
Our Vacation Policy: Take Some - joshuacc
http://blogs.balsamiq.com/team/2011/09/09/vacation-policy/
======
nhashem
For policies like this, your company culture and the examples leadership sets
are going to dictate exactly how something like this, or anything else not
explicit, is followed.

If leadership often takes vacation and doesn't do more than basic email
checking, if that, then employees will feel comfortable doing the same and
enjoy this policy over your standard "you accumulate 5 hours of PTO per pay
period."

If leadership rarely takes vacation and when they do they're basically working
full-time anyway, then employees will be frustrated because they'll feel they
have to emulate the same.

And as I said, this goes for everything. I was briefly at a startup where the
CEO would be in the office from 11am to 8pm and it drove me crazy. Every time
I left work I would wonder if he thought I was 'slacking off,' because he
wasn't in early enough to see when I got in, just that I always left before
him. Some engineers just emulated his hours, but given my various other life
commitments, that was impossible. There's a reason why "go home on time" is in
a lot of CEO advice books.

~~~
fmavituna
It's about the size of the company and quality of the communication between
the management and team.

If your dialogue was better with the CEO then you wouldn't feel that way or
just ask him/her easily.

~~~
eavc
If only people were rational enough in their behaviors and efficient enough in
their communication for that to really be the silver bullet.

In a small company, there are rarely such neatly demarcated lines. Regardless
of how well you communicate with your boss about arranging to be done earlier,
you will feel the eyes of your coworkers when you head out the door.

edit: A notable exception being results-focused cultures that emphasize
flexibility as a company value. If punching the clock is an expectation, it's
hard to manage to be on a shifted schedule without there being at least a
twinge of resentment when you head out earlier.

------
mhp
Peldi, I think you're trying to do the right thing by treating people with
respect and allowing them the freedom to make their own choices, BUT I think
you are ignoring simple human nature and actually making their vacation time
worse for them.

As others have said in the comments, in systems like this, people will take
_less_ vacation than if there were a defined plan. Because there is no defined
plan, one is set by example. They look to you and to their peers. I suspect
strongly that you will take less vacation than them being the CEO of the
company. I also suspect that their peers will gravitate toward taking less
vacation, and human guilt will be the guide.

I urge you to reconsider. Instead give them a very generous vacation policy
(20 days! a whole month!) and then MAKE THEM TAKE IT! You can do that by
simply telling them 'You need to take a vacation' or just have a max cap on
vacation (say 40 days) or have vacation expire after 2 years (time enough to
build up a nice sabbatical).

------
rfrey
The company I work for recently adopted a NetFlix style "we don't track
vacation" policy. It's been about nine months, and anecdotes (no data
available - we don't track!) suggest total vacation time taken is less than
half of last year.

I suppose that whether that's good or bad is pretty subjective.

~~~
DanielStraight
Right.

Unless you literally mean take as much vacation as you feel is right and no
matter how much you take (even 4 weeks straight), we won't ask questions, then
I'd rather have a specific number.

For sick time, I think this is a great idea. I have unlimited sick time where
I work, so I only take it when I'm really sick. It's like the saying that what
gets measured gets done. The measure of legitimate sick time is not "do you
have the time" but "are you sick," so that's what people use to judge when
taking sick time. If it was "do you have the time" then as long as they had
the time, people would feel fine taking sick time, even if they weren't sick.

If you tell me I can take as much vacation as I want as long as I need a
vacation, then even to take a half-day, I need a justification. Every vacation
day, or part of a day, becomes a risk that I'm going to look like I'm taking
too much vacation.

~~~
ben1040
_If it was "do you have the time" then as long as they had the time, people
would feel fine taking sick time, even if they weren't sick._

Or even worse, the policy at my employer - within a given year you may take up
to five of your accrued sick days no questions asked (assuming you have the
sick days banked), but to use any other sick time you have, you must submit a
doctors note as verification. As an incentive intended to reduce absenteeism,
if you take no sick days in a given year, you're given an extra "free"
vacation day usable during the following year.

