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Ask HN: What is your company's maximum vacation (at one time) policy?

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Re: Ask HN: What is your company's maximum vacation (at one time) policy?

#61

I believe in NL, there is also a minimum : each employee should at least have a 2 week vacation, uninterrupted, each year.

Same in Poland, although it is often not enforced in practice.

I forgot to mention : this is also a very effective policy to uncover fraudsters.

Re: Ask HN: What is your company's maximum vacation (at one time) policy?

#62
post #7

No limit, except the 6 weeks vacation a year. This is in Germany though so YMMV. I usually take a long 3-4 week vacation, 1-2 weeks over Christmas, and the rest of the days I use to make weekends longer going camping, skiing, climbing and hiking.

The internet suggests that in Germany it is up to the employer when employee holidays are taken. For example, if the business wants to shutdown over Christmas, it is well within its rights of that business to have its employees take holidays at this time. The minimum number of holiday days must be taken by the employees over the course of the year, but when the employer says it is acceptable to. As such, there seems…

I don't think it's incorrect, but from my experience it applies more to factory jobs. They'll have a 2 week shutdown in summer, and a 1-2 week shutdown over Christmas. Everybody has to take vacation then, which sucks in terms of traffic and flight prices.

My employer does officially close on some days on Christmas, but you are allowed to work from home (if you have a job where home office is possible).

Re: Ask HN: What is your company's maximum vacation (at one time) policy?

#63

Sounds illegal in the UK. Workers are legally entitled to have 5.6 weeks ( https://www.gov.uk/holiday-entitlement-rights ). ps. I have a tool to help workers get the longest possible vacation. Am I allowed to publish the link here?

When you wrote "help workers get the longest possible vacation" I thought of the trick of padding or extending vacation days. Taking vacation days on both ends of a holiday but not in the middle since they are mandatory days off anyway. At some companies employees with seniority abuse that trick. They use vacation days before and after statutory holidays so it works out to be one long vacation. They often do this whe…

In Ireland and in the UK is not uncommon. Some friends use 2 or 3 vacation days before or after public holidays and end up with 7 or 8 days off and they are not abusing their "powers"

Re: Ask HN: What is your company's maximum vacation (at one time) policy?

#65

I'm from the US, and I've never worked for a company that regulated a limit. You only had to check with HR first & ensure you weren't negatively impacting your projects. Sounds to me like your company got burned by someone taking advantage of their PTO, then overcompensated with this rule. If your other coworkers aren't happy about it either, band together and bring it up as something to talk about. Explore other sol…

All the coworkers bargaining for benefits with management like a group? That sounds like a union (not that it would be a bad thing).

Re: Ask HN: What is your company's maximum vacation (at one time) policy?

#67
By Swedish law we are allowed to have 4 uninterrupted weeks of vacation during July/August, my company doesn't care and if I wanted I could take even my whole 6 weeks at once.

Or even more, I could get my 6 weeks and negotiate some more unpaid vacation days if/when needed, I know people who took 3+ months off for personal projects.

Re: Ask HN: What is your company's maximum vacation (at one time) policy?

#68

Sounds illegal in the UK. Workers are legally entitled to have 5.6 weeks ( https://www.gov.uk/holiday-entitlement-rights ). ps. I have a tool to help workers get the longest possible vacation. Am I allowed to publish the link here?

When you wrote "help workers get the longest possible vacation" I thought of the trick of padding or extending vacation days. Taking vacation days on both ends of a holiday but not in the middle since they are mandatory days off anyway. At some companies employees with seniority abuse that trick. They use vacation days before and after statutory holidays so it works out to be one long vacation. They often do this whe…

Do people consider this abuse? I go home over Christmas to see family, it's a complete no brainer to use about 5 days holiday and get 2 weeks off. Though my holidays don't interfere with anyone else's, I can see why that would frustrate others if they did.

Re: Ask HN: What is your company's maximum vacation (at one time) policy?

#70

Interestingly, in terms of vacation I found banks to be better than technology companies. I have worked with two of them and both had instituted a policy where employees were compelled to take at least 2 weeks of leave. If not, upper management got involved and started asking question about work pressure. My last job was at a technology company. While there was no limit of vacation time, the unsaid rule was to limit…

Financial companies often require two week vacations to keep fraud down - if you're not there to cover your tracks then it will be exposed.

The FDIC recommendation: https://www.fdic.gov/news/news/financial/1995/fil9552.html

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