The company I work for has unlimited PTO with no minimum or maximum. I have consistently taken less time off year after year as compared to my previous job where we had fixed vacation days. I guess it probably has more to do with me not feeling psychologically safe in my current organization even though I have been here almost 5 years.
At best, the primary reasons companies do unlimited PTO is that it's just not worth it to invest in official rules and some sort of tracking system. Just say "take what you need" and move on.<p>But at worst, companies don't pay attention to the psychological impact.<p>If you're a manager or leader in this sort of environment, I suggest telling your teams something like "I consider 4-6 weeks of PTO to be a healthy amount. You should take somewhere around that. If you need to take more, I'd appreciate it if we talked about that. And if you still feel pressure to take less, let's talk about that too so I can help you feel more comfortable."<p>taking no PTO isn't mentally healthy. I've never felt like we got "more done" over the course of a year because no one took PTO. Eventually it was just burnt out employees grinding through the days.
Zizek's take on authoritarianism in a postmodern world applies:<p>> Instead of bringing freedom, the fall of the oppressive authority thus gives rise to new and more severe prohibitions. How are we to account for this paradox? Think of the situation known to most of us from our youth: the unfortunate child who, on Sunday afternoon, has to visit his grandmother instead of being allowed to play with friends. The old-fashioned authoritarian father’s message to the reluctant boy would have been: “I don’t care how you feel. Just do your duty, go to grandmother and behave there properly!” In this case, the child’s predicament is not bad at all: although forced to do something he clearly doesn’t want to, he will retain his inner freedom and the ability to (later) rebel against the paternal authority. Much more tricky would have been the message of a “postmodern” non-authoritarian father: “You know how much your grandmother loves you! But, nonetheless, I do not want to force you to visit her – go there only if you really want to!” Every child who is not stupid (and as a rule they are definitely not stupid) will immediately recognize the trap of this permissive attitude: beneath the appearance of a free choice there is an even more oppressive demand than the one formulated by the traditional authoritarian father, namely an implicit injunction not only to visit the grandmother, but to do it voluntarily, out of the child’s own free will. Such a false free choice is the obscene superego injunction: it deprives the child even of his inner freedom, ordering him not only what to do, but what to want to do.<p>You are "free" to take all the PTO you want, as long as your boss feels it is the appropriate amount, but they won't tell you up front how much is appropriate.
It's not exactly a scam, but it is a psychological trick of sorts. Unlimited sounds nice, but, of course, any employee would be fired if they started taking unlimited vacation.<p>One thing that's rarely mentioned is that for employees who accrue fixed vacation time, the monetary value of this time tends to be legally required in most US states to be paid out upon the employee's termination. I'd guess that with unlimited vacation time, $0 is paid out.
Totally a scam, it just saves them a bunch of accounting, and they know that most people who aren't forced to take use-it-or-lose-it vacation at the end of the year will just keep on working every day. Our office used to be a ghost town in December. No longer true now that we have unlimited PTO.<p>The curious thing is that it's unlimited in much the way my unlimited data plan is. With an asterisk. If you take enough time, you get flagged and it will be denied. Something around the 25 day point is my understanding from folks I know who have experienced it.
Yes it is a scam. When you leave the company they won't have to pay for your accrued vacation days. You can't take a 3 month sabbatical unless you are truly exceptional and if that's the case you're likely underpaid.<p>Edit: I'm referring to the US with my comment
One way to approach this that has worked for me is to, once or twice a year, discuss your vacation plans with your management. Tell them you plan to take a week or two off at the end of the year. Tell them you plan to take a few weeks off during the spring/summer. Discuss expectations for ad-hoc days for burnout/maintenance/illness.<p>The best thing about unlimited vacation is that it adds flexibility, but you have to seize that flexibility. If you find yourself in a culture that "offers" unlimited vacation but, in practice, rewards employees who take very few days off, polish your resume and find a better place to work.
