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Some of you people seem to work in very strange places. Are you not held to performance standards? Why would you imagine that taking excessive leave under such a policy wouldn't impact that? Is your workplace full of children and slackers?
I think it shows a great deal of trust that the people they hire are thoughtful, mature and committed to the work. Not clockwatchers.
Presumably crappy employees who abuse the system, any system, are weeded out. No?
I worked for an airline and we were allowed to “shift trade” ( give away hours to another employee) up to 50%
of our scheduled shifts per quarter. Add travel benefits and it was the perfect storm for taking vacations or mini vacations at will. Your shift was covered so your team didn’t suffer. We had a lot of part time employees who were always hungry to pick up hours so getting the time off wasn’t a problem. Bedsides free to almost free travel we got 50% off hotels and rental cars, and 75-90% off on places like Club Med and Sandals vacation destinations. As long as you abided by the shift trade rules, management didn’t have a problem with it.
They didn’t even enforce the 50% rule... Rested and relaxed employee made for good and happy employees.
Last edited by Sydney123; 04-16-2019 at 02:27 PM..
Unlimited vacation policy?!? I've never heard of that. How about vacation 365 days a year? Sounds like that would be possible. LOL. Sign me up!
I first heard about it a couple of years ago. There was a Stanford University study about it (finding all or mostly positives) which led to a bunch of west coast based companies starting the trend. Now I cannot find the study anywhere.
What work obsessed society? People in the US average less hours/week now than ever before in history.
Yes, I think we are work obsessed. Take for example France in which a woman gets unlimited days with her infant for maternity leave. I'd have given anything to be have been able to spend time with each of my beautiful babies. I believe they also have a 32 hour work week.
I'd give anything to have, not even unlimited, but adequate time off.
I had a job where the day was 8-4, and most didn't even follow that (I did- had too much work), and would work more like 10-4. Further, we got a ton of holidays where business was closed, and then 20 days off each year. I had way more than a normal share of work for my job title, so I would sometimes work from home to get it done. But it sure was nice when the market exploded and I was trying to buy a house to be able to rush out of the office and go see a house before someone put an offer, or to see my kids' sports or music competition, or family reunions. Do you think on our death beds we will be saying "thank God I worked 60 hours a week for 40 years", or do you think we will be saying "I sure wish I had gotten to see my son's first steps or state championship game rather than giving my life away to that company"
Some of you people seem to work in very strange places. Are you not held to performance standards? Why would you imagine that taking excessive leave under such a policy wouldn't impact that? Is your workplace full of children and slackers?
I think it shows a great deal of trust that the people they hire are thoughtful, mature and committed to the work. Not clockwatchers.
Presumably crappy employees who abuse the system, any system, are weeded out. No?
The disadvantages of an "unlimited vacation" policy has nothing to do with performance standards. Employees that resign do not get to cash in their unused vacation time. Nothing to do with performance. Employees who don't take much or any vacation time cannot cash in their unused vacation time. Nothing to do with performance. Well performing employees who are too afraid to take any vacation time because they will be perceived as slackers has nothing to do with performance.
And that is the issue. What is taking excessive vacation time and what is not, since it is not specifically defined? A thoughtful, mature, and committed employee cannot read the employer's mind to see what is acceptable in this newfangled "unlimited" and deceptively named vacation policy. And if the employee guesses wrong, he or she may get in trouble. It was wrong to give this vacation policy the inaccurate "unlimited" moniker. Perhaps the intent was to weed out clockwatchers who carefully keep track of their vacation time and fully use it, to not worrying about taking any vacations and just working hard and being committed to their work. Since an employee is committed, why is there a need to take a vacation in the first place? Just work hard, be committed, and don't worry about taking vacations. Yes, work hard, while a grinning employer watches you work under an "unlimited" vacation policy.
I think we are a work obsessed society, and are extremely unhealthy because of it- physically, mentally, spiritually. That said, if there were unlimited vacation, I feel it would be of great benefit. When one is handcuffed to a desk for 9-12 hours a day, aside from the physical disease, mentally, no one can focus on work that long--> note I am playing around on CD now!
An employer will only get about 5-6 hours of quality, focused work out of 9-12 hours, so why not maximize their return?
If there were unlimited vacation, employees would work 5 hours or so, go to the gym, their kids soccer game, make dinner, then maybe work a little more at home. Employees could be wherever they want in the world, work 4 hours, hike or sail or ski for 4 hours, and work a little more.
Both employers and employees would get more out of it. Further, employees would not be x-ing days off their calendar until their vacation, or retirement, completely checking out mentally on that last day or week before leaving or after returning.
The current system of what, 10-20 days off per year within 60 hour work weeks is sad, antiquated, unhealthy, oppressive, and unproductive.
Not true...ask your employer's tax folks. There are limits to working while on vacation if you're in another jurisdiction. For example, a colleague of mine absolutely CANNOT work (can't even check email) when he's visiting family in India. It comes down to where a company may have to pay taxes based on where its employees are located when working.
Yes, I think we are work obsessed. Take for example France in which a woman gets unlimited days with her infant for maternity leave. I'd have given anything to be have been able to spend time with each of my beautiful babies. I believe they also have a 32 hour work week.
And they pay for it, in the form of much higher taxes to take care of that social safety net. I'd rather have more of the money I earn in my pocket.
I guess I've only worked in pretty lean shops where every body was needed. If one person was out for the day, the rest of us had to take up the slack for that absent employee's day of output, which could mean as little as a skipped lunch or as much as missing the planned attendance to our child's recital in order to stay late and finish a required task.
while unlimited vacation for one worker sounds lovely for the one person able to take off from work, and may work in some businesses, one wonders how the coworkers contend with added work load when a worker decides to take off for an unlimited time period?
Exactly, it is an accounting gimmick that is sold to employees as some great benefit for them. I ran the numbers for a company that was considering this, the data indicates that when an unlimited vacation policy is in place, employees will take less time than they would under a flat rate policy.
It is not a "gimmick". It is an approved accounting method that removes the vacation liability from the balance sheet.
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