What this means is that if you end up taking even one sick day during a year,
you've lost your bonus vacation day. So now you may as well burn down the
remainder of your five unverified days by calling in sick when you really
aren't.

~~~
lreeves
It seems to me that the reward for no sick days would create an incentive for
people to come in with a cold/flu and spread it around.

------
balsamiq
Hi all, Peldi here. Thanks for the feedback. I don't know how much vacation
everyone here is taking (I could look in the shared vacation calendar we
have), but I'd say everyone is taking 3-4 weeks a year, plus some more time
when they take their laptop to the beach and work half-days from there.

This is one of the policies that I fear might not work if we ever reach a
certain size, but so far we're all happy with it...it's just not something we
keep track of for other people, just ourselves.

Thanks again for the feedback, it's a big reason why I'm sharing our current
policies.

~~~
cHalgan
I just want to comment that policy like this will cause you problems in
recruiting a certain type of talent. Of course, that will be imposible to
measure, but I can tell you none of my friends (we are little older but not so
much) will not work for a company which has a policy like that. We just had a
beer talk last Friday about that.

~~~
adaml_623
Could you please elaborate on why?

~~~
cHalgan
Reasoning goes like this:

\- If a company is really about "we don't care about how much vacation you
take", then why not to give me minimum vacations? It seems intellectually
dishonest.

\- How I do know how much of vacation I can take and whether that amount is
preventing me of getting raise/bonus/promotion?

\- This policy means that my vacation will vary depending on manager and
current project. I cannot commit to travel with my kids, I cannot commit to
visit my parents... because who knows: I might have a different manager next
month.

\- If I take two weeks vacation and none of my teammates are taking vacations,
am I going to be fired? Are they going to consider me that I'm not a team
player?

\- I can lose a job after working for year or so without taking any vacation,
but if I did accure vacation I will get some money (kinda reward for working
hard for a year and not taking vacation), while in case of "flexible vacation"
I get nothing.

~~~
CamperBob
It seems like the one correct answer to the vacation policy question is, "Do
what you want, as long as you don't hose the company."

If you want to work remotely for the next month and nothing depends on your
physical presence at the office, fine.

If you want to fuck off for the next month and you're not on anyone's critical
path, that's fine, too.

Restricting things a bit, "not hosing the company" could be interpreted to
mean that you can take off when you want, but for absences longer than _x_
days you need to let your supervisor know _y_ days in advance so s/he can take
it into account when necessary. It doesn't sound like this would be an
unreasonable thing to ask, as long as _x_ and _y_ are clearly stated by the
company and respected by employees.

This whole thread reminds me of why I don't work for other people. The idea of
someone demanding my physical presence for a portion of each day, for no
reason other than the fact that they can, makes me frown and cock my head to
the side like a puzzled beagle.

~~~
randallsquared
_If you want to fuck off for the next month and you're not on anyone's
critical path, that's fine, too._

But if you can do this, maybe they and you will think about whether they need
you the month after that, too.

~~~
CamperBob
If you're doing good and valuable work, and the company acknowledges this, you
won't _want_ to vanish for weeks or months at a time.

The overriding goal is to run an outfit where the employees want to be there.
If you do that, then vacation-policy abuse will not be a major problem. If you
don't, then vacation-policy abuse is the least of your problems.

------
qbleep
I would much prefer a generous but explicit vacation allowance. I feel that
with the "take some!" vacation policy social pressure would prevent some from
taking as much as they really want to. It's going to boil down to everyone
implicitly deciding what's a fair amount and that will become the unwritten
rule. I'd rather everyone just decide what's a fair amount and write it down.

That being said, a fair amount is definitely not two weeks (10 work days)!
I'll never work for a company that's that cheap again!

~~~
Tyrannosaurs
It's one of the things that's always stunned me about the US - the 10 days
vacation a year being a relatively common thing.

European law states a minimum of 20 days (which can include public holidays
though often / usually won't). In the UK where I work 20 - 25 days plus 8 or 9
days public holiday is the norm, and 28 - 30 days plus public holidays not
unheard of.

