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Our Vacation Policy: Take Some

blogs.balsamiq.com

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Re: Our Vacation Policy: Take Some

#31

Post by dschobel »

rfrey wrote: post #2

The company I work for recently adopted a NetFlix style "we don't track vacation" policy. It's been about nine months, and anecdotes (no data available - we don't track!) suggest total vacation time taken is less than half of last year. I suppose that whether that's good or bad is pretty subjective.

Same here. Current employer has a "take as much vacation as you see fit" policy and people take less than anywhere I've ever worked.

I'm thinking it some genius/evil HR ploy at this point.

Re: Our Vacation Policy: Take Some

#32

Post by dailyrorschach »

balsamiq wrote: post #19

Hi all, Peldi here. Thanks for the feedback. I don't know how much vacation everyone here is taking (I could look in the shared vacation calendar we have), but I'd say everyone is taking 3-4 weeks a year, plus some more time when they take their laptop to the beach and work half-days from there. This is one of the policies that I fear might not work if we ever reach a certain size, but so far we're all happy with it.…

How does this affect your accounting and total compensation? Is there a standard minimum at all that is paid out?

Re: Our Vacation Policy: Take Some

#33

Post by Tyrannosaurs »

acangiano wrote: post #18
peteretep wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They also only last until the company hits a certain size, and someone starts taking 4 months of holiday a year, because they can. In countries where you can't easily be fired, anyway. Most stupid HR policies come about from an employee abusing the system. Come in before 9:30! No sick pay! etc etc

It's also worth noting that punishing every worker for the abuse of one, is a very common and stupid attitude. Get rid of the slacker, don't make it hell for the rest of the team.

That's great in countries with poor employee protection, but in most European counties getting rid of someone is easier said than done.

You tend to need a very good reason, backed up with evidence and, unless it's a major major thing, you need to have worked with the employee to correct the behaviour.

In a country like that a policy which states "Take some vacation" couldn't be used to discipline someone because the issue is actually that they're conforming with it a little too much?

It doesn't mean good vacation policies aren't possible though. For instance you can have flexible allowances. You get, say, 25 days as a basic allowance, you have to take at least 20, you can take up to 30 but you get charged for / paid extra for the variation from your allowance of 25 days.

That gives people the flexibility to have either more money or a very generous allowance, while still being manageable.

Re: Our Vacation Policy: Take Some

#34

Post by stel »

I worked at a small company where I was paid hourly and didn't even have paid vacation. The upside was you could take as much time off as you could afford. The downside was I couldn't afford much, though I did come into a little money from an outside project and managed to take a nice 4 week vacation. :-)

I think a hybrid of that approach could work, where you get X weeks of paid vacation and can take more as unpaid leave. That way, everyone gets the benefit of being encouraged to take a certain amount of time off, and those who want more can have it without other employees feeling like people are cheating the system. However, I asked about this at my current job and was told that unpaid leave was "strongly discouraged". I think there's also some risk of being seen as "not a team player".

But I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one who would rather have more time off than money.

Re: Our Vacation Policy: Take Some

#35

Post by mhd »

Did anyone every work for a reasonably small company (i.e. where you still feel somewhat familiar with the rest of the staff) that was

a) distributed amongst the globe

b) where just the local labor laws for vacation time applied

(Note that I'm talking about operations where you still know your colleagues in Europe/Asia/America, not bigger outsourcing operations)

Even considering the different attitudes about vacation time(^1), I'd guess that something like this would breed more envy than it's worth it. If there's a slight disparity (even 5-10 days), it would probably work out, but if one team is working in Texas, have almost no holidays, don't get any vacation time, whereas the other team is in Germany where you'll get your 4+2 weeks of holidays/vacation, this won't go down that well.

^1: We "socialists" are a pampered bunch

Re: Our Vacation Policy: Take Some

#36

Post by PonyGumbo »

rimantas wrote: post #30
chrisaycock wrote: post #10

After the rogue trader incident at SocGen, the investment bank I was working for required people to take a week of vacation at a time (HR would actually verify compliance). Employees would have to declare in advance that they were planning a mandatory vacation so IT could suspend their remote logins and disable their card access to the building.