The only way I would take "unlimited PTO" is if there are contractual MINIMUM vacation requirements.<p>Most "unlimited PTO" is, I would argue a fraud. It's obviously not unlimited for real. And it serves as a way for companies to not have to pay out unused PTO when someone leaves.<p>And "unlimited PTO" starts the whole 'how much time is too much?' and a whole lot of angst on requesting days off. And that leads to studies showing "unlimited PTO folks" take 13 days off per year, and non-unlimited take 15 days off. <a href="https://lifehacker.com/why-unlimited-vacation-days-is-a-scam-1847255661" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://lifehacker.com/why-unlimited-vacation-days-is-a-scam...</a><p>Contractual minimum PTO with unlimited policy fixes that problem.
It's not a scam if you can get away with taking a shitload of time, but otherwise 100%. The only person I ever knew who seemed to get good value out of unlimited PTO was my boss at the last job, but junior employees I talked to didn't feel comfortable enough to take a Friday off when they were moving house.
Unlimited PTO is indeed a scam. However, minimum PTO is not.<p>My company (only 1 employee, myself) has a minimum vacation policy of 6 weeks per year. This year, I’ll be using something like 8 weeks in total. Last year, I used 12 weeks. The year before, 7 weeks.<p>It literally doesn’t matter if someone takes a day off here or there because they don’t feel well (and it doesn’t matter whether it’s mental, physical, whatever). They wouldn’t be producing any meaningful value anyway. Likewise, if we’re talking about a longer period, like a burn out, forcing someone to stay and work is not going to generate happy clients.<p>I’ve seen companies force someone to work while they were grieving because they weren’t _technically_ related to the person who passed. End result? Depression, poor performance, and the employee was let go a few months later.<p>In Denmark, you can easily go to your GP and get a few months off for “stress” anyway (that’s Danish lingo for burn out). The company can still let you go I guess, and that’s fine.<p>In many places, Denmark included, whether you have an unlimited vacation policy or not, you need to keep track of the holidays and whatever. The accounting needs to be done in either case. “Minimum vacation” just improves on this because the accounting is done for a reason: to make sure people get enough rest and time off. People not taking enough time off should be a red flag. And this belief must be espoused across the entire organisation.
Usually it's a scam, and for the exact reason you gave for taking less time than in previous jobs.<p>It's one of those things that sounds great, but in practice kind of sucks. If you took PTO every day, that's obviously abusing the system, and so is taking 6 months off, and so is taking 2, etc. The ambiguity makes people not take advantage of the policy because of worries about how it'll be perceived. Plus, other people also don't take PTO, so the collective pressure is self-reinforcing.
I loved it. Took about twice the local standard off in a year, plus odd days when I was sufficiently burned out that spending the day at the computer would get nothing done. Some other people took basically no time off out of fear of judgement. Their loss.
In some places it’s a scam.<p>In other places, management mean well but are not aware that people tend not to take enough holiday with unlimited PTO.<p>Finally, some places are aware of the issue and try to do something about it. My girlfriend is being forced to take two weeks off next month for this reason.<p>If you are interviewing somewhere with unlimited PTO, it is vital that you ask them how they ensure that people take enough holiday, and reject them if you’re not happy with the answer.
Whether unlimited PTO is a carrot or a stick depends <i>entirely</i> on the company.<p>My previous employer had unlimited PTO, and it was great. My team's manager lead by example, and would take arbitrary days off just to go do something fun, and would tell us about it. We could take time off, and I can't remember a single time when a request was denied. (Obviously, the whole team can't take off for weeks on end, and there must be someone on-call, but we mostly managed it well.)<p>But I've definitely heard of companies where in practice, unlimited PTO is just a way to avoid paying out that money yearly/when you leave, and where the company culture looks down on anyone taking any time off.<p>You mentioned it yourself - you don't <i>feel safe</i> to take time off. So either your company is one of the latter, or you're psyching yourself out.<p>-------<p>Generic advice for anyone interviewing with a company that offers unlimited PTO: ask everyone you interview how much time they've taken off in the past year - that'll be your barometer for how the company treats unlimited PTO and its employees.
