Vacation time at work? (home, school, calculated)

[Aquitaine]

My company has unlimited vacation time from day one. Yes, unlimited, within reason.

This is a newer policy that some businesses are trying (mine included). It's "unlimited" like AT&T is "unlimited." The idea is that you're not setting an arbitrary number, you're incentivizing your employees to work hard when they're here and thus be able to take time off when they need/want to and to use plain old good judgment in determining when enough is enough.

It sounds good on paper but all it takes is one bad apple either on the HR side or the employee side. Probably works better in an at-will state like TX. I'm interested in doing something like this but I'd still be careful about calling it "unlimited." It's just "limited by your workload and output and not limited by a fixed number of days."

[drshdw]

Originally Posted by cBach

My company has unlimited vacation time from day one. Yes, unlimited, within reason.

Unlimited I feel like is actually bad since usually you're more busy at work and it's hard to break away without feeling guilty for the rest of the team, etc. But if you're at a company that actually lets you have a good work/life/vacation balance, that's great!

[OpenD]

Originally Posted by Aquitaine

This is a newer policy that some businesses are trying (mine included).

IBM has had that policy for years.

[drshdw]

Originally Posted by Trainwreck20

My wife's company is similar, I guess, but she gets NO holidays, but like 6 weeks of vacation/personal leave (maybe more?). Anyway, all of her time off is in one big pot. She works for a very large company and time-off benefits tend to be better there anyway.

I am guess your situation is relatively rare, though, when compared with most jobs .

I got lucky with my company. We don't have separate sick leave but we do get I think 10 days of holidays which is another 2 weeks

[mickey65]

Where I work, you get one week after a year and two weeks after two. But you don't get the whole week after the year - you get increments of time on each pay period. I guess that all saves the company money if you get let go - so they don't have to pay you for extra time not used.

[Aquitaine]

IBM has had that policy for years.

Netflix made the WSJ front page when they implemented it and it was touted as new. I'll cop to ignorance of IBM's vacation policy if the WSJ will.

[Trainwreck20]

What is nice about my wife's is that they do not want you to claim partial days for time off - if you go to the Dr. or go run and errand, do not count it as vacation. Ofc, in her work she easily makes up that time (salary position) anyway, so it is not really a 'give me', but I work on billable hours, so any time I take off pretty much has to be accounted for.

[OpenD]

Originally Posted by Aquitaine

Netflix made the WSJ front page when they implemented it and it was touted as new. I'll cop to ignorance of IBM's vacation policy if the WSJ will.

I guess WSJ doesn't read FastCompany or Time or any of the other publications which mentioned IBM in their articles about the new Netflix policy.

Here's what CNN Money said... "But this isn't merely a flash fad for startups. IBM (IBM, Fortune 500) is said to have had flexible vacation time for every employee since 2003. People who work for the company simply give their supervisors a heads up, but otherwise, take time off when they want it. And Best Buy (BBY, Fortune 500) has a similar policy involving its workdays: Instead of tracking the hours employees work, the electronics company has implemented what it calls a "results only work environment," where workers are measured on achievement alone."

[cBach]

Originally Posted by Aquitaine

Netflix made the WSJ front page when they implemented it and it was touted as new. I'll cop to ignorance of IBM's vacation policy if the WSJ will.

The policy is actually smarter financially for a company than the accrual method. In the old method, vacation days accumulated, being treated as a liability to the company, as if you were laid off, they had to pay you the accumulated time not taken.

With the new policy, there is no accrual, thus no liability. So when layoffs occur, there is no payout which is cheaper for the company to "right" size. The company can lock down during busy times and relax during quiet times. For instance, I had to take time off during those fires in Steiner last year. It was unscheduled and if I was at another company, I would have had to use vacation days for that. But with this method, nothing was lost. I took a few extra days off, I got my stuff in order, and the company never had to accrue any liability.

[JayBrown80]

Originally Posted by crashoran

I've been offered a job, but they will not allow ANY vacation during the first year. After 1 year of employment I'm eligible to use 2 weeks. I've already been working with them for 3 months through a temp agency, and they want me to come on full time.

Asking me to go 15 months straight without any time off is unreasonable, do you agree? I don't know if I should dump this and begin my job search somewhere else, because this is ridiculous. They did tell me I could take unpaid days, but that kind of defeats the purpose of taking a vacation..

As a temp, you knew you did not qualify for benefits/vacation time...so I wouldn't really count those 3 months into the 15. There was no expectation of time off.

As a temp that they are now offering full time work too, you should count your lucky stars........I have several temps working under me that would love that opportunity. Not every temp gets hired on.

In this economy, I wouldn't throw any job away. You can take time off if you want, you just don't get paid. You are not being treated differently from any other employee.....I just don't see the problem. A year is not that long to go without vacation.

But if you want to quit and try to find another job, go for it. Some other temp will get your job and be grateful. Shrug.

It's really a personal choice you have to make. We don't live inside your head. Either you can live with 15 months of working, or you can't. Even if everyone on this board said "That's highway robbery!" your company isn't going to change their policy. You have to decided if YOU can live with it...we can't help you with that.