We have 25 days holiday per year for everyone. You are expected to take them and I will be following up on that too.
Are you able to put them between weekends?
Why vacation at tech companies should be mandatory
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Re: Why vacation at tech companies should be mandatory
#22I agree, the motto of 'we don't have a vacation policy, just take time off if you need it' creates usually the wrong sort of culture and dynamics, leading to guilt, etc. Lack of clarity around expectations is commonly a source of anxiety and stress. Whenever possible I encourage that people take 1 week off per quarter.
My employer does this, I don't mind it. I took a whole month off last year as a block.
As an employee, what you should do is actually take their statements at face-value, but I acknowledge that this may be harder for entry-level guys.
Re: Why vacation at tech companies should be mandatory
#23Swede here. I got 27 days paid vacation, not counting Saturdays and Sundays, so five weeks plus two days. Plus all the national holidays. Am I right if I understand this post as two weeks is almost an exception for Americans? If that's the case it's really saddening.
Re: Why vacation at tech companies should be mandatory
#24I've met a lot of people who are proud to be "the only one who knows how to do X" where X is something very important to the company or software product.
They seem to think this makes them extra-valuable to the company. But I think the common perception of others is that the "valuable" employee is actually always a constant bottleneck and thus a source of pain. "We can't do X because Timmy is at his kid's soccer game for another hour...ugh."
If you think that if you took time off "everything would fall apart", you might want to consider how others perceive that situation.
(Personally, I've always automated what I could and trained backup people in what I couldn't, and it''s worked out well for me. And I get to take guilt-free vacations. :)
Re: Why vacation at tech companies should be mandatory
#25We have 25 days holiday per year for everyone. You are expected to take them and I will be following up on that too.
My manager will chase me up if my vacation time is going unused (e.g. I get 1/2 way through the year with less than 1/4 of my vacation used) and ask me what my plans are for using it.
Getting to the end of the year without using it all up is considered poor planning by the employee and poor management by the manager.
I get 27 days (on top of the UK public holidays). So I try and have a week per quarter, plus an extra week around Christmas/New Year.
This is in the UK, but I had the same thing with an enlightened manager when I was US based.
Re: Why vacation at tech companies should be mandatory
#26At my last employer (a small startup), we had very clear vacation rules:
- Every week, you track the hours you worked (honor system- we just filed out a spreadsheet). - You’re expected to work X - 4 hours a week on average (X being a normal work week, 4 being the number of vacation hours you accrue per week).
So, if you work X hours a week, you’ll find yourself with about 26 days of vacation at the end of the year. If you work long hours for a few spots and find you averaged X + 2 hours a week, you end up with 39 days of vacation. You could use your hours whenever you want (and even go negative if you didn’t get too crazy).
It set clear expectations, showed that people were expected to take vacation, and made everyone feel like they were entitled to their days off, rather than guilty. I thought it was pretty neat.
That said, we dismantled the system about 6 months after I joined because although most of us didn’t mind the hour tracking, a few people really disliked it.
Re: Why vacation at tech companies should be mandatory
#27Swede here. I got 27 days paid vacation, not counting Saturdays and Sundays, so five weeks plus two days. Plus all the national holidays. Am I right if I understand this post as two weeks is almost an exception for Americans? If that's the case it's really saddening.
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Re: Why vacation at tech companies should be mandatory
#28I was really impressed by my current company's 60 vacation days per year until I realized that included weekends.
So if you work 7 days a week, you can take off two full months a year?
Re: Why vacation at tech companies should be mandatory
#29I would love to hear if any other companies are doing the same thing or considering it, and from anyone who works in banking and has to take mandatory time off. Reddit comments here: http://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/1zglqs/mandator... .
Most companies in Europe will do this (although with 5+ weeks). They tend to be mostly competitive. It is a bit hard to understand why US tech workers put up with not having this.
It's not that developers don't have paid vacation. Most companies have at least 2 weeks, and a lot of tech companies give unlimited.
Rather, it's a culture of working which discourages you (but doesn't prevent you) from taking that vacation.
Re: Why vacation at tech companies should be mandatory
#30Swede here. I got 27 days paid vacation, not counting Saturdays and Sundays, so five weeks plus two days. Plus all the national holidays. Am I right if I understand this post as two weeks is almost an exception for Americans? If that's the case it's really saddening.
I agree, if it's true is very sad