There are a growing number of companies (none I’ve ever worked for), that are offering “Unlimited PTO”. Often this comes at the elimination of specific vacation time, sick days, etc.
Certainly, employers are going to have a number in mind before they will consider this an abuse, that will eventually get you a talking-to and possibly fired. Maybe I’m wrong. I think it could possibly be even counter-productive, since they employee doesn’t know what that number is, they might even take LESS time off than if there were established numbers.
Is “unlimited PTO” legit? If you have it, does it feel special?
Yeah, unlimited PTO seems like a kind of Jedi Mind Trick.
If there’s a set number of PTO days, then you kind of feel entitled to that number of days. Two weeks paid vacation every year, and you take two weeks paid vacation every year.
But if there’s no number of days, just “don’t use too much”, maybe the number you’ll end up taking is zero, because that’s the expectation.
Yes, it is a joke. I have worked in companies that use this model. And all the concerns you raise are completely valid.
In the companies I worked for, it was used as a way of not having to carry unused vacation days on the books as liabilities. It’s completely a cost-cutting measure on the part of the company. They rely on the employees to take less vacation than they would if they had a defined amount to take, and most employees do that. And they don’t have to pay you anything if you don’t take all your accrued days.
yup it is a way of removing financial liability from their books. In most states, but not all, accrued vacation time must be paid out at the termination of employment.
I have read that this has a similar psychological effect to the restaurants that charge “whatever you consider reasonable”. People concerned that they will lose their jobs/look cheap will take less vacation time or pay more than they would in a fixed rate system.
I’ve heard of “unlimited PTO” companies that are like that, but I have also heard of (and worked for) “fixed amount of vacation” companies that are also like that. How scorned people who take vacation are is part of the culture of the company, orthogonal to the way PTO is handled.
Average PTO I used to take when I had a 5-week accrual each year: 5 weeks.
Average PTO I take now, after I was transitioned to “unlimited:” 1-2 weeks. And even those have become tough to defend against intrusions.
It’s certainly somewhat company culture that’s at play, but it’s also the change from “I have earned this time off” to “I would like some time off.” One is far easier to navigate than the other.
I know of one firm that eliminated accrual of paid time off in favor of an unlimited time off scheme. In truth, no one ever used all of their accrued time off because they had client demands to meet and minimum billable hour requirements. It was common to forfeit two or three weeks of vacation per year. When work was slow, it was still hard to take time off because even though client demands were lower, staff needed to be there to do any work that might come up to meet billable hour minimums.
Shortly after the firm changed its policy, it began to lay people off. Those people were not entitled to payment for unused vacation time because the firm no longer owed anyone any vacation.
Evil joke. Where I worked last there was a cap on accrued vacation. One way of justifying taking time off is when you’d start to lose vacation time when you bump up against the cap. With unlimited PTO this doesn’t happen and one would wind up with no good excuse.
But I think the real reason is reducing the liability. I’ve worked in places that declared a mandatory vacation around July 4 to force people to burn vacation time to improve the books.
People laugh about “the government is here to help you” but “your company is looking out for you” is a much bigger joke.
These days the rule of corporate survival is: if something looks like a gift, you’re losing something again. In this case, you’re losing freedom. “Take as much time as you need, but we’re watching your production. Oh, and by the way, here’s a 50% increase in your workload. But work/life balance is important to us, so take all the time you need. And remember we’re keeping an eye on your production.”
So sick of the fucking games. It’d be refreshing if they’d just get honest and say, “OK Inigo, time for your cockmeat sandwich”. Because that’s what new, superficially cool management ideas always end up being. Cockmeat sandwiches dressed up to look like reubens, or BLTs, or cheesecake. Never forget you’re just a greasy little cog in the capitalist machine, and you’ll only ever spin as fast and as long as they let you.
Similarly, a place I worked at transitioned us from having separate Vacation, Sick and Personal days to “Flex days”. The end result was we went from have 24 days off a year to 20 (they also took away several Holidays in the same transition beyond the lost PTO).
As mentioned, employees no longer feel entitled to PTO they have earned (which brings a certain “I am justified” peace of mind,) but rather, now have to timidly ask for PTO and are afraid of asking for too much.
This would create tremendous resentment among employees who do take little PTO and work hard, if some other employees freeload the system for all it’s worth and go on 3, 5, or 7 months of PTO.
I think most folks do direct deposit, so we’re not that far behind. But apart from having some nice things, why on earth would you presume the USA is anything like the ‘developed world’? The trend here culturally is in the other direction and has been for decades.
Unlimited PTO means that the company has done away with the standard 2-5 weeks of vacation/sick time that people accrue over the year and replaced it with a “reasonable” amount of time off that you take at your discretion. The problem that the employees encounter is that there is no official definition of how much time you can take off without getting into trouble with HR or your boss. “Jim” might have a nice boss that lets him take 3-4 weeks off throughout the year while “Peter” gets crap from his boss anytime he asks for even a day off.
And it tends to be “as long as you get your job done” - which if the demands are reasonable, means you can take time off - and if they aren’t, means any time off at all is going to reflect badly on you.
My husband has “unlimited PTO” - but he also has a set of metrics he needs to budget in to meet every year. You aren’t going to meet the metrics if you take eight weeks off unless you are some sort of superman. But you can meet the metrics if you plan ahead and take three or four weeks off. Plus it also means he has a flexible schedule - at 3:00 today he took off for the gym. But he was working until 8pm last night getting something out the door. He can also work from anywhere, so sometimes he works from vacation - taking a few phone calls (client calls are one of the metrics) and spending the rest of the day on vacation.
The vacation scheme I prefer, because I think it offers the most flexibility while encoraging the employee takes time off and keeping the employer from taking advantage of it is that you can carry over one week every year - and all other accrued vacation gets paid out on your last paycheck for the year.
Correct. My former employer transitioned. The culture was such that 1) everyone was afraid they were going to lose their job due to reorganization, and 2) no one felt comfortable asking for time off, or was allowed to take it if they did ask. Consequently, the company carried a huge fiscal line item of accrued debt.
After the transition, no one gets any time off and no one has their safety net of getting X weeks of accrued PTO if they get unexpectedly made redundant.
It’s a way for companies to carry less financial risk at the expense of the employees. The European model is much more sensible. Nava we have had electronic deposit for decades. I’m not sure who you worked for. Maybe they were trolling you.
I’m curious as to what types of companies / industries people work in. I’ve worked in a variety of companies so I’ve seen a fair bit of difference between how companies treat time off in practice.
Tech companies seem particularly egregious. Like god forbid you take a few days off of working until midnight and on weekends trying to catch up with some horribly mismanaged project. And of course, Big-4 accounting firms, investment banks, and big law firms expect you to work 100 hours a week with no time off.
But a lot of big companies I’ve worked with, in spite of how much people bitch about “long hours” or PTO, they seem to jet our at 5:00 and go radio silent whenever they have scheduled time off.
It may have been the “monthly” part that was more prominent. We have a few clients who do payroll monthly, but not many. Considering that you are always paid in arrears, that’s a long time to wait for your money if you’re living paycheck to paycheck. The obvious answer to that is that Americans in general take on comparatively more responsibilities for their money such they are less likely to be able to adequately handle them. Consumer culture and all that.
