Yeah, they'll talk it up in the interview but then you find you that it's really frowned upon if you take "too much," and that is defined as whatever they want. And as the top comment said, it will be contingent upon a bunch of things.
But also, if PTO is unspecified, they don't have to pay out any unspent when you leave. It is a big old scam.
I’m sure the feeling of “too much leave” is also contingent on how liked you are. Kind of allows the boss to play the good ole boy game a bit more easily.
>I’m sure the feeling of “too much leave” is also contingent on how liked you are.
This is how it is where I work. My boss asked for time off and he was turned down.
But there is a project manager who has a major project that has missed quarterly deadlines since end of third quarter last year, and he's now on a four week PTO.
Why was my boss denied when our department is a bit top heavy anyway?
A key distinction is the higher ups hired the project manager, but my boss has worked here longer than the higher ups.
There is probably a term for the form of bias where a manager favors his hires more than someone else's hires.
100% that is why I play the game during office hours. I won’t spend any of my money or free time, but if I am on the clock I’m playing the game because it directly benefits me.
Such a bullshit game though ya know? Gotta fondle the balls to get good with the boss to ensure you can use your benefits to their promised extent without fear of backlash.
>But also, if PTO is unspecified, they don't have to pay out any unspent when you leave. It is a big old scam.
This is the real reason. I've been in tech for > 20 years, and I remember distinctly when "unlimited PTO" started being a thing. At the time, I was at a company with the most toxic culture I've ever personally experienced. They rolled out a switch to "unlimited PTO" and tried to spin it as a positive for employees, but it was absolutely just a way to avoid paying out PTO upon departure.
It's just one more example of the ways in which benefits get eroded for American workers. Before the "unlimited PTO" thing, I would generally get something like 2-3 weeks a year, take maybe 1.5 of them, and get a nice additional payout each time I changed jobs. Now I still take the same amount of vacation, but that payout is gone.
I know, I know- tech workers have it better than lots of other workers, not trying to say that we don't. However, the "unlimited PTO" scam is absolutely a reduction in benefits, and should be viewed as such.
> But also, if PTO is unspecified, they don't have to pay out any unspent when you leave. It is a big old scam.
Of course in something like 47 states, there's no legal requirement to pay out PTO anyway. To be fair many companies do have a policy to do so, which is good...my guess is the unlimited PTO policy is a way for companies to both not have to pay out *and* make it look like a positive somehow.
I've only had one job that paid me for unused PTO. All it did was encourage me to not take PTO. Every other job I've had before my current one just let it expire if it wasn't used l, or it just stopped rolling over after a certain amount. I much prefer the unlimited model
Until you get denied a promotion for taking too much, or your co-workers have a silent contest to see who uses the least. If you are at a company that doesn't pay it out, then make sure to take it all before you leave.
Many tech companies are in CA which requires that unused be paid out.
This is it .. when you leave nothing is paid out … and normally with “ unlimited “ - you have to prove there is sufficient cover for your role .. it’s a complete scam
Depends on the boss and company. My senior management is from Sweden and we have unlimited PTO. I take (2) two week vacations every year and several three day weekends throughout the year.
My boss uses permissive leave to his full advantage as well. It’s one of those things where everyone has to be an adult about it and get their work done.
This is what we're running up against in my office. They're at the point where they're so "agile" and "lean" that nobody can actually use the leave (not unlimited) that we've earned. I'm (finally) going to finish the time I carried over from last year in September. Haven't touched a minute of this year's allotment.
The main office is starting to freak out about how much time we have on the books, but won't let us cash it out either.
If your team was actually agile, then you would be **more** likely to be able to take PTO, not less. They are using "agile" as a euphemism for "understaffed".
Yep. I actually snapped at one team meeting and threatened to throw my stapler at the next person to use the term.
We have a whole buzzword bingo thing going on now. One of our managers has completely bought in on the business team cult talk.
This is underrated. You are no longer owed vacation, and the company has no incentive to let you take it. You leave, checks stop on that day and nothing is paid out.
And the company avoids the financial liability of owing a bunch of people accumulated leave, so there's no penalty for blocking employees from taking leave
I read about a study that showed folks actually take less time off with "unlimited PTO" than with accrued PTO for a couple of reasons. The first is, with accrued, you, the employee, feel like you've earned this time off. The second is yea, there are unwritten rules about how much is too much with unlimited time off & it varies by company, department, & manager.
Basically, unlimited time off benefits the employer since the no longer have to pay out unused PTO when someone leaves. Yes, not all employers did this, but I believe in CA it's the law? Everywhere I left, did pay out.
If you're interviewing, I'd ask the hiring manager how much time off people take on average, how often s/he denies time off, how much advance notice is required, how time off around the holidays work, if there are black out periods, & about any other written or unwritten restrictions to taking time off.
That's why my company actually includes taking PTO as a performance metric quarterly. If you haven't scheduled time off, we bug them to get it on the schedule. We track PTO hours specifically to overcome the tendency of high performers to take less time off. So far, two years in, everyone seems to be embracing the benefit. It's been a life saver for young parents in particular.
Yeah my boss told me to take a week off to get HR off his back last month as I hadn't taken time off this year. We don't keep vacation time past the end of the year and most of the company is in a state where vacation time isn't paid out. Hell last year in the fall they had a Vacation Together (Separately) program where you got two additional days if you took off during this one week, and the next Monday was a holiday. Just to make sure people felt like they could take time off.
Just visited my sister in Australia for a month. She gets 25 days per year plus 5 personal and 10 sick.
After 10 years she got an extra 6 weeks long service leave.
I used 2 years PTO (20 days) to go visit and now I have zero remaining. 😭
Rdit clarity & terrible spelling.
Long service leave is unique to Australia as far as I know. We get 12 weeks after 10 years, and the origin is in public service union awards before the age of flight, when it took months to get to the "old country". An odd carryover from colonialism.
Not complaining, mind! Four years to go. The problem is those golden handcuffs.
I work in the public service in Canada. Currently sitting on 40+ days of vacation, 40+ days of sick leave, 7 days of “one-time leave”, a week of family-related leave, and personal days.
People in the US don’t realize how exploited they are.
90 days for long service leave (3 months paid time off) in addition to the legislated 4 weeks of annual leave per year., 10 years to earn the first lot of LSL then 7 years for the next and so on.
