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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

#191

Post by Tenhundfeld »

johnward wrote: post #117
jimktrains2 wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

This doesn't detract from your main point, but...

4 weeks off is not necessarily "extremely generous." It depends on whether that includes holidays.

You might say that of course vacation days don't include holidays, but I know of several small tech/biotech companies that just give X total days of paid time off, usually 25-30. You can choose to take those PTO hours on holidays or not, which is more flexible I suppose.

However, depending on the state and industry, there are 10-15 normal holidays every year. So, that 4 weeks off might really only equal 1-2 weeks of vacation, not so generous.

Re: Travis CI: From Open to Minimum Vacation Policy

#192

Post by darkarmani »

ahuth wrote: post #127
dragonwriter wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We should have no sympathy for 'balance sheet' or accounting reasons for anything. I don't see what sympathy has to do with it. The state of the balance sheet is a concrete concern for investors, and therefore for companies seeking investors, independently of whether you have sympathy for it or not. > Regardless of how much vacation time is on the books as a liability, the company's cash flows are exactly the same.…

Sympathy may have been a poor choice of word. What I meant was: accounting considerations should not have any bearing on how companies treat employees. Especially when the 'accounting' is not something that actually affects the money coming in/out of the company. The liabilities may matter to investors, but that doesn't mean that they actually affect the business. If I have all of my vacation days left or none, there…

> The liabilities may matter to investors, but that doesn't mean that they actually affect the business. If I have all of my vacation days left or none, there is zero impact on the the company's business. Value is not effected at all.

That's completely untrue. If you are billed out at some rate X, then having 2 weeks of vacation coming up this year directly impacts future value vs having 0 vacation days. That's X * 2 * 40 hours of future value. It affects value in the same way that any debt affects value.

Re: Travis CI: From Open to Minimum Vacation Policy

#193

Post by gambiting »

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.

No, you are not required to take them,but if you don't the company has to pay you the full amount for those days(so in effect, if you don't take ANY holidays during the year, you will get an additional 1-month's salary at the end).

Re: Travis CI: From Open to Minimum Vacation Policy

#194

Post by evanpw »

I don't think I see a single negative comment here about long vacations, so allow me to play devil's advocate. (These questions don't necessarily reflect my own opinions.)

1. If this is such a free lunch (employees are both happier and more productive overall), then why isn't lots of vacation offered everywhere (in the US)? Can it really be the case that the vast majority of US companies are too short-sighted to make a policy change that would be in their own best interest?

2. If, alternatively, more vacation is really good for employees, but slightly bad for employers, why doesn't the labor market adjust? In this case, you would expect employees to offer to work for a lower salary in exchange for more vacation time.

Re: Travis CI: From Open to Minimum Vacation Policy

#195

Post by nekopa »

qeorge wrote: post #65

Another upside is forcing the company to learn to run without its founders or other key employees for a meaningful period of time. This forces good processes to be put in place, and is an excellent fire drill in general.

Talking fun, I think it would be fun for a company to run a bus factor fire drill from time to time -:just point to one employee and say "Bam! You're hit by a bus, leave the office now here's $2K, come back next Thursday. No email, no remote working and no phone contact with anyone from here."

I wonder how many companies (let alone startups) could deal effectively with this situation.

Re: Travis CI: From Open to Minimum Vacation Policy

#196

Post by saganus »

hedwall wrote: post #52
byoung2 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of these "unlimited" places have a "as long as your work gets done" policy, meaning you can take tons of short days off or afternoons off, but almost no extended holidays (e.g. travel abroad, out of state, etc). My friend works at a company with unlimited vacation and they pay you $1000 for every full week you take off.

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

As weird as it may seem, in Mexico we have the same deal, although if I remember correctly, by law we get a 25% extra pay on vacation days.

Some places use this as a benefit to lure employees. For example I worked at a place where I got 75% extra pay on vacation days.

The downside is that getting more than the minimum mandated by law (6 DAYS a year) is not that common. For example, for that place that gave 75% extra, I had I believe 10 (or 12) days a year, and it was actually above industry standard.

Edit: To answer one of the posters below, I believe someone once explained to me, that at least in Mexico, the extra pay is supposedly to make it easier for families to actually go out of town and spend money, so it becomes a factor that helps drive the economy. I.e. if you have vacations but no money, then you won't spend anything and ultimately won't take vacations. This way you get vacations and also have money to spend during those days. At least that's how it's supposed to go.

Re: Travis CI: From Open to Minimum Vacation Policy

#198

Post by AndrewKemendo »

shawabawa3 wrote: post #168
AndrewKemendo wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well the former is structural, the latter is behavioral, so there is difference in kind. Said another way, you can't get work from a ghost, but you can find incentives/realign people so they are more productive.

> but you can find incentives/realign people so they are more productive. By giving them more vacation maybe?

I was thinking more along the lines of having them do work they are interested in/care about.

Re: Travis CI: From Open to Minimum Vacation Policy

#199

Post by mhurron »

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.

Mandatory vacation is hardly weird and is recommended in several high-security jobs and industries.

Re: Travis CI: From Open to Minimum Vacation Policy

#200

Post by saganus »

encoderer wrote: post #112
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.

How big is Trulia?

I'm asking because I can imagine that vacation dynamics have a lot to do with company size. So maybe we can get a better idea.

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