In my country you normally get 28 days of vacations of which at least two weeks must be consecutive — that's by law.

Where are you? I want to go to there.

Re: Our Vacation Policy: Take Some

#37

Post by ben1040 »

DanielStraight wrote: post #6
rfrey wrote: post #2

The company I work for recently adopted a NetFlix style "we don't track vacation" policy. It's been about nine months, and anecdotes (no data available - we don't track!) suggest total vacation time taken is less than half of last year. I suppose that whether that's good or bad is pretty subjective.

Right. Unless you literally mean take as much vacation as you feel is right and no matter how much you take (even 4 weeks straight), we won't ask questions, then I'd rather have a specific number. For sick time, I think this is a great idea. I have unlimited sick time where I work, so I only take it when I'm really sick. It's like the saying that what gets measured gets done. The measure of legitimate sick time is no…

If it was "do you have the time" then as long as they had the time, people would feel fine taking sick time, even if they weren't sick.

Or even worse, the policy at my employer - within a given year you may take up to five of your accrued sick days no questions asked (assuming you have the sick days banked), but to use any other sick time you have, you must submit a doctors note as verification. As an incentive intended to reduce absenteeism, if you take no sick days in a given year, you're given an extra "free" vacation day usable during the following year.

What this means is that if you end up taking even one sick day during a year, you've lost your bonus vacation day. So now you may as well burn down the remainder of your five unverified days by calling in sick when you really aren't.

Re: Our Vacation Policy: Take Some

#38

Post by cynicalkane »

tsycho wrote: post #22
chrisaycock wrote: post #10

After the rogue trader incident at SocGen, the investment bank I was working for required people to take a week of vacation at a time (HR would actually verify compliance). Employees would have to declare in advance that they were planning a mandatory vacation so IT could suspend their remote logins and disable their card access to the building.

AFAIK, all the investment banks (in the US atleast) have a mandatory annual two-week vacation policy for all front-office (traders/sales etc.) employees. Furthermore, you are supposed to be totally switched off during those two weeks (no working via email etc.), the idea being that your colleagues get to see all your work to reduce the chances of you hiding something like the rogue trader at SocGen or Barings.

This is true at all major commercial banks as well, for important enough employees. The vacation is required to pass over the end of the fiscal month, just to be sure.

Re: Our Vacation Policy: Take Some

#39

Post by mhp »

Peldi, I think you're trying to do the right thing by treating people with respect and allowing them the freedom to make their own choices, BUT I think you are ignoring simple human nature and actually making their vacation time worse for them.

As others have said in the comments, in systems like this, people will take less vacation than if there were a defined plan. Because there is no defined plan, one is set by example. They look to you and to their peers. I suspect strongly that you will take less vacation than them being the CEO of the company. I also suspect that their peers will gravitate toward taking less vacation, and human guilt will be the guide.

I urge you to reconsider. Instead give them a very generous vacation policy (20 days! a whole month!) and then MAKE THEM TAKE IT! You can do that by simply telling them 'You need to take a vacation' or just have a max cap on vacation (say 40 days) or have vacation expire after 2 years (time enough to build up a nice sabbatical).

Re: Our Vacation Policy: Take Some

#40

Post by Gormo »

peteretep wrote: post #8
wccrawford wrote: post #4

HR policies that treat people like professionals and adults are refreshing. Sadly, not everyone can afford to hire only those who will act this way. It's expensive, and not always worth the cost.

They also only last until the company hits a certain size, and someone starts taking 4 months of holiday a year, because they can. In countries where you can't easily be fired, anyway. Most stupid HR policies come about from an employee abusing the system. Come in before 9:30! No sick pay! etc etc

The solution is to have consistent ways of measuring work output, so you don't have to worry about irrelevancies such as what time in the morning people are arriving or how much vacation time they take.

Meet all your milestones for the year while taking four months of vacation? You get a commendation for efficiently doing in eight months what your colleagues needed eleven for.

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