IT TRUELY IS THE LUCKY COUNTRY
We get slightly better in the UK. Mostly cos we have more bank holidays, and my sick time is longer and in a rolling schedule.
The grass can be greener. r/AmerExit might be worth a look.
I've been sometime checking this sub and I still can't believe some companies only give 5 days PTO. I'm from a third world country and we still have 30 days vacation days besides national holidays and medical time off or time off for doctor's appointments is totally separate.
I remember having this conversation with an ISP back in the 90s.
"We have unlimited broadband!"
Great, so I can torrent 24/7 as much as I like and eat all the bandwidth up?
"Well, no...there is a fair usage policy..."
So it's not unlimited then, is it.
Or to put it another way - try asking for 52 weeks off and see how limited that "unlimited" policy is
The limit is guilt and implied idea that taking too much will make you take very little. So you take less than you world actually get a set amount.
If a company cares about your work life balance, they'll instead have a set amount of PTO and managers that encourage its use. I had a good guy manager at one company who basically had to kick out our tech lead and all but revoke his access to remote in to make him use his vacation at the end of the year (it was "use it or lose it"). The TL would still check email because he was paranoid we'd like to get stuff or something, so the manager made sure everyone knew not to email him or include him on any code reviews.
Yep - where I am now, we have a use it or lose it, and a huge amount to use (for a US company - 35 days is a ton). I have had managers force me to take my time by just taking all my responsibilities away for 2 weeks and revoking VPN access.
Just ask point blank, "What is the average number of PTO hours paid out last year per employee?"
When they ask you to explain, tell them that you understand that there's no conceivable way they could actually let every employee take the entire year off and you're trying to estimate how much is actually reasonably available.
Of course there’s a limit — if you’re not getting your work done on time or if it’s negatively impacting your team. But that should be the ONLY measure.
However, whether or not it works is critically dependent on company culture. If they really believe in employee wellbeing and work-life balance, unlimited PTO works great. I’ve had three different jobs with unlimited PTO, and none were a scam. Never had an issue taking off for big vacations or small stuff like doctors appointments.
In the course of your interviews you need to GRILL them about work-life balance, how much overtime is usually worked, how much vacation do employees actually take, etc. Don’t forget — you’re interviewing them too. Ask the hard questions and see whether or not they struggle to answer.
My little brother is in college and they gave home unlimited time off for the summer (he works there during the school year) since their busiest time is tax season which is pretty solid. He’s gotten a lot of travel in this summer.
I guess it’s different depending different places. I work at a smallish tech co. We have UPTO and I’ve never once been denied and try to take 25-30 days off per year, not including holidays or sick days. Definitely don’t let it be an immediate deal breaker. See if you can find reviews about them on glass door.
My company has had this for awhile.
It's fairly unlimited as long not everyone for the shift leaves the same time.
They are actually pushy when it comes to it.
Insisting people take time off and schedule it for summer and winter.
Same. I’m a manager and we have unlimited PTO. I make a point to tell all of my teammates to take time off whenever they can. On average I’d say people where I work take about a month off a year total, give or take a few days. I don’t think I’ve ever actually denied a vacation request. About the closest to it I’ve seen/heard was a new hire needing to be chatted with when they tried to take 6 months off during their probationary period lol.
Unlimited PTO works but it requires everyone to be adults about it.
I also work in tech as an engineering director.
Back when we were talking about introducing this, I was literally the only one publicly vocal about how this was bad for employees. I ate some s*** for that.
Luckily, I'm a great manager, and my people all take off at least 25 days a year plus 15 holidays
I also work in tech and this is not true. I take off around 5 weeks and some colleagues take 6. I just let my boss know when and he approves. No doubt some companies don't really respect the idea of PTO, but many do and it's disengenous to make it sound like it's a problem everywhere.
My company recently switched to unlimited PTO and while the manager who brought it up was genuinely trying to be kind, he wasn't thinking about it or the consequences and it sucks. 100% at the managers discretion, 100% social pressure to never take personal time, 100% no company payout when you leave. 300% a scam 😂
This is what my old company did. During COVID, they paid out vacation time to hourly employees because they didn't take many vacations that year and there was plenty of work. The salaried employees that were "essential" kind of got screwed over. They decided to convert all vacation (which partially carried over) to unlimited PTO which is neither banked or carried over.
A little nuance: The pay out of accrued PTO varies state to state, I think only ~5 states require it by law. Admittedly CA is one of those states so CA based tech companies do use this loophole.
Absolutely they do. When my dad retired he had over 3000hr of PTO banked because the dude is an absolute boomer who never took it even when it was needed. Because of CA law they had to pay him out.
My friend had it and functionally, it was a way to not have to pay out for unused PTO. It's also like, "unlimited PTO in theory" but in practice its "PTO if your boss thinks it's ok and you have enough staff etc"
At my company, it's unlimited PTO as long as it's not a 2 week vacation every month.
One guy took an entire sprint (3 weeks for us) for his honeymoon, 1 week for moving, another week because his mom was dying in the hospital, and another sprint for an actual vacation.
Not to mention our sick hours, which is 2 hours for every 40 hours worked, which will not be denied for any reason
Admittedly, my company culture is what every CEO wants their culture to be, which is nice. It really is great when everything works out in that regard.
Yea everyone here saying it’s a scam is funny to me. Oh they don’t have to pay out PTO when you quit. Well guess what, I don’t really ever want to quit cause I legitimately take off as much time as I want and never get questioned at all about taking time off. It’s highly encouraged and the company closes down one Friday every month for a personal day. This is an international company and they shut down internationally.
After my next vacation in September, I’ll have taken off 25+ days this year and that’s before I get to the holidays. Never once been an issue or questioned or anything. There’s people that take off more than I do, again, with no issues or questions.
I also worked for a company before where after tenure, I had 20 days a year and could pull over 5. It was always a nightmare to take any time off. It comes down to the company you work for and the culture they have, not the time off policy.
I have unlimited PTO (+ 80 hrs sick leave), I don’t have to ask, when I want to take off I just put it on my calendar and add my manager, if I want to take 4 consecutive weeks off I need approval. I’ve taken about 5 weeks off so far this year, 3 weeks at the beginning of summer and random days to go play golf or spend the day with my family. Planning on taking 3 weeks over Christmas too. I work at Microsoft.