I seriously don't understand how people don't just go mad on so little.

~~~
bugsy
For those that work, they do go mad. Haven't you noticed that Americans are
obese drug addicts with little knowledge of world culture, don't speak any
other languages at all, and love to declare war or otherwise bully anyone they
can while shouting rah rah patriot freedom? That is part of what happens from
never being able to take a month of vacation, which means no long trips to
europe or south america or africa or anywhere really other than across the
state line to the indian casino for a few days of gambling and buffet eats.

All right, perhaps not every one would go mad. There's quite a few jobs
especially in bureaucracies like government and banks where work is a social
club where they chat and drink coffee all day. These people probably don't
need a vacation, but they are the ones where there is no problem for them to
take it since they weren't contributing much in the first place.

It's the productive people that get backtalk from managements about vacation:
"You can't go, we are in a crunch."; "This is a crisis, where is the team
spirit."; "I can't believe you are considering taking 5 days off this year
when things are the way they have been lately."

------
chollida1
The problem I have with systems like this is that I've worked at a company
that says this, but it can get dicey.

To their credit they really did mean take vacation when you want to, but to
them, what that meant was, feel free to take a week or two if you want, or a
random day if it pukes on the hill.

The problem is that my wife and I save our vacation, she's a teacher, and take
2 months every other year in Europe.

With the "typical" you accrue vacation policy this isn't much of a problem as
long as you book in advance.

With this take what you want I've had some pretty heavy handed conversations
about "not begin a team player" and taking advantage of the company when I
asked to do this.

~~~
bmj
That's too bad.

My employer has "normal" vacation policies (though we accrue faster than most
other employers), but most managers (including mine) won't blink if you ask
for four weeks at a time. The CEO typically leaves the country for at least
four weeks a year (as well as taking other holidays throughout the year), and
my direct manager was gone for five weeks, with no contact, this year. I was
out of the office for six weeks as well, though I did work remotely for about
six days and spent four days at our west coast dev office (where my manager is
stationed).

Another person mentioned golden handcuffs--I agree. There are some things that
bug me about the way the company works, but when I look at what the company
offers me, I'm more likely to either look past those things, or work to fix
them.

------
chrisaycock
After the rogue trader incident at SocGen, the investment bank I was working
for _required_ people to take a week of vacation at a time (HR would actually
verify compliance). Employees would have to declare in advance that they were
planning a mandatory vacation so IT could suspend their remote logins and
disable their card access to the building.

~~~
rimantas
In my country you normally get 28 days of vacations of which at least two
weeks must be consecutive — that's by law.

~~~
PonyGumbo
Where are you? I want to go to there.

~~~
AndrewDucker
28 days is the minimum in the UK.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_statutory_minimum_emplo...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_statutory_minimum_employment_leave_by_country)

~~~
whatusername
In Australia we have 4 weeks plus 10 public holidays (In Melbourne, one of
those is for a Horse Race).

What I learned from that link though -- is that the concept of "Long Service
Leave" is unique to Australia/New Zealand.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_service_leave>

------
sdizdar
I'm not sure, but there are a few horror stories here in Bay Area about policy
like this (you go for a two week vacation (no email, no phone) and you got
terminated when you come back).

The problem is that eventually the policy like this will create a backlash and
burn out. However, it will be hard to find why ... As of now, this policy will
work because balsamiq is cool and hot. But after your company is not a startup
anymore ('running repeatable business mode') you need to find something which
will be more predictable. If nothing you might want to recruit a more senior
people which do have a family. And then you will get into this "it is hard to
find talent" bs.

Also if this is really a policy, why not to accrue minimum vacations anyway?

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ap22213
Being an old dude, I'm probably not the target demographic, but this policy
would not be attractive to me.

For one thing, when comparing positions, I like to have quantitative data. Ok:
Position A gives me $150,000, expects me to work 45 hours a week, provides me
25,000 in benefits, and gives me 4 weeks of vacation per year and it requires
10 hours per month of commute / preparation time.

Then I can make a rough estimate of pay per hour, consider the qualitative
aspects, and compare positions apples to apples. When things are vague, it
makes comparisons more difficult.

------
teach
Healthy quantities of vacation time is one of the reasons I'm still in public
education after 15 years.

Teaching in a public school isn't the easiest job in the world (nor the
hardest, probably), and not everyone has the personality for it, but I really
believe that having a lot of time off contributes to my mental / emotional /
physical health and helps me to be an excellent teacher when I am working.

