[HN Gopher] Less than half of us workers use all their vacation ... ___________________________________________________________________ Less than half of us workers use all their vacation days Author : mfiguiere Score : 80 points Date : 2023-04-01 20:28 UTC (2 hours ago) (HTM) web link (www.bloomberg.com) (TXT) w3m dump (www.bloomberg.com) | duxup wrote: | I used to make the schedule for a team of about 25 tech support | team members. | | It was not unusual that I would assign vacation days to people | who didn't use their vacation days and had reached the limit and | stopped accruing vacation. | | We figured assigning vacation days was better than than have them | miss out on days off / get burnt out. | | It was a good place to work, good people, the folks who just | didn't take vacation just ... didn't. They didn't mind getting it | assigned either, we always talked about it first. | ghaff wrote: | I'm sure there are all sorts of reasons including "Just not | getting around to it" and "The company can't do without me." (I | took a few month-long vacations at a former job and would have | people basically ask me "How could you do that?") | | That said I'm also known people who really just didn't care to | travel for the most part and got bored hanging around the | house. (Though in that case, the strategy should probably be to | just taking Friday's off.) | duxup wrote: | "I'd rather take vacation when the kids are in school." was | also a common request ;) I always gave them whatever | preference they had, it made scheduling easier anyway. | | Another guy just wanted to be at home with his horses and | have time off when the kids were out of school ;) | xwdv wrote: | On paper I don't seem to take much time off. | | In reality I take a lot of time off, there's days where I | literally will just report at a standup meeting and then do | nothing else, while I go off and do something fun. This is "lite" | PTO. I don't mind if I have to answer the occasional slack | message to keep up the appearance of a busy person. | | To me, reporting a day where I just don't feel like doing | anything as time off seems like a waste of a PTO day. I'd rather | use official PTO for when I travel to some place far and will | really be completely unavailable if anyone should try to reach | me. This is "deep" PTO. | zrail wrote: | Yep, and I also have regularly scheduled real PTO. Every third | Wednesday is a PTO day where I do personal projects or just | watch TV or read a book. My company has unlimited PTO and I | have no compunctions about using that to my advantage. | xwdv wrote: | Pretty cool but I don't like to tip my hand and prefer to | maintain the illusion of an impossibly hard worker. | einpoklum wrote: | When I was reading this story, knowing how US vacation/PTO is | something like 2 weeks per year or less - I was thinking: "This | is so depressing, the US is hell for workers". | | But then I got angry, and thought: "Why aren't these people | forming unions and going on general strikes? They used to do it | in the late 19th century... that's how they got the 8-hour | working day." | | And then I remembered that: | | 1. large existing US unions are often either corrupt or decrepit | | 2. US culture is horribly anti-worker | | 3. US corporations do almost everything to disrupt unionization | efforts. Years back they would do absolutely everything including | hiring mercenaries/saboteurs like the Pinkerton people | | ... so I need to cut them some slack. | | Anyway, my suggestion is to maybe try the wobblies: | | https://www.iww.org/ | scottLobster wrote: | Anecdotally, I and most of my coworkers don't typically use all | our vacation days because my company has a 300 hour accrual cap, | and it can be useful to store up a big reserve depending on your | objectives. I know some people who just maintain the cap and use | their accrual hours each month so they aren't losing anything. | tough wrote: | I guess it's a neat psychological trick like airline points | jldugger wrote: | Well, every time you get a raise they're worth more at least. | ghaff wrote: | At least with an accrual max system, you can track your time | and just start slowly bleeding it off when you get near the | cap. With use it or lose it, it's easy to get near the cutoff | date and now you have a bunch of time to use which may not be | the best use for you while the company may also have to deal | with a lot of people taking time off at the same time. | TheAdamist wrote: | My company has a 400 hour cap, and i bump along it for half the | year. | | Maybe one week of actual vacation a year, it takes time to plan | and _money_ to actually go anywhere. And then you need a | staycation after to recover from the "vacation" anyway. | | Bigcorp though. | ghaff wrote: | Totally different from