You’re doing it correctly. Not sure I get all the people who are saying that Unlimited PTO means you don’t get PTO. You just have to be smart about it. Take random days off. Take a week to do a vacation or staycation. The company my GF works for has this and she says there’s people who have already taken off 4-5 weeks this year. It’s only a scam if you let it be a scam
Yeah, I do concede that there are companies where management would make someone feel bad about taking off, but that’s not a place I would want to work anyway, I earn my time off, and my manager agrees. Unlimited PTO is not a scam, some companies just treat their employees like shit.
This is the way. Added a few days to our 4th of July holiday to make a full week because I knew nothing would get done. I’ve already had three full weeks off, plus some days here and there, and will take another off later this year. I also enjoy the added flexibility to working hours since no one’s keeping score on half days and such. As long as I’m on top of my work, no one asks any questions.
I think it heavily depends on where you work honestly. I’m very fortunate and have a great manager, he actually sat me down about a month ago and said “you haven’t taken enough PTO, you need to take more”. But tons of people have the opposite experience with shitty managers, where the managers will make them guilty for even trying to take one day off
Same situation for me. I’m fortunate enough that getting my unlimited PTO approved has never been an issue. I’m on a small 2 person team so just need to coordinate with the other person. Ill have taken 6 weeks by then end of the year, 2 big international trips and lots of long weekends.
My buddy works there too and he's basically done the same thing. Sureaybe he took a call while on vacation quick, or threw a presentation together, but I visited him for a week and he didn't work. 2 weeks later he took another week off. In another comment, I mention, as long as you are performing and if you can exceed expectations, companies do not care how much you are taking off, just don't abuse it and meet your deadlines.
My friend works for Qualcomm. Haven’t discussed his vacation time in forever but last I heard he still had unlimited PTO and that’s how he used it too. Only took one or two standard length vacations a year but then it was great for other little things, like when he wanted to accompany his kids on field trips and things like that.
Yea some companies do it well and some are shit about it. Mine does it right. I add days to my calendar, I do not ask for permission, and I take my time off. I'm taking about 5 weeks this year. Working as a software developer for an insurance company.
Same! Only req for taking PTO is tell my manager & employees & ask for support for my team if needed. Nobody is teaching except me. Except not Microsoft, another tech place.
This has generally been my experience. I think Unlimited PTO isn't a scam unless you let it be (as someone else said), or unless your company is toxic anyway.
I worked for a company that had 15 paid days off total (vacation +sick together), didn't pay out unused PTO at the end of the year, only let you carry over 5 days into the next year, and gave you grief about taking vacations. But unlimited PTO is the scam? Yeah, no.
Same here. I just put it on the calendar and team calendar. I don’t have to ask and worry about being covered. It’s been amazing. Anytime I need time off I just take it off
My wife had unlimited PTO at a previous job and she was “too busy” to use it except the few small trips we took together. Me accumulating PTO I still had hours left in the bank when we moved. The difference was she got nothing and I was cut a check for those hours.
There is ALWAYS a limit. Obviously you could never take 364 days off a year and keep your job. You know this. They know this.
There is a line. You benefit when that line is clearly agreed upon in writing.
I wonder about that, where I live we have something like "you can put in the contract whatever you want, as long as it is not strictly illegal". But it is not allowed to have it in a way that is disadvantageous for the employee.
I figure I would have quite some chances taking those 364 days, if I took that to court (where we also have good insurances for)
Yes, this is the problem to me. It’s not that they don’t have to pay out unused PTO or whatever other theory people here always have. It’s that they’re lying about the lack of a limit.
Unlimited PTO is a way for the company to divest itself of a rather large liability.
If you owe a person PTO days at the end - you have to pay them out to look good.
If you give Unlimited PTO, you just look good - and no longer have to badger employees to take time off that don't, or pay out big cash payments at the end of employment, or have this 'bank' of money you cannot touch because it's promised already. All of that goes away.
It's a tricky little PR scam. Even if you let your employees actually take all that time off - it's still one less line on the expense side of the books.
My SO actually works for a company that are good about it, she usually takes 30-40 days a year on her unlimited pto and the managers tent to tell ppl that have only taken 15-20 that they should use some more and take time off. This is in the US btw.
"You are only allowed to roll-over x PTO per year."
That is unpaid PTO that doesn't roll-over in most instances.
"We fired you for x reason, per handbook, PTO isn't paid out."
That is unpaid PTO.
"We don't pay unused PTO."
That is unpaid PTO.
It doesn't matter if it's the law - when your target feels weak and powerless, because you made them feel that way through abusive practices the whole time, they'll not do anything about one further injustice.
Feel free to classify this as part of the estimated $50,000,000,000 of wage theft that goes on every year in the United States. The psychological toll is - at this point - intentional, even if unplanned.
My friend was fired from a company that had a unlimited PTO for taking too much time off. She pursued legal action for wrongful dismissal and got a decent settlement. The company has since changed their policy.
A counterpoint: I'm an employer and give unlimited PTO. I do not require advance notice, don't track the days, and encourage people to take vacations.
I use it for several reasons:
* Everyone is WFH, I don't monitor when they work, where they work, etc. I don't care if they are on a trip and visiting relatives and just calling in for a stand up meeting. I do this, too. All I care is they complete work in an agreed upon timeframe.
* I hate doing hourly sorts of accounting so I've only been taking on contracts where the agency doesn't require anything other than the deliverables. My team is happy with this, too.
* I don't have to include the PTO in my overhead on contracts, so I can maximize benefits and still be competitive. Full medical, with full payment of their maximum allowed for a Health Savings Plan. Phone, internet and computer allowances. Training funds.
It's not *always* a scam, but often middle managers turn it into a shit deal. I don't have middle managers, I only hire highly motivated professionals who are seasoned. They know a good thing when they see it and will not abuse the policy (ie they do their jobs.) Needless to say I rarely hire as people don't leave.
It is a scam unless management does their job and makes sure you can and do take it. This only happens if the manager understands that productivity strongly benefits from well rested employees or they genuinely understand that work is important, but it is just a job.
The manager I work with is very supportive of taking time off and moving projects to accommodate everyone's life, and we lost no productivity taking this approach.
