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Netflix Announces Its New ‘Unlimited’ Maternity and Paternity Leave Program

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Re: Netflix Announces Its New ‘Unlimited’ Maternity and Paternity Leave Program

#71

Post by resu_nimda »

dglass wrote: post #53

I don't get all the backlash in these comments around the "unlimited" policies. Do any of the people opposing the unlimited policies have them in place at their own company? I've had unlimited vacation at my last two companies. I've seen it abused as my previous employer but it's worked out great at my current job. I'm not "peer pressured" by my other coworkers like everyone here seems to think I would be. As long as…

I'm not "peer pressured" by my other coworkers like everyone here seems to think I would be. As long as I get my work done on time my manager let's me take a day off here and there for a long weekend.

The peer pressure is usually not explicit, it's implied by the ambiguity of the policy and the (unknown to you) true expectations from management. How do you know that your vacation time isn't secretly being counted against you? What if other people aren't comfortable taking it because they want a good performance review? This was definitely happening at the mid-size enterprise shop I used to work at where they couldn't wait to jump on the Unlimited PTO fad because they knew people would end up taking less. It's definitely anti-employee unless the company aggressively demonstrates that it's ok to take as much PTO as you like. With a more definite PTO policy, you don't have this issue as much.

Plus, it's just dumb and kind of insulting. It's not "unlimited," everyone knows that. Just set a reasonable policy so people don't have to guess.

Re: Netflix Announces Its New ‘Unlimited’ Maternity and Paternity Leave Program

#72

Post by patmcguire »

ghughes wrote: post #16

I'm highly suspicious of "unlimited" vacation or leave policies because the line between reasonable and not is still there, it's just way less visible and ultimately arbitrary, depending on your management chain and workload. I can't wait for this fad to die. Let's just have generous, well-defined leave policies that don't put the onus on the employee to figure out what is OK and what isn't. "Experience shows people…

There might be a parallel with credit: Back when the maximum credit card interest rate charged in many states was limited to 18%, credit card companies tended to charge right at that, whereas when it was unregulated the interest was lower. [1]

You can look at a vacation cap as the same thing, where having a cap really can cause people to use more than they would if it were just whatever they could negotiate.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_ceiling#Price_ceilings_t...

Re: Netflix Announces Its New ‘Unlimited’ Maternity and Paternity Leave Program

#73

Post by InclinedPlane »

ghughes wrote: post #16

I'm highly suspicious of "unlimited" vacation or leave policies because the line between reasonable and not is still there, it's just way less visible and ultimately arbitrary, depending on your management chain and workload. I can't wait for this fad to die. Let's just have generous, well-defined leave policies that don't put the onus on the employee to figure out what is OK and what isn't. "Experience shows people…

It's a tool, which can vary in effectiveness depending on how it's used, which ultimately ties into corporate culture. Unfortunately, I suspect that in isolation an unlimited vacation policy doesn't generally promote a healthier corporate culture so it's not as advantageous as it may seem.

Re: Netflix Announces Its New ‘Unlimited’ Maternity and Paternity Leave Program

#74

Post by baudehlo »

danudey wrote: post #49
caoilte wrote: post #10

Unlimited leave policies encourage employees to self-police and conform to peer pressure. At a place like Netflix I can imagine the result being that people end up taking less than the industry average. A better gimmick would be if Netflix picked one of the Nordics and announced that they were going to adopt all of the social policies provided by that country's government.

> I can imagine the result being that people end up taking less than the industry average The industry average in the US is abysmal though. Yahoo 'doubled' theirs to 16 weeks, which is 1/3 of Canada's (and many other countries') legally mandated minimum. Taking double the industry average would still be abysmal by global standards.

It's a shame that canada has a better mat/pat leave standard but such a terrible (same as the U.S.) vacation standard.