my experience. But it sounds like you | don't actually like to go on extended vacations (or at least | prioritize to do so). | everly wrote: | Living in CA, I always keep a lot of accrued PTO because it is | paid out to me if/when I leave the company. It's a nice buffer | between jobs or whatever, which is more valuable to me than | multiple-week vacations. | | This is the main reason I dislike unlimited PTO policies. | ghaff wrote: | In addition to company culture, that's one of the big divides. | I've always maximized the vacation I took including month-long | trips. The only time I got a significant payout was when I got | laid-off during dot-bomb and I hadn't filed the paperwork for | the vacation I had just taken yet. | | I've also only had 4 jobs in the last 35+ years. | no_wizard wrote: | With "unlimited time off" becoming more common I wonder how | that's accounted for over time. Some places are really explicit | with handbooks that say they expect people to take "4 weeks off" | a year (this was one place I worked) and others don't | specifically say a number like that. | | I think it's kind of a shame and I'd like to go back to split PTO | and sick time | lozenge wrote: | The idea of sick time being metered seems crazy to me, the | intention is to get people into work when they're sick? | Ekaros wrote: | It gets complicated with longer sicknesses. But with | something sort term like hard hitting flu or food poisoning | the person isn't probably doing much work anyway. Being stuck | in bed or bathroom likely means that not much work is done. | And it is more humane to just give that time off straigh and | not count any days on those cases. | ghaff wrote: | Large companies do generally have short-term and long-term | disability benefits in addition to pooled PTO or sick time. | | But they have some limits after which it becomes government | or individual insurance. | kayodelycaon wrote: | I think it's more that companies want to restrict how much | time you're taking away from them. | HideousKojima wrote: | The intention is that if you're sick for such an extended | period of time that you cannot perform your job duties any | more, the company no longer has to pay you (i.e. they fire | you). | pengaru wrote: | > With "unlimited time off" becoming more common I wonder how | that's accounted for over time. | | "unlimited time off" means it's not accounted for at all. You | basically play unaccounted hooky at will and whether you get | away with it depends on how cooperative your team/management | is. | | Finance is totally oblivious because it's not a "benefit" part | of your compensation package anymore. HR only hears about it | when you didn't get away with it and management is building a | case for firing you. | dunham wrote: | And they don't have liabilities on the books for accrued PTO. | no_wizard wrote: | I didn't mean books accounting, i meant in studies like these | and others. Since the guidelines become murky, how do you | really account for how much workers are taking off more | broadly? | | It leads to an obfuscation of the data over time, I think. | pengaru wrote: | They're one in the same though. If the time off isn't on | the books, it's definitely not making it into any study's | datasets no doubt sourced indirectly from those books via | some employment-related TLA... | | Understanding the inherently undocumented ad-hoc nature of | the "unlimited time off" scam makes it pretty obvious IMO. | ghaff wrote: | IMO unmetered time takes a real commitment from senior | management to work fairly which, yes, probably means some | reasonable typical guidelines. I'm not a fan of limited but | combined PTO and sick time though, fortunately, it's never been | a real issue for me and, in fact, I've almost certainly come | out ahead at the end of the day. | [deleted] | throwaway6734 wrote: | >I'd like to go back to split PTO and sick time | | What's the benefit compared to having a single bucket? | ghaff wrote: | Because, historically, you had vacation which you planned for | and sick time which you did not--but which was just there if | you were sick up to often fairly generous limits (or just | have a lot of doctor's appointments). Being laid up with the | flu or an unexpected surgery for a week didn't mean you | potentially had to cancel your vacation that year. | Uvix wrote: | There's better solutions to that, like allowing carryover | (if people don't need to schedule all their PTO to be used | before year's end, they can have some "slop" for unexpected | needs), and/or allowing a certain amount of PTO to be used | in arrears. | | If you separate out vacation and sick time, then employees | need to lie to use all of their time off. | ghaff wrote: | >If you separate out vacation and sick time, then | employees need to lie to