In my district, we get one week off around Thanksgiving, two weeks around
Christmas, one week around Spring Break, and ten weeks off in the summer. Plus
most of the state and national holidays.

I know people often suggest that the U.S. should move to a year-round school
year, but I'm not sure the ills in public education would be solved by more
days in the classroom.

~~~
bugsy
I am a designer, engineer and entrepreneur, but I have also taught high school
in the past.

As an engineer, I would not consider working for a place that had a problem
with less than 4 weeks vacation. It is absolutely necessary to have that as a
minimum to recharge and do a great job. If I'm not allowed to do what I need
to to do a great job, I don't want the job, I tell people to give it to some
lackey instead and just be comfortable with their full on corporate BS
environment.

I think that the extremely lengthy vacations should be taken into
consideration when discussing teacher pay issues. It's relevant since a lot of
teachers take part time jobs in the summer, something 12 and 11 month workers
can't do. Some even write books and generate additional income that way, and
recognized copyright case law in the US has the cool exception that books
written by full time academics are not work for hire by their bosses. That's
not the case for those of us in engineering where companies try to grab all
they can.

Teaching high school in the US is extremely emotionally exhausting. You're
expected to be a social worker and you deal with people with problems, yet you
have little training and no support or back up or authority for dealing with
this. When I was a teacher, if I did not have the entire summer off, I would
have gotten a gun and come in and shot the entire administration. Not because
I am crazy, I've had a psych eval for security clearance and am completely
stable. It's just how close to breaking being a teacher in the US will drive
you. The system is incredibly dysfunctional. Work stress is comparable to
being a soldier on the front line. Most teachers are suffering from post
traumatic stress disorder. I am not surprised when I hear of so many female
teachers having sex with their students - that is not because they are pedos,
it is a stress response from having a total emotional breakdown from working
in a horrific system.

If the 3 months of vacation time was removed from US schools, we would see a
wave of teacher led psychotic breakdowns, suicides and massacres that would be
so legendary they would be spoken of 1000 years from now.

~~~
CamperBob
_When I was a teacher, if I did not have the entire summer off, I would have
gotten a gun and come in and shot the entire administration. Not because I am
crazy, I've had a psych eval for security clearance_

Um. About that clearance...

~~~
bugsy
Yeah Bob, what about the clearance?

The crazy people are the ones that won't push back at a certain point of
provocation. You hear about these women that stay with abusive spouses that
beat them instead of leaving or killing the guy? They are nuts to put up with
it, that's the crazy group.

By the way, a very Happy 9/11 Day to you. Speaking of which, I doubt it's
escaped anyone's notice that it's perfectly OK for the US to use guns to mass
slaughter people when it is ticked off about stuff that someone loosely
related to them may or may not have done.

Hey why shouldn't it be OK for everyone then. What is good for the goose is
good for the gander.

------
akg_67
15 years ago, the company I worked for, piloted no limit on sick leave policy.
The average number of sick leave taken fell from 12 days to 9 days. Company
publised the statistics to employees and Only people whose sick leave exceeded
2 standard deviation were notified. We also piloted alternate Friday off, the
absenteeism due to doctor, dentist, car service appointments fell off to
negligible.

~~~
bugsy
"Only people whose sick leave exceeded 2 standard deviation were notified"

I don't understand what notified means? Notified of termination? So each year
the company measured which people had the most sick days, which would of
course be those dealing with cancer treatments as such, and fired them? IF so,
it is reminiscent of Jack Welch's notorious dictat to fire the 10% "at the
bottom" each year.

