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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

#121

Post by ernestipark »

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…

The biggest part of unlimited vacation is really the culture of your company. If your company is filled w/ workaholics who look down on taking time off, it won't work. I'm an engineer at HubSpot and we have an unlimited vacation policy and for my team, it works great. Everyone is great about taking time off, we are happy for people when they do, and everyone gets their work done and is responsible. Everyone trusts each other on the team and things work out fine.

More than the sheer # of days for vacation, having the flexibility to take a day off to hang with the kids or make a spontaneous trip to Iceland (happened for some coworkers) is pretty awesome.

I actually just went through my calendar and counted about 31 vacation days. I'm surprised I took so many but never did I feel like I was shorting my team in any way and felt any guilt for it. This includes a 10 day trip to Europe and basically all of Christmas -> NYE off.

Most seem very skeptical and cynical of unlimited vacation, but it's more about the culture than the policy itself.

Re: Travis CI: From Open to Minimum Vacation Policy

#122

Post by smackfu »

CalRobert wrote: post #74
oakesm9 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is 2-3 weeks off a normal amount of time in the US? I get 28 days off per year in the UK, which is around the standard amount.

Outside tech (which is dripping with privilege) it's common to have 0-2 weeks of vacation in the US. There is no legal minimum, and I've had jobs offering 0, 1, and 2 weeks of vacation. In some cases you can take time off and simply not be paid for it.

>Outside tech (which is dripping with privilege) it's common to have 0-2 weeks of vacation in the US.

I have to disagree. Maybe outside of white-collar work. But "tech" is not all of white-collar. Most people who work in offices for big companies get good vacation time.

Re: Travis CI: From Open to Minimum Vacation Policy

#123

Post by johnward »

microtonal wrote: post #21
javery wrote: post #5

We have an unlimited vacation policy at Adzerk and I try to lead by example by taking at least 2-3 weeks off a year (especially in the summer). We also try to encourage everyone to take at least one solid week off a year and it seems to work pretty well. I think that's the real issue with unlimited policy - if the leaders don't take vacation no one else thinks they can.

Two or even three weeks seems very unhealthy to me: - You need a longer break to seriously disconnect: at least two weeks. - Around Christmas/New Year you probably want to be around family and friends: one week. - At least a week distributed over the year to do something fun with your kid, visit that distant friend, etc. Maybe it's because I come from Western Europe, where getting 5 weeks (25-30 days) off in total is…

Some people in the US get no paid vacation at all and work on public holidays.

Re: Travis CI: From Open to Minimum Vacation Policy

#124

Post by johnward »

wahnfrieden wrote: post #85
padobson wrote: post #27

If I worked somewhere that had an unlimited vacation policy, I think I'd probably stop working on Fridays all together. An unlimited vacation policy could be an open invitation for a 4-day work-week (or 3 day or 2 day...)

It's expected that you don't abuse the policy. While what constitutes abuse may be a line that needs elaboration, making your standard work week 2-3 days under this policy is not a gray area.

Which is exactly why these policies suck. It's "unlimited" but it's implied that you don't take too many days. It's like the comcast of vacation policies.

Re: Travis CI: From Open to Minimum Vacation Policy

#125

Post by chton »

rmc wrote: post #102
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…

> That is, to me, a sign of an unhealthy culture. Fix that before trying yet another vacation experiment. And one way to fix it is to give everyone lots of paid time off.

Is it? People will still feel guilty when taking time off, and it's possible that forcing people to take time off means the vacation time will be even less respected. "I won't bother that person, they'll need the time" vs "they're just making sure they meet the quota".

Re: Travis CI: From Open to Minimum Vacation Policy

#126

Post by jedc »

byoung2 wrote: post #45
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…

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.

Full Contact does the same thing: employees get $7500 to go on vacation, but only get it if they actually go on vacation.

https://www.fullcontact.com/blog/paid-paid-vacation/

Re: Travis CI: From Open to Minimum Vacation Policy

#127

Post by ahuth »

dragonwriter wrote: post #104
ahuth wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We should have no sympathy for 'balance sheet' or accounting reasons for anything. Regardless of how much vacation time is on the books as a liability, the company's cash flows are exactly the same.

> 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 is zero impact on the the company's business. Value is not effected at all.

Re: Travis CI: From Open to Minimum Vacation Policy

#128

Post by mackey »

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…

As someone who works for a company that offers unlimited vacation, I don't think its as cut and dry as you make it, although I see where you are coming from.

I think the success of unlimited vacation really depends on the company, your manager, your peers, and you. That is a lot of things to get right, but if everything works out, I think unlimited vacation is really great. At least for my team, I think everyone shares the feelings that vacation is important, and people are good about taking it.

As you say, I do end up taking a lot of random days off, but that is in addition to longer vacations. I think thats the real advantage to unlimited vacation (when done correctly). If I want to take a random day or two off to take care of a backlog of errands, I just do it without a second thought. I don't have to worry about all these randoms days eating into my 1-2 week trips I have planned in the spring or fall or the 2 weeks around the christmas with my family.

Having said all that, this is my perspective and I am sure that there are probably people even within my own company that don't feel this way. The idea of a minimum policy sounds interesting. I wonder if that would lead to some people taking less because its tracked, but with other people taking more because they don't feel pressure not to.

Re: Travis CI: From Open to Minimum Vacation Policy

#129

Post by vidarh »

turnip1979 wrote: post #11

Genuine question: how do companies/teams that run services deal with peak vacation periods? E.g. Christmas holidays. Even if everyone wants to take the last two weeks of the year off, you have to have someone keeping the lights on. Also, what happens if a high priority problem comes in? Are the team leads/managers careful not to schedule work around the holidays?

Many companies in Europe pretty much shuts down during christmas period and often during specific weeks during the summer. You'll have a skeleton staff to deal with operational issues etc., but that's it.

Some key people will typically need to take turns taking time less time off in some types of companies.

Re: Travis CI: From Open to Minimum Vacation Policy

#130

Post by smackfu »

turnip1979 wrote: post #11

Genuine question: how do companies/teams that run services deal with peak vacation periods? E.g. Christmas holidays. Even if everyone wants to take the last two weeks of the year off, you have to have someone keeping the lights on. Also, what happens if a high priority problem comes in? Are the team leads/managers careful not to schedule work around the holidays?

Year-end change freezes are common in anything oriented at businesses.

In general, busy vacation times are claimed as first-come / first-served. It seems like that would screw some people, but in practice, it usually works out, since the only people who want to take the whole holidays off are people who are travelling, and that is generally 50% or so.

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