use all of their time off. | | This was historically mostly not a problem. People took | vacation and they used sick time if they needed to | (including I'm sure for the occasional hangover). Sick | time wasn't "your" time to use up in the normal course of | events. But it was there if you needed it. Sick time was | never viewed as a benefit to maximize any more than | health insurance was. | | Pooling them still leads to a "sucks to be you if you | need to take a lot of sick leave." I guess that you can | argue that's not the company's problem. But to me that's | a generally un-empathetic attitude. | kayodelycaon wrote: | For someone with a disability, having combined PTO and sick | time basically means taking time off to remain healthy means | you don't get time off to actually do anything with your | life. | | Sick days aren't vacation for me. I'm generally too depressed | or manic to function. I'll usually drive to a park or the | local zoo to walk so I'm not sitting in a chair, too anxious | or tired to get up. Somehow that's "vacation" time because | I'm able to (or need to) leave my house. | fm2606 wrote: | 1000% this. | | I have routine procedures that require 2 days just for the | procedures. Then a half day for travel. The hospital is 2.5 | hours away. One of those days is a prep day so I don't | venture to far from the hotel. | | And this is a yearly occurrence. Now if I have an acute | episode that is a 3 day stay (at a local hospital). Which, | luckily this only happens every other year or so. | | Basically if I take any time off that is true vacation days | I have to make sure I have plenty of days on the books in | case I get sick or know I will be having to make doctor | appointments in the next few months. | kayodelycaon wrote: | I'm out a lot more frequently than that. If I actually | took the time I needed, it would be 2~3 days each month. | I usually want to take a minimum 12 days of vacation per | year to attend conventions and visit people. | | The end result is me spending a week or more per month | being barely functional. I'm at my desk, poking at code I | don't have enough brain power to understand. But, better | to "work" than get in trouble for not being visibly at my | desk. | fm2606 wrote: | Sorry to hear that. | | As far as diseases go I guess I'm fairly fortunate. I | don't have to manage it day-to-day but it is always in | the back of my mind. | | If I had known in my teens and 20s I'd end up with this | type of disease I'd have done drugs and raw dogged some | hookers, at least I'd be able to point to a reason for | having a bad liver. /s | no_wizard wrote: | In the US, you can use sick time for these things, BTW. | Things that are required for care are legally allowed to | be used as sick time instead of PTO. | | I think the unlimited time off loophole damages the sick | time more than actual vacation, as others have pointed | out in this thread, which is the real shame. | hospadar wrote: | This this this. Split PTO is an accommodation for disabled | and chronically ill folks that allows them to have actual | vacation and also take care of themselves. Unified PTO | penalizes people who need time off work to care for | themselves regularly. | | If you're disabled/chronically ill you maybe be able to use | intermittent FMLA (in the US) to take more sick time but | this is unpaid and can be a big hassle, esp if your | employer/doctors are not supportive/cooperative (which can | be a result of incompetence/ignorance as easily as malice) | kayodelycaon wrote: | I have ADA accommodations for intermittent leave, which | is about as good as it gets, but I'm required to use my | PTO before going unpaid. Once I'm unpaid, I don't have | PTO to use. | zikduruqe wrote: | Unlimited PTO means the company does not have to pay your | unused vacation time when you leave; voluntarily or not. | | Remember, HR isn't there for you, it is there to help the | company. | siliconc0w wrote: | In my experience it's hard to get redundancy, teams are run lean | enough (esp today w/ layoffs) that there isn't really much slack, | deliverables and work doesn't really go away, it just piles up | until you get back. It's usually almost a job in itself handing | things off so things don't drop to the floor. | freetime2 wrote: | https://archive.is/9zfR2 | jwie wrote: | There's likely some nuance here. | | Lets say a worker has nominally 10 days off per year. What the | company does practically is if you take more than 6 days off is | start writing you up. Theoretically you could take 10 days but | any infraction would result in termination. The practice ensures | employees are always dismissible for cause unless they don't use | vacation days. | | Not all companies use such tactics on their workforce, but enough | do to make it a systematic