No doubt I am misunderstanding the policy you are describing, which is why I
am asking for clarification.

~~~
akg_67
Notified means they and their manager were told that the sick leave taken
exceeded the norm, there was no retaliation, just as a check of reasonableness
of leave. I am not sure how longer duration illness were treated, may be put
on short-term disability benefit.

------
JonoW
I'm sure this is well intentioned, but wouldn't it leave employees to doubt
whether they're taking too much leave (i.e. "Is my boss testing my
Commitment?"). I can see how people may land up taking less leave due to fear
of being judged to as work-shy.

------
stel
I worked at a small company where I was paid hourly and didn't even have paid
vacation. The upside was you could take as much time off as you could afford.
The downside was I couldn't afford much, though I did come into a little money
from an outside project and managed to take a nice 4 week vacation. :-)

I think a hybrid of that approach could work, where you get X weeks of paid
vacation and can take more as unpaid leave. That way, everyone gets the
benefit of being encouraged to take a certain amount of time off, and those
who want more can have it without other employees feeling like people are
cheating the system. However, I asked about this at my current job and was
told that unpaid leave was "strongly discouraged". I think there's also some
risk of being seen as "not a team player".

But I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one who would rather have more time off
than money.

~~~
nfriedly
Yea, I did something similar a while back and really enjoyed it.

> But I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one who would rather have more time off
> than money.

I suspect you're right, I think debt holds back a lot of people.

------
wccrawford
HR policies that treat people like professionals and adults are refreshing.

Sadly, not everyone can afford to hire only those who will act this way. It's
expensive, and not always worth the cost.

~~~
peteretep
They also only last until the company hits a certain size, and someone starts
taking 4 months of holiday a year, because they can. In countries where you
can't easily be fired, anyway.

Most stupid HR policies come about from an employee abusing the system. Come
in before 9:30! No sick pay! etc etc

~~~
acangiano
It's also worth noting that punishing every worker for the abuse of one, is a
very common and stupid attitude. Get rid of the slacker, don't make it hell
for the rest of the team.

~~~
Tyrannosaurs
That's great in countries with poor employee protection, but in most European
counties getting rid of someone is easier said than done.

You tend to need a very good reason, backed up with evidence and, unless it's
a major major thing, you need to have worked with the employee to correct the
behaviour.

In a country like that a policy which states "Take some vacation" couldn't be
used to discipline someone because the issue is actually that they're
conforming with it a little too much?

It doesn't mean good vacation policies aren't possible though. For instance
you can have flexible allowances. You get, say, 25 days as a basic allowance,
you have to take at least 20, you can take up to 30 but you get charged for /
paid extra for the variation from your allowance of 25 days.

That gives people the flexibility to have either more money or a very generous
allowance, while still being manageable.

------
ed209
I adopted that policy for myself. Being a freelancer, every April/May I head
to the spanish south coast and work from there. Somehow I manage to accrue
more hours than a normal month, but I'm pretty sure I hit the beach most days
at 3pm (with my MBP of course ;).

As long as the work gets done and you're not holding anyone else up, who cares
when you choose to do it?

------
cHalgan
Hmmm... I like the idea 'take some' but then why not accure vacations anyway
and 'force' people to take vacations before accuras expires?

Actually, in one of big companies developing world class mission critical
software, my manager would send me an email saying something like "please take
vacations since we are making Mercedeses and not Pintos".

Yes, there were pople working really a lot and not taking vacations, but it
ended up that their designs are not well thought and implementation sloppy
(yea, it is done faster than planed but locking was just not performing on
SMPs), so they were passed during promotion / bonus time.

------
bugsy
Hm. The thing is, tech firms are known for having amorphous and ill defined
vacation policies that seem very open in print, but in practice, no one takes
it because you're not really allowed to.

So I want to know.

1\. What is the average number of weeks per year taken by US employees. This
tells the reality apart from the showmanship.

2\. Please confirm that by "doesn't accrue" you mean that when you lay someone
off, they are not compensated for time not taken off.

3\. Please explain why US employees are denied vacation accrual if your intent
is truly to have a good vacation policy.

------
dpcan
This will also depend on the type of job. Programmers - sure, lots of
different things work. We're a weird breed.

But your secretary HAS to be there every day from 8-5. Your phone and email
customer support service people HAVE to be there during a specific set of
hours and rotate in an organized way, and have set vacation times that don't
overlap, etc.

When it comes to this kind of stuff with employees, it's always going to be
tricky. There's always going to be exceptions to the rules.

Where I choose to work, I would personally like someone to tell me I have 2
weeks a year of vacation, and 1 week of sick time, or something to that
effect.

For hours per week that I work, I would like that to be based on
accomplishments, and NOT based on how long I'm sitting in my chair. I can
spend 3 hours dwelling over a stupid problem, walk away for the night, show up
in the morning and realize I misspelled a single variable.

------
0x12
Simple suggestion: add a minimum, no maximum. That way you wipe out most of
the downsides but keep the upside.

------
mhd
Did anyone every work for a reasonably small company (i.e. where you still
feel somewhat familiar with the rest of the staff) that was

a) distributed amongst the globe

b) where just the local labor laws for vacation time applied

(Note that I'm talking about operations where you still know your colleagues
in Europe/Asia/America, not bigger outsourcing operations)

Even considering the different attitudes about vacation time(^1), I'd guess
that something like this would breed more envy than it's worth it. If there's
a slight disparity (even 5-10 days), it would probably work out, but if one
team is working in Texas, have almost no holidays, don't get _any_ vacation
time, whereas the other team is in Germany where you'll get your 4+2 weeks of
holidays/vacation, this won't go down that well.

^1: We "socialists" are a pampered bunch

------
yalogin
I have only heard negative feedback on the "we don't track vacation days"
policy.

How about if they say - you get a minimum of X vacation days per year and on
top of that you can take any number you want. At least people will take the X
days without any feeling of guilt.

------
Greenisus
I love the spirit of vacation policies like this. Your results are far more
important than how much time your butt's in a seat at the office.

My only problem with it is that (at least in the US) you're not accruing
vacation time. So when it comes time to leave the company, you're not going to
get any sort of payout for that.

I can't speak for everyone, but I can speak for myself and the people I've
observed in various companies and startups: we don't take much vacation time.
I don't believe I know anyone who has cashed out their time off in companies
that have traditional policies.

So, in my case, while I like Balsamiq's vacation policy better, it has turned
out that the traditional style has been a better deal for me.

------
aspen
Our Vacation Policy: take some more than the rest and you are not a team
player, take more than the CEO and you are out.