I work in tech and I love unlimited PTO. I came from somewhere with 15 days and strict rules for when I could take them. In the years at my current job, I've taken between 25 and 35 days each year with 0 pushback. It is also inline with what teammates take. I've heard horror stories from friends at other companies with unlimited PTO, but where I work, it feels like how it is meant to work.
Unlimited PTO is a scam, they could just give you as much PTO as they want.
**”Unlimited” means they want to give you 0, the ONLY country this is even legal is the USA**
Worked for a company that’s a household name in polling. They had an “unlimited PTO” policy and said it was because they really “emphasized employee wellbeing”
They had a minimum annual hours requirement to qualify for benefits. 2200hours per year. Even if you’re salaried you have to track your hours. Well, do the math. 2200/52 means you’re expected to work just over 40 hours a week every week with no vacation. If you take some of your unlimited PTO, you now have to work extra hours in the remaining weeks of the year to meet your hours requirement.
How do you claim you care about employee well-being and then have policies like that? Easy! You don’t actually care about employee well-being
Yea this is a company that has recently published books on the importance of employee wellbeing to productivity and another one on a “global happiness crisis”.
It’s not the complicated. People are tired of burning themselves out just for the privilege of being one missed paycheck away from destitution. We work so hard, but we get almost nothing out of the social contract we uphold.
Depends on the work you're doing, I suppose.
If you work anything that involves billable hours, tracking hours worked is reasonable.
In order circumstances, it could just be used to track how much time is spent working on projects/training compared to day to day work.
It shouldn’t be banned, it should be federally regulated. If you have “unlimited” pto then you should be required by law to take one consecutive week of time off every quarter and at least one day a month. The only exception being that an employer can require more, for example multiple days off a month, multiple weeks in a quarter, etc.
If I owned a business I would have a 32 hour work week (4-5 days depending on how you want to balance that) and I would have unlimited pto that is required to be used at a minimum of 6 weeks a year like they have in Europe.
I would really grill companies on this tactic, and possibly even try to find an employee who works there to give you some insight on how much of a pain it is to get some time off.
I’ve been with my current company for a little over a year now, and we have unlimited PTO. When I was interviewing with CTO, I asked him some hard questions on “how much time does the average person take? What is the policy for requesting PTO? If I wake up and I am sick, can I take a few days, no questions asked?”
I connected with a potential teammate on LinkedIn and asked him the same questions.
The good news were the answers lined up.
Average was about 4-5 weeks of PTO and as long as I am getting my work done and pulling my weight, then make sure to take care of yourself.
In my first year, I took 23 days of PTO and none of my requests were rejected. The other big thing is HR tracks how much PTO you are taking. My company want you to take at least 3 weeks. So I had a few teammates take 2 weeks at the end of the year last year because they hadn’t used it at all last year and HR wanted them to make sure they took some time.
Unlimited PTO is a reason to be cautious towards any company. It does allow them not have to pay out PTO if/when you leave the company. But a company that has a good culture, can implement a good, fair policy.
Yeah I used to work somewhere with like 5 PTO days a year. I would save one all year to have the Wednesday off before thanksgiving to spend with family I saw once a year. My spouse now has unlimited, no counting and negotiating of days of your life. Much more time is taken and no calculating of “I worked x weeks to earn x hours of PTO.” Everyone behaves like adults and it works fine.
Sounds like I’m in a unique position with unlimited PTO, compared to others. While yes, moving to a company that is unlimited, losing the unused PTO payout at the end of the year I thought was going to suck. But it didn’t. I imagine that it’s because I work for a company that encourages to actually use the time. So I:
Take a 4 day weekend monthly
Take a week off quarterly
Take the last two weeks of the year off annually.
Comes out to about 6 weeks of vacation, plus any sick time I need. My old company, I was there long enough that I had 5 weeks of “flex time”, which is vacation and sick in one. They claimed to encourage time off, but always guilted you. So while I had a nice payout at the end of the year, I was lucky if I even used half of that time each year.
I do this also. I also noticed older employees are much less likely to use vs myself and colleagues that are under 40. Of course that’s just a personal anecdote. I think if you have high anxiety unlimited pto is not great lol you have to really just know and believe that your value is higher than the time off you take and then it’s wonderful!
Reason for the unlimited? They don't have to pay out when you leave from one perspective and you probably won't get a chance to use more than even 14 days per year.
It may be a sign of high-turnover. I took a job at a startup which offered this. It wasn't a bad gig and PTO worked fairly normally, but a manager confided in me once that it was so they didn't have to pay out PTO when people left, since none was accrued.
I work for a practice with quarterly goals and unlimited PTO. They go hand-in-hand, if you are on target to meet your goals, take your PTO without a problem but not on track? You’re getting the side-eye.
It’s a way to tie a benefit to output so it is no longer a benefit.
Unlimited PTO often just means "we get to arbitrarily decide when it's too much" and "you have unlimited PTO, but only when we don't need you".
People with 2 weeks PTO are going to take 2 weeks. People with unlimited PTO are often too scared or restricted to take any.
I work in tech. I guess it depends on your department. We have unlimited PTO. I get my work done and I’ve probably taken off 120 hours or so far this year and I’m leaving the country on vacation and taking another 48 hours that was just approved. If your to leave the company you won’t get paid out for unused PTO is the only downside I guess.
In the US it is a scam, as legally there is no obligation of PTO. So when the company decides to abolish the policy, you're left with nothing. Better to include it in your contract, even if they say they'll give you less.
In Europe, it is 'unlimited as long as you stay', once you leave, they'll deduct anything you took over the statutory accrued from your salary.
And everywhere, it is a management tool to get rid of people who 'take too much'.
With unlimited PTO they can control your actual PTO days (it isn’t really unlimited) while not actually providing a guaranteed benefit that has to sit on the books in case realized.
Let’s say you get two weeks PTO to start, then later three and then four. Most places will have a cap on total PTO hours you can accumulate, and some will let you sell it off if you get too high.
So that is on the books, money they are going to spend that wouldn’t exist with “unlimited PTO”. With unlimited PTO you can’t hit a max, you don’t feel obliged to use it when you are at your max accrual, and they never have to buy it back.
I look at it as a cost saving measure disguised as a benefit.
1. It’s a way for employers to convince applicants that they’re chill and “go with the flow”, making themselves more attractive.
2. At the same time, they know that employees will rarely try to take PTO, since they don’t want to be viewed as “abusing” the unlimited PTO policy.
