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Travis CI: From Open to Minimum Vacation Policy

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Re: Travis CI: From Open to Minimum Vacation Policy

#111

Post by walshemj »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #3
sportanova wrote: post #2

Of course the other reason for 'unlimited vacation' is so when an employee leaves, the company doesn't have to pay them for unused vacation days. Huge red flag when a company has 'unlimited vacation'

... unless you just take vacations normally. Then perhaps you have already taken your vacation when you leave, and the company is out that work. It cuts both ways.

err no in that case you normally reduce your final check pro rata ie if you leave half way through the year but have takeb 75% of your leave you owe the company and vice versa

Re: Travis CI: From Open to Minimum Vacation Policy

#112

Post by encoderer »

Someone1234 wrote: post #30

I've said it before and I'll say it again, unlimited days off (or "open") and zero days off are identical. If you have unlimited vacation people are inclined to take less and people respect the vacation you take less ("as you can always take more!"). Here's a study[0] (PDF) called "Overwhelmed America: Why Don’t We Use Our Earned Leave?" It is biased (travel association) but interesting nonetheless. According to this…

At Trulia we have an unlimited vacation policy and it really does work for us. People routinely take extended, foreign trips of two or more weeks. This year I will be taking 4 weeks off in total, 2 on proper vacation and one week each with my family and my wife's.

So take this as an anecdotal data point. Oh, and come work for Trulia, we need great iOS and Android engineers desperately.

Re: Travis CI: From Open to Minimum Vacation Policy

#113

Post by exDM69 »

delluminatus wrote: post #72
hedwall wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your normal pay + $1000 or just $1000 ? In Sweden you actually get a ~12% higher pay during your vacation.

Do you know why? Is it just to encourage people to take more vacation time?

I don't know about Sweden but in Finland we get a nice bonus after you come back from your vacation.

This was introduced because in the 1960s and 70s a lot of skilled workforce (several %, tens of thousands of people) emigrated to Sweden, in particular to work for Volvo, Saab and other industries. Workers had their full (4 weeks or so) summer vacation and then left for Sweden, where they were offered a house, a car and a relocation package.

This pattern kept repeating for a few years, so to counter the wave of emigration, the after-vacation bonus was introduced.

Re: Travis CI: From Open to Minimum Vacation Policy

#114

Post by AndrewKemendo »

vosper wrote: post #103
Someone1234 wrote: post #30

I've said it before and I'll say it again, unlimited days off (or "open") and zero days off are identical. If you have unlimited vacation people are inclined to take less and people respect the vacation you take less ("as you can always take more!"). Here's a study[0] (PDF) called "Overwhelmed America: Why Don’t We Use Our Earned Leave?" It is biased (travel association) but interesting nonetheless. According to this…

I think one of the most important points in the article is that forcing people to take vacation, and encouraging them to be completely unavailable, means that the company must learn how to survive the absence of a team member. It forces you to reduce the bus-factor, and this is critical. I ask my team members to take at least 20 days off per year (we also have an unlimited vacation policy) and I'll be using this argu…

How do you do this without creating a bloated organization?

For example if you have 20 team members and expect for 2 to be gone for some kind of vacation at any point. When all are at work you have a 10% inefficiency.

I wonder if it would be more effective to have have stretches of intense work (4-6 months) with long rest periods (1-3 months) between. This would minimize the operational switching frequency, though it would take longer probably.

Re: Travis CI: From Open to Minimum Vacation Policy

#115

Post by chton »

organsnyder wrote: post #80
chton wrote: post #50

"We tried something that didn't fit our culture, and it didn't work." Taking less vacation time is not necessarily a bad thing. For myself, not having to meet a minimum quota means I enjoy the vacations I do take more, since I take them when I need and want instead of mandatory ones. It means, as long as I'm feeling good, I can keep the momentum up. The bigger problems is that employees didn't respect others' vacatio…

What you're proposing is unlikely to work in many environments. Even in the best of environments, where trust and respect course through every coworker interaction, people will still be looking to their coworkers (especially their superiors) to get a feel for how much vacation time is acceptable. In fact, companies with exceptionally strong cultures may be worse, as people really won't want to be a burden on their co…

I definitely agree that people in any form of leadership role serve as an example. They do on many more things than just vacation time. In general, that's one of the ways to influence culture, by being the best example of it. Conversely, if you don't act as an exponent of your own culture, it breeds a "do as I say, not as I do" atmosphere, which is just as negative as not trying to fix your culture.