~~~
run4yourlives
Ergo: nobody takes any.

------
rphlx
Slavery started when slave drivers realized that they could take everything,
then give a little back, reluctantly, infrequently, and unpredictably, and
engender gratitude instead of anger in their slaves.

~~~
bugsy
I appreciate your insightful and relevant comment. Pity it's getting
downvotes.

------
Hominem
Yeah, the company I work for does not track it but there is always sort of a
sneering attitude towards people who take time off "You are not hardcore
enough"

------
gorbachev
I recently joined a startup that has the same policy. Unlimited sick days as
well.

Everyone at the company is so new, though, that there's really date to see how
it's working.

But I can tell you one thing. I'm feeling much better working for the company
compared to the previous job where we had no sick days (I spent half my
vacation days taking care of sick kids, or myself getting sick due to sick
kids) despite the fact that the owner made a PERSONAL income of $2B from the
company. I know that even if my kids get their usual winter time flus and
colds, I still have actual vacation time left after taking time off to take
care of them.

------
brunomiranda
Give people options and they will generally do the right thing. An
intelligent, competent, highly productive employee who is hired by a fast
growing and profitable start-up knows better than to take too much vacation to
the point of looking stupid. Try this policy at your local dead-end job.
Nobody would show up. Because nobody gives a s __t.

My point, hire smart people, give them a reason to give a s __t and they'll do
the right thing.

------
nfriedly
This is pretty similar to my current job and I really enjoy it. I took ~5-6
weeks of vacation last year, and it was nice to not have to worry about it. I
didn't do more than 2 weeks at a time, but I'm pretty sure I could take a
month off without any complaint if I really wanted to.

Incidentally, we're hiring if you want to try it out yourself ;)

------
klinquist
Zynga has a similar policy: <http://www.zynga.com/jobs/body.php>

------
diolpah
"We don't have deadlines"

What? How is this even possible? Even if one doesn't set internal deadlines, I
can't imagine avoiding integration commitments with any number of third
parties, whether they be strategic partners, clients/customers, api/feed
integrators, etc.

~~~
balsamiq
We're lucky that we're very self-contained (little product), and when things
break we're usually able to fix them quickly (again, small team and little
product). :)

~~~
bugsy
Are you saying then the deadline is always "ASAP"?

