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Holidays are good for workers and companies alike

economist.com

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Re: Holidays are good for workers and companies alike

#61

Post by ghaff »

mgkimsal wrote: post #56
ghaff wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I heard a funny story from a senior guy at one of the big Bay Area tech companies (that has "unlimited" vacation) a little while back. They apparently hired a new PR person who quit after about six months because she couldn't deal with the fact that the CEO took vacations and he really took vacations in the "I'm on vacation. Handle whatever it is without me." sort of sense. It was just so alien that it completely str…

was that the thing that really stressed her out? or was every decision second-guessed once he got back? "handle things while I'm away" isn't as easy as it sounds if you're not supported in the decisions you make.

No idea. I have no personal knowledge of the situation. However I have no trouble believing (based on personal experience) that a lot of people aren't comfortable making "executive decisions" on their own.

Yes, sometimes it's because they rightly fear potential consequences. But other times, they just don't want the responsibility.

Re: Holidays are good for workers and companies alike

#62

Post by digsy »

bambataa wrote: post #51

Something I’ve always wondered about corporate America: on Apple rumour sites and so on it’s often breathlessly reported that all staff leave has been cancelled for whatever dates. What happens if eg you’d promised to take your kids to Disneyland and had everything booked? Do you just have to lose the booking deposit and let down your kids? Why do people put up with that?

AFAIK, every state in the US is an at-will state. That means you can be terminated at any time, with very few exceptions.

So anytime the company is trying to force you to do something, you have to decide if resisting is worth making yourself an easy target.

Re: Holidays are good for workers and companies alike

#63

Post by hermanradtke »

philwelch wrote: post #20
alistairSH wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Curious, how much vacation do your peers at the company take each year? Rough guess is fine. I ask because I've heard that "unlimited vacation" actually results in LESS vacation being taken because employees are afraid to be seen as the one abusing the system (even though taking 4+ week/year should be norm). Somewhat related, I loathe the trend of grouping sick and vacation time into a single bucket (for those in the…

I worked at a company once with unlimited vacation but limited sick leave. Riddle me that.

Some states require a minimum amount of sick days that accrue on the books.

Re: Holidays are good for workers and companies alike

#64

Post by Ididntdothis »

gregspies wrote: post #10
DanFeldman wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's easy to not take enough vacation at companies w/ unlimited vacation. Anecdotally, most of my peers at companies w/ unlimited vacation take less vacation than traditionally counted vacation days. I work at a place w/ unlimited vacation and take about 4-4.5 weeks per year. A big reason I actually get to take this much vacation is because our founders & senior leadership also take vacation. I could easily see a wor…

That 4-4.5 weeks is less than the minimum amount of time I'm allowed to take off (not sure if it's strictly required but HR would start chasing me). Assuming weekends are taken off by default, 4.5 weeks is about 23 days, which is quite far down this list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_minimum_annual_leave_b...

Looking at this table the best countries in terms of leave are muslim countries. Lots of public holidays.

Re: Holidays are good for workers and companies alike

#65

Post by jameshart »

standardUser wrote: post #2

Thankfully, the trend seems to be towards a much greater tolerance of vacation time and an increased willingness to actually take vacation. I credit the millennials for this new attitude, as their clout in the workplace gradually supplants the tedious boomer philosophy that time off of any kind is something to be avoided at all costs. And the author makes a good point that giving workers time off can reveal things ab…

Interesting - similar ‘antifragility’ concept as chaos testing. Better to discover the weaknesses and dependencies of your system by inducing a failure yourself than to learn about it when it’s imposed on you by chance.

Re: Holidays are good for workers and companies alike

#66

Post by dredmorbius »

glitchcrab wrote: post #3
standardUser wrote: post #2

Thankfully, the trend seems to be towards a much greater tolerance of vacation time and an increased willingness to actually take vacation. I credit the millennials for this new attitude, as their clout in the workplace gradually supplants the tedious boomer philosophy that time off of any kind is something to be avoided at all costs. And the author makes a good point that giving workers time off can reveal things ab…

My company gives us unlimited time off - provided your team isn't going to be left with too few people then you just stick it in the calendar. It's incredibly liberating not having to plan your holidays to ensure you stay within X days, not having to request approval etc.

But is there an enforced minimum?

If not, UTO tends to NTO.

Re: Holidays are good for workers and companies alike

#67

Post by dredmorbius »

pfisch wrote: post #13
alkonaut wrote: post #4

Just shutting down for a month like many companies in parts of Europe is great. Means you don’t even have “time off work”, it means work doesn’t exist because no one else works either. You return after (at least) a month to an empty inbox.

Almost no tech company could operate like that. What would you do just shut down your services for a month? Offer no support?

Back when "Silicon Valley" meant hardware and production lines, the practice was to shut down entirely for at least a weak between Christmas and New Years, in cases two, as 1) operating the line with short staffing increased errors and costs and 2) stopping and restarting the line incurred large losses as well of material in start-up and shut-down phases.

Better to entirely curtail ops for a couple of weeks.

That tradition had largely continued to manifest even with the offshoring of wafer, disk, and chip production, through the 1990s and aughts, though it's been in a slow fade for a long time.

Service industries operate on a different clock, of course, but a scheduled downage can still be communicated.

Then there's Burning Man, when SF-SJ palpably empties out. New Years in August.

Re: Holidays are good for workers and companies alike

#68

Post by dredmorbius »

ulfw wrote: post #30
pfisch wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Almost no tech company could operate like that. What would you do just shut down your services for a month? Offer no support?

Considering the small amount of "support" some tech companies provide... I don't see an issue.

The net amount to the public may be small. The scale offered relative to the size of the companies, and within high-value niches (enterprise customers, business partners, vendors/suppliers) may be significant.

Coordinated downtime can still be an advantage. It's actually a guiding principle in CPU scheduling systems as well -- so many cycles dedicated to processing vs. overhead.

Re: Holidays are good for workers and companies alike

#69

Post by dredmorbius »

digsy wrote: post #62
bambataa wrote: post #51

Something I’ve always wondered about corporate America: on Apple rumour sites and so on it’s often breathlessly reported that all staff leave has been cancelled for whatever dates. What happens if eg you’d promised to take your kids to Disneyland and had everything booked? Do you just have to lose the booking deposit and let down your kids? Why do people put up with that?

AFAIK, every state in the US is an at-will state. That means you can be terminated at any time, with very few exceptions. So anytime the company is trying to force you to do something, you have to decide if resisting is worth making yourself an easy target.

It turns out that Montana is the odd one out.

https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/employment-at-will-d...

Re: Holidays are good for workers and companies alike

#70

Post by mistersquid »

philwelch wrote: post #20
alistairSH wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Curious, how much vacation do your peers at the company take each year? Rough guess is fine. I ask because I've heard that "unlimited vacation" actually results in LESS vacation being taken because employees are afraid to be seen as the one abusing the system (even though taking 4+ week/year should be norm). Somewhat related, I loathe the trend of grouping sick and vacation time into a single bucket (for those in the…

I worked at a company once with unlimited vacation but limited sick leave. Riddle me that.

Typically, vacation requires advance notice. Sick time is on-demand.
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