problem. | | Mandatory payout at 100% for unused PTO, and a ban on use-or-lose | would be a good start. | messe wrote: | > 10 days off per year | | I forget how dystopian the US is at times. | SapporoChris wrote: | 10 days of personal time off and 11 federal holidays. | Basically 4 out of 52 weeks off a year. It's really not that | dystopian. | messe wrote: | Compared to 20 days off (minimum), and unlimited sick | leave, plus holidays. Yes it is. | ArteEtMarte wrote: | My PTO is in addition to bank holidays, which I think is | the equivalent to your federal holidays. A quick count | shows that there are 10 bank holidays in the UK this year. | Whichever way you slice it, American workers are getting | screwed. | ArteEtMarte wrote: | Agree. It's unbelievable from a European perspective. | | Here in the UK, I get 28 days PTO per year. I can carry | forward up to 5 days into the next year. But once you've done | that once, you're pretty much committed to taking at least 28 | days off the next year, because it's not really acceptable | (from a company perspective) to lose PTO. We're strongly | encouraged to spread the time off over the year, and to use | up our allowance. Anybody here that only took 10 days per | year would be having a chat with HR about healthy work/life | balance. | | I genuinely struggle to understand how it's possible to have | anything like an enjoyable existence with only 10 days off | per year. I mean, that's all your PTO gone for only a single | 2 week vacation. Not even a single spare day for a duvet day. | Symbiote wrote: | You'd probably find HR require taking the legal minimum, 20 | days, but the rest could be ignored if the employee refuses | to take the time off. | | They can be stricter (forcing all time to be taken) in | finance. | Zircom wrote: | More like a one week vacation, if you're lucky. You're | forgetting that most of us don't have separate sick leave | so PTO has to get used for sick days, dr appointments, etc. | My first company I worked for wouldn't let you take any | time off unpaid until you were out of PTO, so if you got | the flu and were out for a week, there goes half your | yearly vacation. | black_puppydog wrote: | You say "there's more nuance" but what I read here is "it's | actually worse than that." | | I thought it was "just" about toxic culture but this reads like | there are quite concrete methods of coercion at play. | jwie wrote: | I meant more, it's not like people aren't using as much as | they can. It's that there's some tactics used against | workers. | | This happened to an in-law who works for a soft drink | distributor, but this kind of thing happens often in decent | wage but lower end jobs, the 20-40/hr range. | | At the high end it's more workaholics or people looking to | get promoted. On the lower rungs it's coercion and games by | HR to manage people out and claw back vacation days. | lotsofpulp wrote: | No state is going to accept that terminating someone for using | their accrued vacation is a legitimate for cause termination. | Zircom wrote: | Lol no. Assuming at-will employment, which is the vast | majority of the US workforce, "using all your vacation days | yearly" is not a protected class so they are absolutely able | to fire you for it. | lotsofpulp wrote: | The significance of a for cause termination is to keep | unemployment benefit insurance premiums low for the | employer, because the terminated employee is made | ineligible for unemployment benefits. | | Of course any employer not in Montana can simply terminate | anyone at anytime for no reason, but then there is no | reason to write up anyone. | A_non_e-moose wrote: | And is using all accrued vacation days ever expliticly | mentioned as contributing towards termination reason or is | something else used as a cover? | devinprater wrote: | Lol we only get 5 days of PTO, personal leave. | acd wrote: | US should add an extra week of vacation. | pessimizer wrote: | Extra? There is no required vacation time in the United States, | so an extra week would be one week. | kube-system wrote: | The US would have to establish a law regarding mandatory | vacation time before they could start adding to it. | cableshaft wrote: | The state of Illinois did just that this year. They aren't | even the first state to do it. | | "Gov. Pritzker Signs Historic Legislation Guaranteeing 40 | Hours of Paid Leave | | Governor JB Pritzker today signed SB208 into law, making | Illinois the third state in the nation, and the first in the | Midwest, to mandate paid time off to be used for any reason. | The historic legislation provides employees with up to 40 | hours of paid leave during a 12-month period, meaning | approximately 1.5 million workers will begin earning paid | time off starting in 2024." | | https://www.illinois.gov/news/press-release.26164.html | itake wrote: | If companies are willing to give me an extra week, I'd prefer | taking that week in cash. | ghaff wrote: | Maybe it's better value to the company for you to get some | more relaxation. | VLM wrote: | I always find this weird as the closest big city to where I live | had striking workers executed (as in gunned down in the street) | for striking, so everyone takes them all, even a century later. | szundi wrote: | In Hungary I as CEO am legally bound to kick people out to use | their vacation days. | freetime2 wrote: | On paper I've never used up all my PTO, even though in reality I | was probably taking more time off than I was allotted. None of my | managers have ever cared, and one of my first managers even | explicitly told me not to bother reporting PTO ("you can get a | nice check when you leave for unused PTO"). | | Obviously this varies from place to place, but I believe the | practice was pretty widespread in silicon valley at least. And | this was one of the justifications for companies moving to | "unlimited" PTO policies - employees weren't reporting PTO | diligently, and they didn't like having to pay people out when | they left. | leetrout wrote: | IMO its the only (shitty) justification. | | Unlimited PTO is a scam. | teaearlgraycold wrote: | I prefer unlimited PTO. I can see toxic workplaces making it | worse than the alternative. But I've only worked in places | where it was no issue for me to take 4-5 weeks off per year | on their unlimited vacation policy. | hombre_fatal wrote: | Well, yeah. Everything is easy in a functional workplace. | You can even have de facto unlimited PTO while not having | it officially. | | Official Unlimited PTO is a scam because of how easy it is | to abuse in toxic workplaces. It's a shortcut for saying | there's no minimum and you can take vacation when | everything is caught up (nothing is ever caught up). | teaearlgraycold wrote: | I was lucky enough to work at copy.ai as they were | defining their PTO policy and got the CEO to agree to | unlimited PTO along with a minimum of 3 weeks. | lostlogin wrote: | 4 weeks leave is a legal minimum where I live and public | holidays come on top of that (12 per year). | | Many employers give 5. It accrues if you don't take it. | hammock wrote: | A toxic workplace is a toxic workplace, whatever PTO you | have. | | A toxic workplace can make fixed PTO just as miserable as | unlimited PTO if they want to, and vice versa | dangwhy wrote: | > take 4-5 weeks off per year | | how do you come up with this number though. If its a set | number like that then why not make that official PTO. | nirav72 wrote: | Indeed it is a scam. Biggest problem with unlimited pto is | that managers don't care until you take what they feel is a | disproportionate amount of time off. With a fixed number of | PTO days, managers can tell you take time off , so they don't | have to pay out at end of fiscal year for unused days. | RyJones wrote: | Completely agree. It really means "take less vacation than | your boss" | nine_zeros wrote: | This kind of empathatic, humane management is quite rare. | | I have seen that the manager lets it slide but behind the | scenes "keeps record" and it shows up in your performance | report. This usually happens when the manager is under pressure | themselves and needs to find a scapegoat. Who better to | scapegoat that the undocumented PTO taker. | sys_64738 wrote: | As you get older then you realize time is finite and work is just | a means to an end. I take all my vacation in the year I get it | and if the company were to ever say anything then it's like | _shrug_. It 's like WFH in that you could tell me to work from a | cube but I'd ignore that. I take my vacation and don't ever check | email or respond to texts. | einpoklum wrote: | Time is finite? :-O ... Now they tell me! T_T | | ... | | [ GONE FISHIN' ] | sys_64738 wrote: | Your lifetime is finite is what I really mean. I know you | know but just saying anyways. | toomuchtodo wrote: | I'm currently a manager at an org with unlimited PTO. I take at | least five weeks a year, and I enforce a minimum four weeks a | year with my directs. No Slack, no email, it all gets turned | off in Azure AD until they return. There are few hills I'll die | on, but this is one of them. Life is short and most work is | inconsequential on a long life arc. | | I don't believe in the concept of unlimited PTO (usually | disadvantages the worker), but I'm fine playing along when it's | their dime and they're calling the tune. | ghaff wrote: | >No Slack, no email, it all gets turned off in Azure AD until | they return. | | I won't really categorically disagree. But, if _I 'm hanging | in my hotel room_ and surfing or whatever, if I can point | someone in a direction or answer a