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Our Vacation Policy: Take Some

blogs.balsamiq.com

41–50 of 120 posts

Re: Our Vacation Policy: Take Some

#41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

28 days is the minimum in the UK.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_statutory_minimum_emplo...

Re: Our Vacation Policy: Take Some

#42
post #11
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.

This is how my company works too, and I think it's a great idea, assuming that the culture isn't one where people are belittled for taking vacations. If the culture causes people to feel a complex about taking time off, people will just resent the policy. Personally, I really enjoy the flexibility it affords, and it's quite a golden handcuff when I think about leaving to find another job. Looking at job descriptions…

3.5 weeks? Sheesh, I only get 2 weeks at my current job. One week gets used up throughout the year for random errands, kids school stuff, that sort of thing. That leaves one week to actually take a vacation, and this year we just skipped it all together because about the time the kids were out of school my work got really busy.

Re: Our Vacation Policy: Take Some

#43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

In his profile, rimantas mentions he's in Vilnius.

Lithuania is impressive. Not only are there the 13 public holidays, workers with a child under 14 get an extra week. Now that's how you prevent population decline! So that's five weeks plus two-and-a-half work weeks in holidays.

Well played, Lithuania. I wonder what worldwide correlations there are with minimum vacation days. Gapminder unfortunately doesn't include that dataset.

Re: Our Vacation Policy: Take Some

#44
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.

I often think that you should track vacation but track it against a minimum. Some talented folk actually need forcing out of the building.

When I worked for a bank there was some old law that forced bank employees to take one whole week of vacation at the same time (something about having enough time to audit them if needed, from back in the day when it would take that long to audit an employee). It was actually kind of nice, because you knew that you were going to be off for a week, so you planned your summer vacation around that.

Re: Our Vacation Policy: Take Some

#45
post #23

For policies like this, your company culture and the examples leadership sets are going to dictate exactly how something like this, or anything else not explicit, is followed. If leadership often takes vacation and doesn't do more than basic email checking, if that, then employees will feel comfortable doing the same and enjoy this policy over your standard "you accumulate 5 hours of PTO per pay period." If leadershi…

It's about the size of the company and quality of the communication between the management and team.

If your dialogue was better with the CEO then you wouldn't feel that way or just ask him/her easily.

Re: Our Vacation Policy: Take Some

#46
I love the spirit of vacation policies like this. Your results are far more important than how much time your butt's in a seat at the office.

My only problem with it is that (at least in the US) you're not accruing vacation time. So when it comes time to leave the company, you're not going to get any sort of payout for that.

I can't speak for everyone, but I can speak for myself and the people I've observed in various companies and startups: we don't take much vacation time. I don't believe I know anyone who has cashed out their time off in companies that have traditional policies.

So, in my case, while I like Balsamiq's vacation policy better, it has turned out that the traditional style has been a better deal for me.

Re: Our Vacation Policy: Take Some

#48
post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is how my company works too, and I think it's a great idea, assuming that the culture isn't one where people are belittled for taking vacations. If the culture causes people to feel a complex about taking time off, people will just resent the policy. Personally, I really enjoy the flexibility it affords, and it's quite a golden handcuff when I think about leaving to find another job. Looking at job descriptions…

3.5 weeks? Sheesh, I only get 2 weeks at my current job. One week gets used up throughout the year for random errands, kids school stuff, that sort of thing. That leaves one week to actually take a vacation, and this year we just skipped it all together because about the time the kids were out of school my work got really busy.

Yeah, that's something you in the US really need to fix. The EU Working Time Directive gives Europeans the right to 5+ weeks (and in professional jobs this has been standard practice anyway).

Re: Our Vacation Policy: Take Some

#49
This will also depend on the type of job. Programmers - sure, lots of different things work. We're a weird breed.

But your secretary HAS to be there every day from 8-5. Your phone and email customer support service people HAVE to be there during a specific set of hours and rotate in an organized way, and have set vacation times that don't overlap, etc.

When it comes to this kind of stuff with employees, it's always going to be tricky. There's always going to be exceptions to the rules.

Where I choose to work, I would personally like someone to tell me I have 2 weeks a year of vacation, and 1 week of sick time, or something to that effect.

For hours per week that I work, I would like that to be based on accomplishments, and NOT based on how long I'm sitting in my chair. I can spend 3 hours dwelling over a stupid problem, walk away for the night, show up in the morning and realize I misspelled a single variable.

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