacation that people take varies greatly.

At the high end, I've taken about 8 weeks of vacation during each of the last
two years. I tend to do some work during vacations, however, so it's more like
8 weeks abroad in which I happened to squeeze in 4 weeks of work at odd hours.
I think a few of my coworkers also take 4-6 weeks per year. Most of these
people are pretty disconnected when they travel.

On the low end, some of my coworkers don't take vacations at all, or take one
week per year and then feel guilty about it. I understand their guilt about as
well as they understand my wanderlust =).

Things that affect how much vacation people take:

* How long you've been at the company. Someone who just joined is much less likely to take a vacation than someone who has been around for a few years.

* Your place in the company hierarchy. More senior people seem more comfortable with taking vacation than more junior people.

* Schedule pressure. If you're working on a huge project that will take 6 months, you probably won't try to take a vacation during that time.

* Being the only person on a project vs. being one of many. If you're the only person who knows how something works, you tend to worry a lot about what can happen while you're gone.

* Personal budgets and travel preferences. If you like hiking trips, 6 weeks of vacation won't set you back very much. If you like overwater bungalows in Tahiti and private cruises in the Galapagos, then you need to have a lot saved up to take more than a few weeks off every year.

* How much you like to take vacations (or how much you love your work). Some people like work enough that they don't want to take vacations. Others don't really care for vacations, so they might take a personal day or two but not go on longer trips.

* Your, ahem, cojones. Generally, if you ask your boss reasonably, you will get a "yes" 90% of the time. A lot of people are afraid to ask.

When our unlimited vacation policy was established, it seemed like people were
waiting for their peers to set the boundaries of what was appropriate and what
was not. Over time, I've realized that people are just different. People who
don't take breaks don't seem to change their habits even when they see others
take frequent vacations. Conversely, people who take frequent vacations don't
seem to tone things down in the presence of non-vacationers.

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thinker
I love it. I shoot an email to our leads/managers and make sure no one is
depending on me for any tasks. I make sure to inform them in advance but once
I had a spontaneous trip to Paris that I booked my flight 3 days in advance
and took two days off for and they were cool with it (it was to shoot my
friends playing music in the Parisian streets:
[http://vimeo.com/channels/streetmusic](http://vimeo.com/channels/streetmusic))

If needed I take my laptop and put in any required work remotely - that's
great when you work on web tech. I do this when I know my days aren't going to
be busy, such as visiting family. If I know I won't have time or access to the
net on a trip I let everyone know so they can expect I will be disconnected.

I've taken about 4+ weeks off so far this year, 2 of which I was working
remotely, and will be going to Burning Man this year for a week. I'll probably
take some time off in December.

The key is to make sure you are being productive and adding value when you are
at work so you don't feel guilty taking time off. When you plan off time, make
sure there isn't anything crucial to the business happening at that time. Let
people know how you are going to be accessible (IM, email, ability to commit
code) or if you are off the reservation.

There is a certain amount of uncertainty and self-inflicted guilt about the
whole thing; whether you are taking less/more time than your peers. I guess
that's the price you pay for this perk.

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chiph
If you're a responsible adult, it works really well. Coordinate your time off
with your team & boss, then go. I would usually take 3/4 of December off to
spend with family (slow time at work anyway, as the customers weren't wanting
changes to be made during their year-end work).

There are any number of ways it could be abused, of course. But the thing to
remember is that your coworkers (and boss) aren't blind - if you're using the
policy to create a 4-day workweek, and not getting stuff done -- someone is
going to say something.

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doug1001
so i work at One Kings Lane, which has an unlimited vacation policy. First, i
should say that they the true to their word--i have actually seen people take
four and five week holidays. Still, the usual seems to be two weeks, which it
seems the devs take maybe two of these each year (perhaps more, not really
sure).

At OKL, i suspect the policy is just an extension of their "ok, we are all
adults here, so just act in the company's best interest at all times--we don't
want to work in a soviet tractor factory, we assume you don't either" (my own
words, if we had an employee handbook, i imagine it would say something like
that).

at other shops, i have heard that the motivation for unlimited vacation is a
little less wholesome. The idea is that use it to recruit, then once in the
door, the manager can of course limit the employee's holiday because his
approval is required. So there's very little to lose, and a lot to gain; when
the employee is terminated (resigns, fired) the company does not have to pay
out their unused vacation, which is often not a small amount (eg, i suspect a
lot of people carry around 2 weeks).

