I'm inclined to believe the claim that "unlimited vacation" was originally a way to get around having to compensate employees for unused vacation days when they leave the organization.
It's better to give a generous fixed vacation allotment - then everyone knows where they stand and what's expected of them. Maybe even combine it with conference allotment, if there are conferences your employees really want to go to, but not to staff your company's booth.<p>I get six weeks vacation per year, and therefore don't mind spending one of them helping out with a conference I love.<p>However, there are no rollover days, and my manager would catch hell from the works council if I hit November with four weeks still available for the year - unless I already had approval to take December off from earlier in the year.<p>Edited to add: I live in Germany, and my employer has a contract with IG Metall, the big metalworkers union, and six weeks vacation was part of that deal.
What are the other forms of guilt-based management?<p>Flexible working hours and/or free meals, with a work culture that has people working long hours?
I recently worked at a "no vacation policy" aka unlimited vacation company. Anecdote is not data, but here are my experiences:<p>- Like many startups, people did not take much vacation.<p>- It was probably cheaper and certainly easier for them not to reimburse you for unused vacation.<p>- When in my second year I proposed taking a second trip (two weeks off total) I could sense the disapproval. I'm a reasonably senior person and taking two weeks off a year does not seem like that much to me.<p>- Vacation was sometimes the precursor to giving notice. People knew they were leaving, so it became safe to take a vacation and then give notice at the end of it.<p>I would avoid companies with this policy.
'patio11 put it well: "Suppose your company offered 'unlimited salary'." Makes it pretty clear the social pressures that would show up.
What about the idea of mandatory vacation? If a company gives you 2 weeks, you must take it. If 2 weeks before the end of the year you have not used it, you can't come in then.
> In 2008, when you’d have been among the first companies to try [unlimited vacation]<p>Nonsense; I had this in 1997 and I think it was "far from unique" even back then.