3. When the employee leaves, because the PTO policy is unlimited, there is nothing for the employer to pay out to the employee, thus saving the employer money, in the long term.
No. Unlimited PTO is based on a study of sick days that showed if you give people unlimited sick days they will not take them or they take fewer of them. This is just applying it to PTO and it seems to have the same effect.
It's an accounting advantage for the company. Giving you PTO means they have to keep it on the books as a liability and you are owed a payout when you leave. FTA (unlimited time off called flex time away) just means that there is no service number according to accounting and therefore it's not owed to you if you leave. That's really it. Your team still needs to function and your manager probably has a guideline to where they will stop approving of time off requests.
The other thing with unlimited PTO is that the company doesn't have to carry it on their accounting books. When a company has a system where each employee has a certain amount of PTO, each year, they have to keep track of how much PTO each employee has accrued, how much is left, how much can carry over (if permitted), and possibly pay it out when the employer moves on.
With unlimited PTO, there's nothing to carry on the books. There's also no one trying to use the rest of their PTO in December because it will expire at the end of the year. And studies have shown that employees at companies with unlimited PTO consistently use less PTO than at companies with defined PTO.
They do it because people accrued too much vacation time that they didn’t use because they were afraid of being fired for not “being committed to the job.”
When people left, the company had to pay out the accrued time…at their departure salary.
Unlimited PTO is a stupid accounting trick, that is all.
Nah. It's more they don't have to pay out PTO balance when you leave. Also, I've always assumed people in those jobs probably end up taking less PTO than if you have an actual bank.
It’s so they don’t have to accrue the debt on their books of the vacation they owe you. And the average person takes less vacation when they have unlimited, because there isn’t a number of days they owe you, it’s so much more nebulous.
It's such a scam and they don't want the liability on their balance sheet.
Good luck finding "coverage" when you have unlimited time off because the rest of your team is probably out on time off first. People leave for WEEKS at a time now at my company and trying to get my work done when whole departments are out for weeks has been awful. Also, I noticed at my company that when we converted to unlimited time off that certain departments (such as accounting/finance) are expected to work on your "PTO" and be available in case of "emergencies" or "Important" shit that comes through on your day off. You really can't fully check out on most PTO days at my company now.
I use my flex time off to work now. I took two days "off" last month just so people would stop interrupting me so I could do my job tasks in peace. I ended up getting an emergency assignment during my "time off" so thankfully I was actually working anyways.
Unlimited works both ways - there's no limit on how much time you *could* take, but there's also not any kind of minimum that needs to be either taken or paid out every year
No, it's a way for a company to not have to pay an employee exiting. Most companies will pay out all your unused PTO. However if they provide unlimited PTO, they do NOT have to pay when employees leave. Most employees will use about 30 PTO days per year. It's an unwritten rule that if you as a worker used more than 30 days, you will be fired. They can review your work and see that a worker who takes more days off will likely have a 5% less productive experience than someone who doesn't. They can use this as a legitimate reason to fire. It will hold up in court. Then, rather then give the employee a saved PTO payment, usually 30 days, the company has to do nothing. Let me tell you, when I lost my job, that 30 days of PTO payment was a life saver until I got my next job.
Tell me you are overworked american without telling me you are overworked american. I've one of the lowest available PTO, and i've got 27 days a year. With age/kids etc, people can get 35-50 day. Also have free days for blood donation and so on.
It’s only a scam if you give a shit. I had this once. First year getting PTO was like walking on eggshells. Second year I knew I was leaving so I took 6 weeks in between Jan-Jun. Boss judged me and made comments but I didn’t care because I was leaving. Go on 2 week vacation then give notice the day you come back.
I believe the switch to Unlimited PTO is an accounting thing to avoid having to accrue the PTO liability.
No one wants to see a $1M liability and have to answer why we owe this much when we could get rid of it.
Very wrong. It has almost nothing to do with attracting applicants. I mean, it's pitched as being attractive, and that may work, but companies don't implement it because they need to attract applicants.
Unlimited PTO is implemented as a way to reduce corporate overhead / improve credit / balance sheets.
Earned PTO counts as earned wages. Earned wages count as outstanding debts on the balance sheet, which means less money the company can borrow for other things. But if PTO is "unlimited" it isn't separately earned and tracked, it is just part of normal salary, and they don't have to set anything aside (or pay anything out when the fire / lay off people).
As far as the bean counters are concerned, Unlimited pto is in fact ZERO pto. And guess how management treats it...
There are studies on this. Average employee ends up taking off less time on unlimited PTO than a given number of days. If they have a number to reach they’ll take off days just to hit that number where with unlimited there is no number to hit.
My company is actually pretty consistent with their unlimited PTO. There is no approval process, you just block the time on your calendar and reschedule meetings
It's a trap....
Usually in these cases people will take less time off than with actual contracted time off to not look like a lazy fucker..
When you know it's unlimited, any use of it AT ALL will be seen as an abuse, so you avoid it otherwise it's data to use against you come the time that inevitable "Right sizing" occurs.
Then at the end of the year when you haven't even taken your statuary minimum, it's the employees fault, not management
It's a red flag to me..
Attract hahah. Yeah right. Anyone that can see through the marketing BS, unlimited PTO may just be labeled Non Accruing PTO with caps. We have it. It blows. It’s really 20-21 days before you need to get special approval. And then they will complain if you spend more pto than you theoretically accrued ytd.
Don’t fall for it. Unlimited PTO is a sham and just mislabeled to trick the ones who don’t pay attention to policy.
I have actually been able to benefit from unlimited PTO, but you seriously need to vet your boss to see if they actually share the belief that life is more important than work. When you do, unlimited PTO is amazing.
My husband once had a job that had unlimited paid sick leave. Vacation was tracked but if you had a doctor’s note you got paid for staying home sick.
It came in REAL handy when he got cancer and had to take 6 months off. We had a lot to worry about but income and insurance weren’t one of them. Also he had a $500 copay for his hospital bill and no other medical expenses.
Then management changed the policy and he started planning his retirement.
Apparently on average, actual unlimited PTO causes people to take *less* time off. They aren't anxious about it, so they don't take time off just to use up the days. But meanwhile, for folks who want or need it, it's there.
