I absolutely agree. My last and current employer both offer unlimited vacation. For whatever psychological reason, I find myself taking less vacation than I did when I was _earning_ it at my McJob for the rate of 6.33 hours every month.
If you are such an employer, please consider setting a realistic expectation of what is an appropriate amount of time-off. If there really is no limit, then please consider more intensive training with regard to your company's culture .
I've been at places where a switch to "unlimited" would basically mean : You no longer have a number you can point to and say "I'm owed this many days of vacation time."
Fortunately, at my current company, when we switched to "unlimited" there was an added "and you're expected to take a minimum of 3 weeks per year". So, while the upper bound is still completely nebulous, by setting a reasonable minimum, it's clear they're not just trying to screw anyone over.
We had a similar debate at dotCloud when the team discussed the appropriate amount of vacation. Unlimited was very tempting, but in the end we decided against it because 1) it's ambiguous and offers little guarantees, 2) it makes a lot of people suspicious ("Like AT&T unlimited?") and 3) it doesn't force people to take vacation.
Number 3 was the worst. Passionate people will burn themselves out if you don't setup some sort of "vacation monitoring". We liked the idea of making that explicit: lots of vacation, and rules that force you to use them regularly.
In the end we went for 2+1 weeks on the first year, and 3+2 weeks after that.
Sorry, forgot to explain. 3+2 means "3 weeks accrued over the year and usable anytime, 2 weeks of company-wide break (specifically the weeks of thanksgiving and christmas)". The decision to do a company-wide break probably deserves a thread of its own. The short version is that it works great.
Yes, that's what it means, with the exception of support and on-call rotation.
Let's face it: american companies are not productive over thanksgiving and christmas. They just pretend to be. By making these 2 weeks vacation, we simply embrace reality.
So... First year folks are 2+1. So does that mean on the week or Thanksgiving (or Christmas) you guys are like "See 'ya newbies, we'll be back in a week."?
Or maybe the 2+1 was for the first year you were a company, as opposed to individual's tenure?
Yes, that's what it means :) We've put this in place for 2 reasons:
1) The 1st year at dotCloud is a big step for us, and a lot of people didn't make it in the past. Making it means that somebody has truly proven his worth (since he or she wasn't fired) and has adapted to our unusual culture (since he or she didn't resign). By attaching perks like this to the anniversary, we emphasize its importance.
2) We don't want people to join for the vacation. We take a lot of breaks because that's what intense, hard-working people need to avoid burnout. But the majority of people on the job market are not hard-working and intense enough for our standards - we're hoping this will help us filter for them.
Good question, there are special arrangements for support and 24/7 on-call rotation (eg. if you have to work during the company break you get vacation days). It's also very easy to trade on-call days with colleagues, and other ad-hoc arrangements.
I'm not 100% certain this would work in a bigger company where people think of it as "just a job". But in a small team where everybody is passionate and eager to make it successful, it works great.
I think it really depends on the culture of the company.
At Heroku, we are actively encouraged to take vacation. There has actually been talk of building something to track employee vacation time, to ensure that everyone is taking enough :)
That's not how it really works out at Heroku. Our managers and vibe team really push us all to take at least a few weeks (3-4) off per year at a minimum. That's important because we all love our work so much that we work hard the rest of the time.
I think his point was that there's some unwritten upper bound, like say, 16 weeks. Would be easier to just tell me what the upper bound is, so I can take that, rather than under utilize my vacation days or offend the unwritten rule.
It is a pain in the butt to file paperwork as an employee and do all the accounting as a business. I know of another company that got rid of vacation days for this reason, and it seems nobody regrets it.
Even though one might take comfort in a de jure number of vacation days, frankly, it seems to me that if one exists in a toxic culture when it comes to vacation no amount of policy is likely to make the situation much better. In the pathological case, it gets lost entirely from over-accrual or turned into a cash payout.
Another way to look at the vacation day policies is they are mostly a reflection of the work/vacation culture, not the cause of it. And in that respect, such a strategy makes it harder to evaluate an employer's gestalt attitude towards vacation. Too bad it comes with a bitter pill of accounting work for all involved.
For what it's worth: Heroku is my current and has been for a couple of years, and I take vacation, and have been reminded to do so. I'd say about 25 days/annum. I've not kept count, but I can think to some of the bigger-ticket travel making up most of that, so if there is a mis-estimation it is not vast.
They don't want you to think in terms of "fully utilizing" the vacation days available to you, like you're squeezing vacation days out of the system, trying to take all you can. Take what you need to be happy and productive, then come back. I'm guessing they know this is tricky, even for people trying to be honest, and are trying to make it work anyway.
I work at Heroku. Some people have taken several months off, personally I haven't (yet). After seeing how passionate they are at work, I totally trust all of them. Sometimes to rest, sometimes to get a better perspective, if they take that time off it's because they certainly feel they need it.
I work at Heroku and have never had pushback on taking vacation. Our CTO just took a month sabbatical. Sometimes I work on weekends and take some weekdays off. Whenever i'm in the (coding) flow I just do what feels right and Heroku let's me do that.
Agreed. What I've seen happen is the company becomes destructively divided into two camps: Those who have a slightly too healthy work-life balance and take liberal amounts of vacation, and those who have a tendency towards work-aholism, take little vacation, and grow to resent the first group as a result.
What works much better is to just decide on what's an acceptable amount of vacation, say 3 weeks, and tell everyone that's what they get; take it or leave it.