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dandelany
I think it really depends on the culture of the company. Some companies seem
to be afflicted by an unspoken pressure to keep up with one's colleagues in
terms of putting in extra hours and not missing too many days. In these
situations, I think a defined amount of vacation days may actually be a better
policy - when you have a set "three weeks" of vacation in a year, it can be
more socially acceptable to use the three weeks allotted, especially if they
don't rollover. With an "unlimited vacation" policy, employees may feel
pressured not to abuse the system and actually take fewer days off, because
they're trying to match the average number of days off taken by all employees
rather than a set time span of three weeks, or perhaps a little less in order
to appear exceptional.

However, in a healthy company culture which _encourages_ employees to take
time off, it can be great. Particularly because long trips are really a
different beast than short ones, and it's hard to do a long trip with 15
vacation days. Solution: take 7 vacation days one year, and 30 the next.

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mead5432
My company has had an unlimited vacation policy for 2-ish years. According to
the HR dept, it hasn't really changed people's vacation habits... they still
take about the same as they did before: 2 weeks.

The biggest thing has been to make sure that you aren't leaving anyone
hanging. This is probably a bigger deal for some departments/teams.

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ayers
It is interesting to note that a lot of feedback discusses employees taking
less vacation time. This happens for a variety of reasons which have been
highlighted and obviously differs from company to company and how the culture
is lead from the top. This would not be my first thought when introducing an
unlimited vacation policy. From the employers point of view it would be how do
we manage and foster a culture that prevents employees abusing this policy,
not how do we make sure employees actually take enough vacation.

One company I know has introduced a bonus for taking a set minimum number of
days to try and make sure that their employees are taking a decent amount of
holiday each year. So for example if you take 20+ days off in the year you
will get a annual bonus of £1000.

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bwsewell
I work at Automated Insights (automatedinsights.com) and ever since I've been
there, we've had this policy. The idea is to just not abuse it. Use it when
you need it and don't go on last-minute 3 day weekend vacations. Most people
go on a week-long vacation once a year (usually during the Summer) and people
are able to take days off for personal reasons as long as it doesn't become a
habit. Everyone does a good job I think.

~~~
msoad
If all you can get (are getting) is two week, then it's less than my "limited
vacation policy"!

~~~
caw
I agree. Last minute 3 day vacations is actually OK around my workplace, and
we have a limited number of vacation days.

First you ask yourself if you have critical work to do those days. If not,
you're good. Otherwise, you may have to get it done sooner. Then you ask your
coworker if they're going to be around to cover for you. If they are, cool,
you've just scheduled yourself out of office. Set up your OOO notification and
update your calendar. If not, check with your manager to make sure it's ok for
both of you to be out. Generally this may mean a concession that you have to
carry your laptop or phone in case stuff goes down. Congratulations, you've
now scheduled your vacation.

The only time our manager really gets involved is during Nov/Dec for the
holidays when people run into "use it or lose it", so he'll informally let us
carry over to January or so, just so that everyone isn't rushing to take at
the same time and leaving us without anyone in the office. The other time is
when you want to take multiweek vacations, just so he's aware and can get
coverage information.

Even then, half the company is in the same situation so it's normally pretty
dead in Dec.

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adammichaelc
It means you never take a vacation.

~~~
drstewart
Pithy. But wrong and doesn't contribute to the discussion.

~~~
fader
I think it depends on the company. My experience matches adammichaelc's --
"unlimited vacation" in practice meant that you could take a day or two off,
provided you worked over the weekend or double time the rest of the week.
Nobody dreamed of taking a full week; that would have shown you weren't loyal
enough to the company.

I no longer work there. :) And in fact, I since turned down an offer at an
otherwise appealing company specifically because they told me they had an
unlimited vacation plan. I took the job at a company with a specified number
of days, knowing that I would actually be able to use them and not feel
pressured to never take time off.

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techtime77
My last job made the jump to a Netflix model of unlimited PTO. On the surface
it seemed great, however I found myself taking less time off. I think it comes
down to what type of person you are. There were some who abused the policy,
some like myself and some who continued with their normal vacation habits. In
total, not much changed.

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samfisher83
Well isn't this just a way for them to screw you out of money. If you get 3
weeks a year that company needs to hold 3 weeks of vacation pay for you in
case you get fired or quit. With a unlimited vacation policy this is probably
not the case.