My pet conspiracy theory is that unlimited PTO keeps vacation time off the company books as personal time off shows up as a liability. They know people take less or about the same amount of time off either way.
"How to create a passive-aggressive vacation policy"<p>> This system provides unlimited vacation as long as everyone agrees that unlimited has another definition, a secret definition, and it is going to be discovered by the team.<p>> On paper, unlimited vacation means that you can work be employed for 90 days, and then retire, never to be heard from again. Obviously, you can’t do this or take a month off every quarter, even though this would fall under the unlimited definition.<p>> But what you actually can do without angering people becomes less clear. ... And when work gets really busy they can guilt you into not taking any time off because you can’t file PTO and feel morally<p><a href="https://badsoftwareadvice.substack.com/p/how-to-create-a-passive-aggressive" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://badsoftwareadvice.substack.com/p/how-to-create-a-pas...</a>
Unlimited time off sounds like a really nice idea, but it seems that you are not alone in your conclusions, and some companies who have paid attention to the efficacy or otherwise of the policy have had a rethink. Here's a case study by an HR software company from the UK on why they found it to be counterproductive. I found this case study whilst researching unlimited time off whilst interviewing for a job at Shopify a couple of years ago as they had such a policy (glad I passed on it, given the number of jobs they've shed since then!).<p><a href="https://www.charliehr.com/blog/we-tried-unlimited-holiday-heres-everything-that-went-wrong/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.charliehr.com/blog/we-tried-unlimited-holiday-he...</a>
Yes. It's there to keep things unspecified. If you leave the job, you're not paid out unused vacation. If you use too much, you run afoul of an unspoken rule
You've sort of hit the nail on the head. At a job where you do not have psychological safety, unlimited PTO is going to go underutilized, and so you end up with a bad deal compared to accrued/spent PTO.<p>But the unlimited PTO isn't really the root cause: the safety is. If you're working in a job where you don't have psychological safety but you're banking a fixed rate of PTO, you'll take more vacation and your job will still be draining and stressful.<p>You're better off aiming for a role/company/etc that gives you that safety, and then using whatever PTO mechanism they have there.
In general, I've always felt the same way. It's "unlimited PTO" (wink, wink), but try taking a 3 week vacation and see how much flak you potentially get from HR or upper management.<p>That said, I've found it insanely beneficial after having kids and feel really fortunate that I'm able to utilize it.<p>Between Thanksgiving break (1 week), Christmas / winter break (2 weeks), ski week in February (1 week, I live in California and have no idea why we have this), spring break (1 week), various gaps in summer camp coverage (~2 weeks), we're looking at like a month and a half of time off per year right now. It's crazy.<p>(I wish it were all fun and relaxing. It isn't!)
Definitely a scam, stop being naive or a bootlicker!<p>If you draw a curve (likely bell shaped) of employee performance, there is high probability that those on lower half will be severely pressured into to taking PTOs (if they are self aware that is). this wont be compensated by employees on performing half.<p>In fact likely the way this would be used is most people will be overloaded with work under the pretense that its normal amount of work (i.e.. counting in PTO time) & those who fail to meet obligations and take PTOs will be dinged/let-go in reviews. the fact the you get accounting & tracking benefits is just a nice icing on cake.<p>its time to call a spade a spade.
When accruing vacation time, I can point out my accrued hours and say I need to take them before they expire (every year).<p>With unlimited PTO every time I ask for days off I feel like I am asking for a favor.
I haven’t worked somewhere with unlimited PTO. That said, at least in California, accrued PTO is considered compensation and must be paid out at your current rate if you’re terminated or leave your job. This is not true of “unlimited” plans as you’re not accruing anything.<p>I’ve always felt like the unlimited thing gained popularity partially because it’s a way for the company to avoid having a liability on the books. So not a “scam”, but not done out of total benevolence.