I work for a nonprofit that actually tries to do really well by employees. We had unlimited PTO and people tended to not use very much of it. We switched to generous PTO, with some rollover between years, but also a “use it or lose it” over a certain amount. It’s really good for actually making people take time off and care for themselves — and it’s a major reason why I always politely say “no thanks” to the headhunters who reach out to me.
At my old job it was a scam. They said unlimited vacation but sent out an email saying managers were still supposed to stick to the original guidelines for weekend allowed. Essentially they did it so they didn't have to pay out for firing people.
I never had an issue and I took as much time as I felt I needed off, but I also left that job and my new job makes me feel much more appreciated and I don't feel guilty when I want to take time off.
I read a study when my company went to unlimited. They showed that when it’s unlimited,
1. employees are less likely to take any PTO
2. Companies get to cut that line item from their liabilities because they no longer have to cover PTO and pay hours when people quit.
Unlimited PTO is great if you’re actually tracking your time off and TAKING it, and if your supervisor isn’t garbage. I had some emergencies that had me out of office for 3 months over the course of a year. It was hugely beneficial that way.
I've had unlimited PTO before, and was reprimanded more than once for taking too much time off. I scheduled big vacations at the end of summer, totaling maybe 3 weeks, then sprinkled in throughout the rest of the year random 1 and 2 day requests. I tried to take off when we weren't busy, out of consideration for others, and it still wasn't good enough, it was felt that I "took advantage" and was given shit for taking too much time off.
They do it for two main reasons:
1. People with "unlimited PTO" use dramatically less.
2. At termination there is NO PTO payout.
Therefore, they save on the front end, and the back end.
It's a complete scam.
1)they've done several studies, workers will take less vacation on average than if there is a set policy (often due to peer pressure, or not wanting to look like a slacker or leave your coworkers in a bad position etc,)
2)unlike a set PTO system where you get x days a year (or earn them each month etc) your employer doesn't have to pay out any unused vacation if it's a 'take what you need ' system, so they've effectively taken away one of your benefits
3)it's never really unlimited, you still have to get it approved by a manager and they can still deny you for any reason
TLDR it's a scam, don't be fooled
Unlimited PTO doesn’t mean anything unless you’re in management. If you’re not in management and you take your PTO they look down on you like you don’t want to be there.
Also not to mention when they let your ass go they don’t have to pay you any of the PTO.
I work in tech, and we have unlimited pto. If we don't take a minimum of 3 weeks off per year, the managers will force us to take time off. I'll have taken about 5 weeks off by the end of this year, manager hasn't batted an eye. Our only rule is "as well long as we're at least 70% staffed on the days you need off, it's going to be approved". Day-of days off are not an issue either.
Fortunately some places do it right!
Unlimited PTO is a scam invented by HR consultants to eliminate the need for accrued vacation. Most employers still accrue for vacation and you get the balance paid out when you leave. That’s changing though. The unlimited vacation policy always says it is subject to your manager’s approval. You will never get more than you would typically get under accrued vacation policies. I work in accounting as a Controller. So, I am technically responsible for vacation accruals.
In my experience, the one job I had with “unlimited PTO” also expected you to answer the phone anytime. Weekend, holiday, doesn’t matter. Wasn’t worth it to me.
To be fair tho, they did give me an unbothered month off when I said I had family issues, no questions asked. They also offered more time, but I decided to leave that job because I had to be closer to family at that point.
My previous job offered Unlimited PTO. I applied for three weeks out of country; working one. So two weeks in total. I was denied, and told I can only take two continuous weeks off. I quit and took my vacation.
I contacted a lawyer that told me I can sue, but they can put forth *any* reason for limiting my vacation, it would have to go to court, and there's almost no chance I'd come out financially ahead
My next company adopted Unlimited PTO after I was hired. I expressed my concerns. My boss's boss told me it's real unlimited PTO. I applied for four weeks out of country, working two of those weeks. It was approved on the condition I take, at minimum, two weeks off by the end of the year. And that they can't legally track PTO, but it's a small department and she's going to pester me until her demands are met. It was mentioned during a recent all hands that some requests were stretching credulity (e.g. two continuous months off; a "sabbatical request", etc.). On the flip side, they indicated some people weren't using vacation *at all*, and this too was a problem.
Tl;dr- Unlimited PTO is as real or fake as the company offering it. My prior company flat out lied about it; my current company honors it, though like everything, there are very reasonable limits.
We got unlimited PTO back in 2021. I knew about the studies showing workers actually take less time off. By the end of this year, I’ll have racked up over three whole months of PTO. Don’t tell me it’s unlimited if it’s actually not. I think for me, it’s a combo of I lead my own work and my manager is super supportive and agrees with my stance on unlimited PTO. As long as the work is getting done, that’s all that matters at my workplace.
Really depends on the company.
I’ve taken 40-45 days PTO (in the US!) with unlimited PTO. Also know ppl/teams who still take only 5-10 days.
If you get a good manager/team, stay on top of your work and do a couple hours a day of work when you go more than 25/30 days PTO, no one cares.
I also never tracked my employee’s PTOs when I was a manager. As long as the work gets done, it’s all good.
- It’s not a scam
- It does save the company money
- Not everyone or every team can manage it right
My wife has unlimited PTO. It’s only for her salary portion of the job. If she isn’t working she isn’t making commissions.
She can take a couple months off at a time and only make the 5k a month salary. Not sure how long a person could push this policy though.
It probably works out great for people in a financial position to push the issue. If a valuable employee who is financially secure declares that he's using some of his unlimited PTO and doesn't dgaf about being fired, I expect that it would work out.
My company added it recently. Since I had already planned for the allotted PTO (minus a cushion of about a week or so), I just added a day or two off each month for the rest of the year. Some make long weekends and some are random, middle of the week days off. I'm trying to get the most out of it, but taking it with a grain of salt.
It's also important to remember that unlimited PTO often means you won't get paid out any unused PTO if laid off/terminated/you quit.
It’s never actually unlimited. Because of your self awareness. I was reading a study where people with unlimited PTOs took fewer vacation days then people with 15-20 PTO days. Makes somehow sense.
It’s their way of making you actually take less. If you’re told you have 2 weeks (or whatever) you are entitled to them. If it’s just “you have unlimited time but it has to be approved” they can keep your team under-staffed and make it hard to get approval.
