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Why vacation at tech companies should be mandatory
31–40 of 52 posts
Re: Why vacation at tech companies should be mandatory
#32At 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. I…
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Re: Why vacation at tech companies should be mandatory
#33At 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. I…
Numbers like 26 and 39 vacation days tell me that you are not in North America.
Over here we are talking about 10-15 vacation days per year.
Re: Why vacation at tech companies should be mandatory
#34The companies are doing it to decrease liability on some accounting spreadsheets. If you really care about staff you improve work life balance, pay competitive rates, spot and remove dumb managers and assholes. Sorry but 2 weekss mandatory vacation is not going to help much, on the contrary it might make someone angry when forced to take time off when the company is slow, not when a poor dev wants to actually go some…
I didn't see anything in article about forcing you to take time off when the company is slow. In fact this seems to contradict one of their goals, to make sure the systems are maintainable without you.
Re: Why vacation at tech companies should be mandatory
#35At 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. I…
Numbers like 26 and 39 vacation days tell me that you are not in North America. Over here we are talking about 10-15 vacation days per year.
Well, in EU you have fixed vacation days _usually_ and you MUST take it, so it is possible that it is just a really good company in US
Re: Why vacation at tech companies should be mandatory
#36At 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. I…
Numbers like 26 and 39 vacation days tell me that you are not in North America. Over here we are talking about 10-15 vacation days per year.
Well it depends. A lot of startups have very flexible vacation policies. At my current job I took a 2 week vacation for the christmas season within my first three months on the job. I have a coworker who goes on 3-4 10-14 day long snowboarding trips per year. Our lead developer just took a month long vacation to France. The vacation policy is essentially that there is no vacation policy. You can take quite a lot of time off if you want, as long as you've been handling all your responsibilities and you give enough of an advanced warning to your team members.
Re: Why vacation at tech companies should be mandatory
#37At 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. I…
Numbers like 26 and 39 vacation days tell me that you are not in North America. Over here we are talking about 10-15 vacation days per year.
Why would a small American startup not give generous vacation to its employees?
Re: Why vacation at tech companies should be mandatory
#38Am I the only one who wasn't really aware of the fact that people feel guilty about taking their vaccation days? I am working in IT since 2007 and I always felt that I needed much more vaccation then I got and I never felt bad about taking my vaccation. But it is perhaps because I come from a workers family and worked as a heating engeneer and on an assembly line before my IT career?
While negotiating a higher salery my boss told me that he wasn't able to meet my expectation moneywise and asked what I would like to have instead, a new computer, phone, etc. I took a extra week of vaccation days instead.
Don't get me wrong, I liked the job, it was interesting and I made good friends there, etc. but nothing beats a week abroad meeting new people, partying and so on.
And btw. yesterday I started at a new company, and I'm going on a 2 weeks vaccation next month already, nobody seems to have a problem with it.
Re: Why vacation at tech companies should be mandatory
#39I 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 is currently transitioning from ~25 employees a year ago to ~50 now. When I was interviewed last year, the policy was that there was no vacation policy. By the time I was hired a few weeks later, that had changed to a maximum 10 days of vacation a year. They used the argument of 'it leads to people taking less vacation' to justify their new abysmally small policy. Of course, if that was their true intention, then they would implement a minimum vacation policy. But that obviously isn't the case.
Re: Why vacation at tech companies should be mandatory
#40I get the point that we need to take vacations. I really enjoy mine, and I try to take at least 3 small-ish vacations during the year, plus a big one.
Having said that... making them mandatory? We're adults, we should act like them.