YMMV; I actually greatly prefer "unlimited PTO." It's very convenient to be able to take arbitrary days off whenever I need to, without needing to consciously think about whether I've accrued enough credit to do so, and without needing to file the HR paperwork for it.<p>I take roughly 4-5 weeks off per year. If you're not using your PTO, that's on you, and it's not the company's fault or the policy's fault.
It's only a scam if you guilt yourself into working. I very much so enjoyed having unlimited PTO at my last job. A week off for a music festival every month through summer? Sign me up.<p>That said, we did have discussions about implementing a forced minimum time off that people were required to take in an attempt to eliminate the issue you're describing. Some people seem to need to be told to take the time off.
Nowadays, places where it isn't a scam will have an annual minimum as in you <i>must</i> take at least 2-4 weeks of vacation a year.<p>The super legit places will actually account for the liability on their books and pay out at the end of the fiscal year if for some reason you never took the minimums, which gives middle management no choice but to acquiesce or budget for it.
My current employer, MongoDB, has unlimited PTO and it's not a scam. I think I'll end up taking about 5-6 weeks this year.<p>I did ask about this when I interviewed and was told that 5-6 weeks was considered normal. Obviously, it's not really unlimited. If I tried to take 20 weeks off I'm sure that would be a problem.
No, it's not – but it can be abused. It basically just comes down to your relationships and performance at work, especially with your direct reports and/or manager.<p>Here's it working: As a manager, my reports know they don't even need to give me a reason why they need PTO – indeed, I ask them not to tell me. We have sufficient trust that I know they're going to do their jobs and won't take PTO at, say, a critical juncture. Likewise, they know this about me, and so don't abuse the unlimited PTO.<p>Here's it not working: when reports take advantage of it, which manifests in regular weekly "I'm taking the day" over and over, often in excess, and at times when it impacts their co-workers. Likewise, when managers say "I know we have unlimited PTO buuuuuut I need you come in..." and the reason given is a bullshit one.<p>Trust is reciprocal.
Reflexively, my answer is yes, but what's your definition of "scam"?<p>In particular, in California (where many startups with "unlimited" PTO are located), the laws are such that employees accrue PTO, and that PTO must be paid out upon termination or leaving the company. By having "unlimited" PTO, the company no longer has PTO on the books that must be paid out, which affects their balance sheets.<p>The other thing, of course, is that it's unlimited until they fire you. Which at a high-paced startup that very much notices your absence (low bus factor), is going to be low.<p>As you've noticed, you often take <i>less</i> time off with unlimited PTO. That's a feature (for the company) not a bug. Some more advanced places with unlimited PTO have a minimum PTO of 2 weeks for this reason.<p>Most important is to do right by you, and take more vacation!
It's mixed.<p>On the plus side, if I book out the family holidays and school holidays and and some time at Christmas and a few days for gigs or whatever, then as soon as something unexpected comes up I need to start horse-trading my days off to "balance" if I have a hard limit. With unlimited, I can just take the time for the unexpected thing without worrying about really accounting for it.<p>On the down side, it's clearly not _umlimited_. Managers talk about it in an unwritten "code" of what's reasonable. 35 days max, basically. Most roles in my industry in the UK will give you about 28 by default. So on that basis it's an extra week off.<p>This is my first year with it. I expect I'll be somewhere between 35 and 40 days by the end of the holiday year. I'm interested to hear what comes back as a result of that.
The term "unlimited" is clearly as misnomer. 4-6 Weeks seems to be the zone of acceptability.<p>1. If you are not taking enough PTO your manager should intervene and make you take some time off.<p>2. If you are taking too much time off your manager should intervene and refuse the time off.<p>3. The unwritten rule is that unless you booked it six months before, upcoming critical deliveries are not a good time to take time. Again however, this should have been mitigated by the fact it WAS booked six months ago by management.<p>That said. no-one is PTO clock watching unless its abused. It should be a self-regulating idea. You are getting work done, you and your efforts are successful then sure take the time.