Re: Netflix Announces Its New ‘Unlimited’ Maternity and Paternity Leave Program

#75

Post by dglass »

mullen wrote: post #30

This is dumb. As others have pointed out, all it does is use peer pressure to decide what the "proper amount" of Paternity Leave is. Netflix is probably such a pressure cooker that when people need to and want to take Paternity Leave, they won't take it for fear of upsetting the group and losing their jobs. Managers will abuse it just to keep productivity up. Want to be a progressive company? Clearly define how long…

"Netflix is probably..."

All you're doing is speculating. If people don't like these policies then they have the power to leave.

Re: Netflix Announces Its New ‘Unlimited’ Maternity and Paternity Leave Program

#76

Post by MaulingMonkey »

abhorrence wrote: post #65
haswell wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Working at a SV company that recently instituted an unlimited vacation policy, I can't agree more. This is probably an indication of other issues, but half of the team didn't realize there was a new policy, one team lead thought the guidance was "generally, this means about 3 weeks", the manager thought "generally, this means about 2 weeks", the actual policy states "generally, this means about 4 weeks". It apparentl…

"not having PTO on the books" inherently makes it an anti-employee policy, since the employee no longer will receive anything upon leaving. In theory it could come out better for the employee, because they may get more vacation time than they would otherwise, but my experience has been that unlimited vacation means less vacation.

> since the employee no longer will receive anything upon leaving

Even when it replaces non-reimbursable PTO (i.e they already would not recieve anything), it feels lame.

Re: Netflix Announces Its New ‘Unlimited’ Maternity and Paternity Leave Program

#77

Post by jms703 »

relix42 wrote: post #68

I've seen quite a few reactions to the Netflix unlimited PTO policy that are similar to the reactions to the new Maternity and Paternity policy. Many of these opinions are the likes of: * "I'm suspicious of this." * "No one takes any vacation at Netflix because of this." * "Unlimited == None" * "Peer pressure means that everyone works 52 weeks a year." * "Without a PTO policy you can't cash out unused vacation. This…

Thanks for posting this. I work at a place with a similar policy and in my experience, it's exactly as you describe.

Re: Netflix Announces Its New ‘Unlimited’ Maternity and Paternity Leave Program

#78

Post by jms703 »

mullen wrote: post #30

This is dumb. As others have pointed out, all it does is use peer pressure to decide what the "proper amount" of Paternity Leave is. Netflix is probably such a pressure cooker that when people need to and want to take Paternity Leave, they won't take it for fear of upsetting the group and losing their jobs. Managers will abuse it just to keep productivity up. Want to be a progressive company? Clearly define how long…

I don't think you know what you're talking about. As one who works for a company with an unlimited policy, I'm enjoying it, taking full advantage, and am getting things done.

Re: Netflix Announces Its New ‘Unlimited’ Maternity and Paternity Leave Program

#79

Post by Cadsby »

ars wrote: post #38
omarforgotpwd wrote: post #2

"With this in mind, today we’re introducing an unlimited leave policy for new moms and dads that allows them to take off as much time as they want during the first year after a child’s birth or adoption" Ah, unlimited for a year. So no taking 30 years off after your child is born then.

> So no taking 30 years off after your child is born then. That's simple - just keep having children. Time it right and you can take off permanently for decades.

And yet virtually no ones does this.

Re: Netflix Announces Its New ‘Unlimited’ Maternity and Paternity Leave Program

#80

Post by abalone »

relix42 wrote: post #68

I've seen quite a few reactions to the Netflix unlimited PTO policy that are similar to the reactions to the new Maternity and Paternity policy. Many of these opinions are the likes of: * "I'm suspicious of this." * "No one takes any vacation at Netflix because of this." * "Unlimited == None" * "Peer pressure means that everyone works 52 weeks a year." * "Without a PTO policy you can't cash out unused vacation. This…

> I take more vacation now than I did when I had 2/3/4/5 weeks a year

So, does that mean you take more than 5 weeks per year?

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