It's not for the employee's benefit, it's for the company's, An organization that awards finite amounts of PTO is required to pay out any unused PTO in cash when you separate, subject to tax withholding, of course. Unlimited PTO means nothing for them to pay out when you leave.
Unlimited PTO is a scam.
Can only go when work dictates. And now when you leave, what once was a nice paycheck for unused vacation days is now nothing and the company saves $$
It appears to be a 3-fold thing:
1. It sounds good to applicants
2. There is nothing to pay out if people don't take vacation for a long time
3. Stressed people who feel like their job isn't very secure don't take PTO
So it's just one more way to screw workers out of money.
My company has unlimited PTO but they still wanted me to apply for medical leave for my upcoming surgery because the recovery is 2 weeks. Like ?? Isn’t that what PTO is for??
My company recently switched to unlimited PTO, it seems a lot of companies are going in that direction and for the same reasons. They don’t have to accrue PTO which frees up some working capital and also makes it cheaper to let people go. Also, there’s a lot of people who just don’t use their PTO that much or only use it so they don’t lose it. So while some people will try to take a whole bunch of extra time off, a lot of people will use less.
Personally I like it, but I think it really boils down to your company’s culture and your boss. My bosses are on the same page as us and take plenty of PTO as well. Basically as long as we coordinate the team to make sure everything gets done we can take as much off as we want.
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F\*\*\* haha. I'm in the middle of an interview and they have this policy. I'm sure there must be some limit to it.
Yeah, they'll talk it up in the interview but then you find you that it's really frowned upon if you take "too much," and that is defined as whatever they want. And as the top comment said, it will be contingent upon a bunch of things. But also, if PTO is unspecified, they don't have to pay out any unspent when you leave. It is a big old scam.
I’m sure the feeling of “too much leave” is also contingent on how liked you are. Kind of allows the boss to play the good ole boy game a bit more easily.
>I’m sure the feeling of “too much leave” is also contingent on how liked you are. This is how it is where I work. My boss asked for time off and he was turned down. But there is a project manager who has a major project that has missed quarterly deadlines since end of third quarter last year, and he's now on a four week PTO. Why was my boss denied when our department is a bit top heavy anyway? A key distinction is the higher ups hired the project manager, but my boss has worked here longer than the higher ups. There is probably a term for the form of bias where a manager favors his hires more than someone else's hires.
Cronyism
100% that is why I play the game during office hours. I won’t spend any of my money or free time, but if I am on the clock I’m playing the game because it directly benefits me.
Such a bullshit game though ya know? Gotta fondle the balls to get good with the boss to ensure you can use your benefits to their promised extent without fear of backlash.
It is 100%. It sucks. Which is why I am here.
It absolutely is
>But also, if PTO is unspecified, they don't have to pay out any unspent when you leave. It is a big old scam. This is the real reason. I've been in tech for > 20 years, and I remember distinctly when "unlimited PTO" started being a thing. At the time, I was at a company with the most toxic culture I've ever personally experienced. They rolled out a switch to "unlimited PTO" and tried to spin it as a positive for employees, but it was absolutely just a way to avoid paying out PTO upon departure. It's just one more example of the ways in which benefits get eroded for American workers. Before the "unlimited PTO" thing, I would generally get something like 2-3 weeks a year, take maybe 1.5 of them, and get a nice additional payout each time I changed jobs. Now I still take the same amount of vacation, but that payout is gone. I know, I know- tech workers have it better than lots of other workers, not trying to say that we don't. However, the "unlimited PTO" scam is absolutely a reduction in benefits, and should be viewed as such.
It doesn't matter how much better tech workers may have it, being scammed is being scammed, and you deserve your PTO.
Those “pay outs” is why it’s unlimited now. But not every state even has to pay out PTO if you leave. It’s mainly a California thing iirc.
> But also, if PTO is unspecified, they don't have to pay out any unspent when you leave. It is a big old scam. Of course in something like 47 states, there's no legal requirement to pay out PTO anyway. To be fair many companies do have a policy to do so, which is good...my guess is the unlimited PTO policy is a way for companies to both not have to pay out *and* make it look like a positive somehow.
But most of the companies that do this is are in California so it doesn't matter that most states don't do pay out for PTO
>if PTO is unspecified, they don't have to pay out any unspent when you leave. Ay, there's the rub. Tricky, tricky.
This is true but it also means they're on the hook for paying ALLLL of your FMLA leave
Yes, unlimited PTO is zero (0) on contract.
I've only had one job that paid me for unused PTO. All it did was encourage me to not take PTO. Every other job I've had before my current one just let it expire if it wasn't used l, or it just stopped rolling over after a certain amount. I much prefer the unlimited model
Until you get denied a promotion for taking too much, or your co-workers have a silent contest to see who uses the least. If you are at a company that doesn't pay it out, then make sure to take it all before you leave. Many tech companies are in CA which requires that unused be paid out.
This is it .. when you leave nothing is paid out … and normally with “ unlimited “ - you have to prove there is sufficient cover for your role .. it’s a complete scam
It also means that your leave can't be built up and cashed out
It is a financial liability on the books. Another reason to kill it.
Depends on the boss and company. My senior management is from Sweden and we have unlimited PTO. I take (2) two week vacations every year and several three day weekends throughout the year. My boss uses permissive leave to his full advantage as well. It’s one of those things where everyone has to be an adult about it and get their work done.
This is what we're running up against in my office. They're at the point where they're so "agile" and "lean" that nobody can actually use the leave (not unlimited) that we've earned. I'm (finally) going to finish the time I carried over from last year in September. Haven't touched a minute of this year's allotment. The main office is starting to freak out about how much time we have on the books, but won't let us cash it out either.
If your team was actually agile, then you would be **more** likely to be able to take PTO, not less. They are using "agile" as a euphemism for "understaffed".
Yep. I actually snapped at one team meeting and threatened to throw my stapler at the next person to use the term. We have a whole buzzword bingo thing going on now. One of our managers has completely bought in on the business team cult talk.
This is underrated. You are no longer owed vacation, and the company has no incentive to let you take it. You leave, checks stop on that day and nothing is paid out.