It is done primarily as a benefit to the company on the accounting side to remove the vacation and sick days liabilities from their balance sheets.<p>It can also look attractive to employees, but I recall studies showing that employees take less time under these plans
Beyond the fact that it is a total scam, it also creates a lot of animosity among employees. Because there is no set limit, heck there are rarely guidelines, people often feel it's used unfairly in their teams and org.
I once worked at an organization that had a “take what you need” policy, but refused to make it any clearer than that. I never knew what that really meant.<p>My spouse’s company has an officially unlimited PTO policy. In their experience, they’ve only ever been spoken to for not taking enough, and %%Current Management%% has spoken on the record about expecting employees to take a minimum of weeks off per year.<p>Unlimited PTO seems to be squarely in the YMMV arena. I am sure some organizations have used it as a bait and switch hook, but I do not think it’s generally a scam.
It depends completely on the organization. The one I'm in it absolutely is not a scam, my first year I took 168 hours and nobody blinked, in fact (we have a policy that over 160 requires 2nd level manager approval), when I set everything up to take 159 hours my manager reached out to me an told me to go ahead and take the last day I hadn't included in that request even though it put me over 160, and it was approved the same day.<p>YMMV -- other places I've been told are not so good about it.
My experience with this is nobody cares but you. I’ve worked at company’s where managers practically forced people to take at least some PTO, and other people took 6-8 weeks a year. Neither type of person was judged for their decisions and neither have been held back. The real issue is you don’t feel psychologically safe at a job after five years…it’s either an awful organisation or you have some personal issues (e.g. imposter syndrome, etc)
Even if you have limited PTO, nothing limits you to set it in such a way can go negative. It is pretty obvious what's "unlimited" means in this case.
When a company says they offer unlimited pto, I ask what the median days off is. If they can’t produce or it’s less than 20 days, thats not good.<p>My last private industry employer gave 30 days of pto in addition to holidays and sick and disability. Since it was an accrued benefit, when I left I was paid out about 5 weeks.<p>Unlimited pto is not accrued and is not a benefit so it’s not nearly as good unless they have lots of usage.
There seems to be two different views:<p>1. Place is predatory and unlimited pto is used as a way to minimize pto employees are taking
2. Place has healthy work life balance and unlimited pto is a way to give responsibility to adults who agreed on working towards a common goal<p>Figure out which of the two your place is and act accordingly.<p>I've been at 2 places with healthy unlimited pto, so my opinion is skewed
In most organisations where I've worked, there are a number of people who have very large leave balances that have to be forced to take time off. This presumably wouldn't occur where there is unlimited PTO because there is no liability accruing.
Ask hr during the interview what unlimited translates to in practice. If they are concerned by the question asked politely then that’s a red flag to you.<p>If they don’t give an answer just say “my prior employer was unlimited and 4 weeks a year was typical, does that sound similar? Also do you need manager approval?”<p>current place unlimited = 4 weeks or more
I think the biggest problem is it should have never been called "unlimited PTO" from the get go since that is a massive misnomer. They should have called it something like "no preset PTO limit" or "use as you need" or something like that.
It takes away your right to accrue time that you can cash out when you leave the job. At worst it can be weaponized to prevent you from taking more vacation than you otherwise would, but I wouldn't assume every company does that.
Yeah, it's a scam. There's really an upper limit, but they probably won't be willing to specify what it is directly. You'll find yourself terminated if you take too much.
If it stops making sense on paper they’ll just cancel it. But I don’t think they’re consciously exploiting the self governing social shame aspect of this.
It's amazing to read through all the comments. I think of you all as more intelligent than "normal people" (Non HN readers, lol), but the amount of unabashed, unfettered bias in the replies is fascinating. The number of replies without a disclaimer like "this is just my own experience, but here's what I think..." is just amazing.<p>That's my main takeaway from this discussion. All the other points became secondary.