Unlimited Vacation Policy: the flip side of flexibility
‘œNo vacation goes unpunished.’ ‘“ Karl Hakkarainen
These days, many companies are experimenting with what is described as an unlimited vacation policy but career writers are asking if this is nothing more than corporate-speak for no vacation at all.
Marci Alboher at Shifting Careers gives these details:
One of the trendy perks at progressive companies is unlimited vacation time. The pitch is that responsible adults are capable of managing their own time so why not allow them to decide which hours and days to work as long as the work gets done. It’s yet one more way that the employed are starting to resemble the self-employed.
She points readers to this article in The Boston Globe Magazine that contemplates if this policy is really such a good thing. At first glance, it rings of work life balance, but does it actually result in people taking less time off?
I’ve worked at companies that offered unlimited vacation time and I prefer having the number of weeks noted upfront in my employment contract. After all, when you have a set number of vacation days, it gives you permission to really take them.
But an article in BusinessWeek thinks vacation policies are antiquated:
Counting days and hours is a holdover from the industrial era that makes no sense for information workers who can do their jobs without being at their desks at set hours, proponents of such changes say.
The tethered 24/7 connection to work brings up another great point. Here a Microsoft employee calls it unlimited time off with a side order of guilt by asking this question:
What would you rather have, unlimited vacation time with your laptop riding shotgun or a set amount of vacation time when you are seriously expected to be out of the office?
So is unlimited time off becoming a best practice for HR? Some argue this perk helps attract and retain motivated workers. Consider the Gen Yers who are known for not wanting to punch a clock and therefore expect more vacation time upon entering the rat race.
I doubt as Americans, we’ll ever get the same vacation time as our European counterparts, but do you think this trend is helping? Or is it creating the opposite effect? Please share your comments and experiences below.
Photo credit: stock.xchng.
It was my experience that I had to be a lot less private, which I wasn’t comfortable with. With set vacation days there is a no questions asked policy (even if it’s just an unwritten rule). However, with unlimited vacation I found a lot of questions being asked and I found myself having to justify the time off with my answers. Not cool. Especially since my unlimited vacation time was also unpaid. Overtime pay always funded my time off. When I eventually went salary and had a set number of paid vacation days given to me rather then the unlimited I wasn’t happy with that either because I felt like I caged animal. But I did enjoy the perk of guilt-free and completely unjustified time off. I hope for a happy medium to this in the future. By the way, I am freelance now and spending an entire month overseas. I found my own happy medium.
I wouldn’t want to be an early adopter of this. My company offers a fairly generous bank of Paid Time Off to use as you wish…no faking sickness just to get a day. “Unlimited Vacation” sounds like a way for the boss to call whenever, including weekends. Not cool.
And if you have a team reporting to you, you want to know when they are going to be out in advance. PTO helps alleviate unanticipated absences because most responsible adults plan ahead. With unlimited vacation, figuring who I had to do a project and when would be way more difficult.
I have “unlimited” vacation, and it means zero vacation, for sure. I have taken three days off so far. I worked Christmas Eve.
The only upside is that it does bode well for situations that command some compassion. One of my co-workers had cancer, and the company looked the other way for a whole, whole lot of vacation. He eventually quit, but I can’t say it was the company that made him.
Angela: I find the privacy part to be really interesting. Glad to hear you found your happy medium.
Chicago Rob: I understand your reluctance to jump on this bandwagon. Spelled out — in writing still seems like the best policy.
DogAteMyFinances: Unlimited vacation = zero vacation! HR types of the world take note… this does not sound like a perk.