quick question, I'm not | sure that's wrong. I assure you I'll go back to my book- | reading or movie-watching right after. | matwood wrote: | Same. It's not required, but if I'm just sitting there I'll | give a pointer if I can. | toomuchtodo wrote: | I appreciate that idea, I did so myself during my last | vacation (I stay on slack and email as I report to c | suite). But it is my job to defend the quality of life of | my direct reports, and we can spend some more cycles as an | org if needed versus bothering people OOO/PTO/Vaca. If we | are so reliant on that person that we need that ability, | we've failed (processes, documentation, cross training, | etc). | | We're not saving lives, we're just moving bits. | | Edit @ghaff: Love the CEO anecdote in your reply, I'd work | for that person! Priorities set properly. | ghaff wrote: | I'm mostly pretty disciplined. I'm on vacation but if I | can spend 5 minutes unblocking something, hey, they pay | me well enough. | | Though to your C-suite comment, an engineering director | at a fairly high profile SV company was telling me that | they hired a senior comms person who just couldn't deal | with the fact that the CEO would take vacations where | they literally unplugged--and ended up quitting. | sonofhans wrote: | Yes, this is a hidden benefit of having people take real | time off. No org should be dependent for daily/weekly | functioning on one person. If the cracks start showing in | a single week of vacation, you've got some | knowledge/skill sharing to do. | ghaff wrote: | I don't think I'm really giving anything away by saying | this was Netflix. | sys_64738 wrote: | It's called psychology. Even though you're on vacation | you're still working and engaged. | eb0la wrote: | I just joined a company with unlimited PTO. Last week I found | out one of my direct reports took less than one vacation week | last year. I told the team they had to spend all vacation | within the year (22 days). We're all spread in Europe. Not | taking vacation could be a liability for the company, not to | mention that tired and stressed people makes a lot of mistakes | and I cannot afford loosing any engineer due to burnouts. | Kognito wrote: | An interesting, if slightly dated, comparison between 22 | countries' vacation taking habits (including US + some of | Europe). | | Remarkable how little vacation allowance the US gets. No wonder | only around a 3rd of Americans own passports. | | https://yougov.co.uk/topics/society/articles-reports/2015/11... | myroon5 wrote: | American passport rate over time if anyone's curious: | | https://www.forbes.com/sites/niallmccarthy/2018/01/11/the-sh... | MikeTheRocker wrote: | Wow, as someone who loves to travel and has the good fortune | to do it often, the idea of not being able to or not wanting | to leave one's home country is unfathomable. | [deleted] | ghaff wrote: | >No wonder only around a 3rd of Americans own passports. | | The US also has a ton of attractions within its borders. And | other than going to Canada or Mexico, you're talking about | relatively expensive flights to travel internationally. | andybak wrote: | I'm in the UK and a lot of my travel over the years has been | to places relatively far away (Asia, Americas). | | Travel in Europe is expensive when you're there so a lot of | people from Europe travel to SE Asia and similar destinations | (althought the cost differential is reducing) | amrocha wrote: | I'm very confused by this comment. Travel within Europe is | insanely cheap compared with North America because low cost | carriers exist and the distances are way smaller, not to | mention you can take buses if you're _really_ on a budget. | | You're not finding flights in the US between major cities | for less than 3 digits, and buses take several hours. In | Europe you take a 2 hour bus ride and end up in a | completely different country whichever way you go. | | There's a reason your stereotypical university student | backpacker goes to Europe. | lostlogin wrote: | > The US also has a ton of attractions within its borders. | | As does everywhere, which is why people travel. | ArteEtMarte wrote: | That survey makes a lot of sense to me, as a Brit. If I don't | take my PTO my boss's boss gets nagged by HR, so they nag my | boss, who nags me. | | Our PTO year runs from 1 April, so the only (unwritten) rule | about vacation is that we should try to spread it over the | year. This is because we're only allowed to carry over 5 days | to the next year, not taking PTO is frowned upon, and HR don't | want everybody to be using up their PTO at the same time at the | end of the year. | | A few days ago we had a Zoom town-hall meeting where our CEO | thanked everybody for taking time off. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2023-04-01 23:01 UTC)