I also agree that people will look at their colleagues to know what is 'acceptable'. I don't now if that is inevitable. If it is, that makes the example roles all the more important to guide that. If your president would take more vacation time and worked the same hours as everybody else, the pressure on you would be lifted. I realize that might be difficult for her to do, but that is the effect it has.

My problem with forced vacation time isn't the lack of work, it's that I don't need it. I already pay close enough attention to my work/life balance, so when I do take vacation time it's on my own terms. Being forced to meet a quota just means it feels like I'm wasting days that I could be productive doing the things I'm actually being paid for.

Incidentally, since I've become a freelancer my vacation time that I actually want to take has gone up a bit. The situation is far simpler (either I'm working and I get paid, or neither), and not having to go through any official process or multitude of forms, means it's much easier to take the occasional day when I want it.

Re: Travis CI: From Open to Minimum Vacation Policy

#117

Post by johnward »

jimktrains2 wrote: post #91
sportanova wrote: post #2

Of course the other reason for 'unlimited vacation' is so when an employee leaves, the company doesn't have to pay them for unused vacation days. Huge red flag when a company has 'unlimited vacation'

And how you accrue vacation at a company. I gain something like 6 or so hours every 2 weeks. Before I started I let them know of something I needed to be at in my first few weeks and their response was "That's OK, you can just do unpaid time". Other than not paying me if I leave mid year, what other reason could there be for crap like this?

Yeah I don't understand this one. If you're going to give someone 4 weeks off (which is extremely generous in the US) just give it to them at the beginning of the year.

Some places let you take the vacation before you accrue it but if you were to quit before earning enough to cover the days you've taken you owe the company money.

Re: Travis CI: From Open to Minimum Vacation Policy

#118

Post by walshemj »

TillE wrote: post #38
jbb555 wrote: post #33

very good. Except "now has a required minimum of 25 (paid) vacation days per year, no matter what country they live in." Well no. If they live in the UK for example they have a mandatory limit of 28 days not 25 because it's the law.

But is that an enforced minimum? Is an employee required to take that many days off work? Because that's the distinction being drawn here.

In the UK you cant normally be forced to take leave its up to the employer how they handle overages some have use it or lose it some allow a carry over.

Apart from the finance industry where for some staff I think its mandatory for anti fraud reasons to take at least a two week block.

Re: Travis CI: From Open to Minimum Vacation Policy

#119

Post by vidarh »

vonmoltke wrote: post #99
shawabawa3 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I get 28 days off per year in the UK, which is around the standard amount. 28 is the legal minimum in the UK, however that includes bank holidays. You probably actually have 36 including bank holidays

It is also worth pointing out that the American posters are only referring to discretionary vacation time. Most US companies have eight or so fixed holidays in addition.

In Europe we very rarely count public holidays in vacation time - you can generally assume that most of the numbers listed in this discussion from Europeans is discretionary vacation time that comes in addition to 8 (UK) to 15 (Finland) or so public holidays (though not all countries mandate time off or time in lieu for public holidays).

I'm in the UK, and have 25 days discretionary holiday, plus 8 days of public holidays

Re: Travis CI: From Open to Minimum Vacation Policy

#120

Post by johnward »

izacus wrote: post #20
butwhy wrote: post #12

Why do companies even try out these weird policies? They've gone from having unlimited days (then admitted it was a mistake for 2 whole years) and are now blindly trying out another unusual strategy. I don't see why they don't just offer a standard solution which seems to work for most companies, instead of trying to be extremely controlling of people.

Uh, having 20-25 (almost mandatory) days of per year is implemented by law here in most countries of EU. How is that a "wierd" policy? (By "almost mandatory" I mean that at least here, you must use up your vacation days until end of next year.)

In the US that's weird because the mandatory days off per year are 0. A good amount for most people in the US is 10 days per year (or two weeks). I get 4 weeks which is pretty great but many of the people I work with end up not taking all of those days or taking days and also working on them due to culture. It's ridiculous.
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