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Holidays are good for workers and companies alike

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Re: Holidays are good for workers and companies alike

#2
Thankfully, the trend seems to be towards a much greater tolerance of vacation time and an increased willingness to actually take vacation. I credit the millennials for this new attitude, as their clout in the workplace gradually supplants the tedious boomer philosophy that time off of any kind is something to be avoided at all costs.

And the author makes a good point that giving workers time off can reveal things about your organization. They mention sussing out a morale-sinking middle-manager, but you could also view it is a general stress test for your team/company. It's good to know if one or two absences slow things to a halt, or if one individual is too indispensable to be gone for even a few days. After all, people get ill, injured or just quit from time to time. Better to have periodic absences be a natural part of your organization that you learn to handle, instead of crisis every time.

Re: Holidays are good for workers and companies alike

#3

Thankfully, the trend seems to be towards a much greater tolerance of vacation time and an increased willingness to actually take vacation. I credit the millennials for this new attitude, as their clout in the workplace gradually supplants the tedious boomer philosophy that time off of any kind is something to be avoided at all costs. And the author makes a good point that giving workers time off can reveal things ab…

My company gives us unlimited time off - provided your team isn't going to be left with too few people then you just stick it in the calendar. It's incredibly liberating not having to plan your holidays to ensure you stay within X days, not having to request approval etc.

Re: Holidays are good for workers and companies alike

#5

Thankfully, the trend seems to be towards a much greater tolerance of vacation time and an increased willingness to actually take vacation. I credit the millennials for this new attitude, as their clout in the workplace gradually supplants the tedious boomer philosophy that time off of any kind is something to be avoided at all costs. And the author makes a good point that giving workers time off can reveal things ab…

My company gives us unlimited time off - provided your team isn't going to be left with too few people then you just stick it in the calendar. It's incredibly liberating not having to plan your holidays to ensure you stay within X days, not having to request approval etc.

Curious, how much vacation do your peers at the company take each year? Rough guess is fine.

I ask because I've heard that "unlimited vacation" actually results in LESS vacation being taken because employees are afraid to be seen as the one abusing the system (even though taking 4+ week/year should be norm).

Somewhat related, I loathe the trend of grouping sick and vacation time into a single bucket (for those in the EU, in the US, if you're sick you have to burn leave, the concept of "you're sick, stay home" doesn't really exist).

Re: Holidays are good for workers and companies alike

#6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My company gives us unlimited time off - provided your team isn't going to be left with too few people then you just stick it in the calendar. It's incredibly liberating not having to plan your holidays to ensure you stay within X days, not having to request approval etc.

Curious, how much vacation do your peers at the company take each year? Rough guess is fine. I ask because I've heard that "unlimited vacation" actually results in LESS vacation being taken because employees are afraid to be seen as the one abusing the system (even though taking 4+ week/year should be norm). Somewhat related, I loathe the trend of grouping sick and vacation time into a single bucket (for those in the…

It's easy to not take enough vacation at companies w/ unlimited vacation. Anecdotally, most of my peers at companies w/ unlimited vacation take less vacation than traditionally counted vacation days.

I work at a place w/ unlimited vacation and take about 4-4.5 weeks per year. A big reason I actually get to take this much vacation is because our founders & senior leadership also take vacation. I could easily see a world where our sr leadership didn't take any time off and there was implicit pressure to not use vacation time.

Re: Holidays are good for workers and companies alike

#7

Thankfully, the trend seems to be towards a much greater tolerance of vacation time and an increased willingness to actually take vacation. I credit the millennials for this new attitude, as their clout in the workplace gradually supplants the tedious boomer philosophy that time off of any kind is something to be avoided at all costs. And the author makes a good point that giving workers time off can reveal things ab…

My company gives us unlimited time off - provided your team isn't going to be left with too few people then you just stick it in the calendar. It's incredibly liberating not having to plan your holidays to ensure you stay within X days, not having to request approval etc.

I have this privilege also, but I find that it's kind of a double edged sword. I can take "vacations" whenever I want, but I can't completely escape work when I do. I've had teammates do things like request a push to prod over vacation, while not mentioning that the prod database had also undergone a pretty large schema change (with no documentation!), then basically beg me to fix it because performance reviews were coming up in a few days.

Re: Holidays are good for workers and companies alike

#8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My company gives us unlimited time off - provided your team isn't going to be left with too few people then you just stick it in the calendar. It's incredibly liberating not having to plan your holidays to ensure you stay within X days, not having to request approval etc.

Curious, how much vacation do your peers at the company take each year? Rough guess is fine. I ask because I've heard that "unlimited vacation" actually results in LESS vacation being taken because employees are afraid to be seen as the one abusing the system (even though taking 4+ week/year should be norm). Somewhat related, I loathe the trend of grouping sick and vacation time into a single bucket (for those in the…

I have unlimited vacation and I clock in about 8-10 weeks a year. It isn't true vacation though, because I'm still on the hook to put out fires, and my teammates are accidental pyromaniacs.

Re: Holidays are good for workers and companies alike

#9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Curious, how much vacation do your peers at the company take each year? Rough guess is fine. I ask because I've heard that "unlimited vacation" actually results in LESS vacation being taken because employees are afraid to be seen as the one abusing the system (even though taking 4+ week/year should be norm). Somewhat related, I loathe the trend of grouping sick and vacation time into a single bucket (for those in the…

I have unlimited vacation and I clock in about 8-10 weeks a year. It isn't true vacation though, because I'm still on the hook to put out fires, and my teammates are accidental pyromaniacs.

That just sounds like you work remotely for 8-10 weeks.

Re: Holidays are good for workers and companies alike

#10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Curious, how much vacation do your peers at the company take each year? Rough guess is fine. I ask because I've heard that "unlimited vacation" actually results in LESS vacation being taken because employees are afraid to be seen as the one abusing the system (even though taking 4+ week/year should be norm). Somewhat related, I loathe the trend of grouping sick and vacation time into a single bucket (for those in the…

It's easy to not take enough vacation at companies w/ unlimited vacation. Anecdotally, most of my peers at companies w/ unlimited vacation take less vacation than traditionally counted vacation days. I work at a place w/ unlimited vacation and take about 4-4.5 weeks per year. A big reason I actually get to take this much vacation is because our founders & senior leadership also take vacation. I could easily see a wor…

That 4-4.5 weeks is less than the minimum amount of time I'm allowed to take off (not sure if it's strictly required but HR would start chasing me). Assuming weekends are taken off by default, 4.5 weeks is about 23 days, which is quite far down this list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_minimum_annual_leave_b...
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