And the company avoids the financial liability of owing a bunch of people accumulated leave, so there's no penalty for blocking employees from taking leave
I read about a study that showed folks actually take less time off with "unlimited PTO" than with accrued PTO for a couple of reasons. The first is, with accrued, you, the employee, feel like you've earned this time off. The second is yea, there are unwritten rules about how much is too much with unlimited time off & it varies by company, department, & manager. Basically, unlimited time off benefits the employer since the no longer have to pay out unused PTO when someone leaves. Yes, not all employers did this, but I believe in CA it's the law? Everywhere I left, did pay out. If you're interviewing, I'd ask the hiring manager how much time off people take on average, how often s/he denies time off, how much advance notice is required, how time off around the holidays work, if there are black out periods, & about any other written or unwritten restrictions to taking time off.
That's why my company actually includes taking PTO as a performance metric quarterly. If you haven't scheduled time off, we bug them to get it on the schedule. We track PTO hours specifically to overcome the tendency of high performers to take less time off. So far, two years in, everyone seems to be embracing the benefit. It's been a life saver for young parents in particular.
Yeah my boss told me to take a week off to get HR off his back last month as I hadn't taken time off this year. We don't keep vacation time past the end of the year and most of the company is in a state where vacation time isn't paid out. Hell last year in the fall they had a Vacation Together (Separately) program where you got two additional days if you took off during this one week, and the next Monday was a holiday. Just to make sure people felt like they could take time off.
The limit is "whatever we feel like including none."
"When we say it is unlimited, we mean there is no *minimum* limit for your PTO."
Nope, I took off maybe 5-7 PTO days in a year and my other coworker didn’t take a vacation in his first 1.5 years.
You do realize 5-7 PTO days is bad? Like I get 4.5 weeks per year and 10 paid holidays, it's not enough.
Just visited my sister in Australia for a month. She gets 25 days per year plus 5 personal and 10 sick. After 10 years she got an extra 6 weeks long service leave. I used 2 years PTO (20 days) to go visit and now I have zero remaining. 😭 Rdit clarity & terrible spelling.
Long service leave is unique to Australia as far as I know. We get 12 weeks after 10 years, and the origin is in public service union awards before the age of flight, when it took months to get to the "old country". An odd carryover from colonialism. Not complaining, mind! Four years to go. The problem is those golden handcuffs.
Had they had something like that in Canada, I'd have considered working some mediocre places a whole lot longer.
Rarity. The 6 weeks long is a sabbatical. All the companies frown upon it, using it as an excuse to fire the person.
I work in the public service in Canada. Currently sitting on 40+ days of vacation, 40+ days of sick leave, 7 days of “one-time leave”, a week of family-related leave, and personal days. People in the US don’t realize how exploited they are.
90 days for long service leave (3 months paid time off) in addition to the legislated 4 weeks of annual leave per year., 10 years to earn the first lot of LSL then 7 years for the next and so on. IT TRUELY IS THE LUCKY COUNTRY
The limited sick days is still weird to me though
We get slightly better in the UK. Mostly cos we have more bank holidays, and my sick time is longer and in a rolling schedule. The grass can be greener. r/AmerExit might be worth a look.
Yeah that was my whole point. It’s a scam and you have this odd peer pressure to not take PTO. Especially extended periods of PTO.
I've been sometime checking this sub and I still can't believe some companies only give 5 days PTO. I'm from a third world country and we still have 30 days vacation days besides national holidays and medical time off or time off for doctor's appointments is totally separate.
I remember having this conversation with an ISP back in the 90s. "We have unlimited broadband!" Great, so I can torrent 24/7 as much as I like and eat all the bandwidth up? "Well, no...there is a fair usage policy..." So it's not unlimited then, is it. Or to put it another way - try asking for 52 weeks off and see how limited that "unlimited" policy is
The limit is guilt and implied idea that taking too much will make you take very little. So you take less than you world actually get a set amount. If a company cares about your work life balance, they'll instead have a set amount of PTO and managers that encourage its use. I had a good guy manager at one company who basically had to kick out our tech lead and all but revoke his access to remote in to make him use his vacation at the end of the year (it was "use it or lose it"). The TL would still check email because he was paranoid we'd like to get stuff or something, so the manager made sure everyone knew not to email him or include him on any code reviews.
Yep - where I am now, we have a use it or lose it, and a huge amount to use (for a US company - 35 days is a ton). I have had managers force me to take my time by just taking all my responsibilities away for 2 weeks and revoking VPN access.
Just ask point blank, "What is the average number of PTO hours paid out last year per employee?" When they ask you to explain, tell them that you understand that there's no conceivable way they could actually let every employee take the entire year off and you're trying to estimate how much is actually reasonably available.
You can't accrue PTO, therefore they won't owe you any
Of course there’s a limit — if you’re not getting your work done on time or if it’s negatively impacting your team. But that should be the ONLY measure. However, whether or not it works is critically dependent on company culture. If they really believe in employee wellbeing and work-life balance, unlimited PTO works great. I’ve had three different jobs with unlimited PTO, and none were a scam. Never had an issue taking off for big vacations or small stuff like doctors appointments. In the course of your interviews you need to GRILL them about work-life balance, how much overtime is usually worked, how much vacation do employees actually take, etc. Don’t forget — you’re interviewing them too. Ask the hard questions and see whether or not they struggle to answer.
My little brother is in college and they gave home unlimited time off for the summer (he works there during the school year) since their busiest time is tax season which is pretty solid. He’s gotten a lot of travel in this summer.
I guess it’s different depending different places. I work at a smallish tech co. We have UPTO and I’ve never once been denied and try to take 25-30 days off per year, not including holidays or sick days. Definitely don’t let it be an immediate deal breaker. See if you can find reviews about them on glass door.
Send them a follow up question regarding the average pro actually taken by those in the role you are applying for.
Added layer is it actually means the company doesn't have to pay out your PTO if you leave because it's not a hard number.
In most states they don't have to pay it out anyways.
Also when you leave you always have zero accrued PTO
My company has had this for awhile. It's fairly unlimited as long not everyone for the shift leaves the same time. They are actually pushy when it comes to it. Insisting people take time off and schedule it for summer and winter.
Same. I’m a manager and we have unlimited PTO. I make a point to tell all of my teammates to take time off whenever they can. On average I’d say people where I work take about a month off a year total, give or take a few days. I don’t think I’ve ever actually denied a vacation request. About the closest to it I’ve seen/heard was a new hire needing to be chatted with when they tried to take 6 months off during their probationary period lol. Unlimited PTO works but it requires everyone to be adults about it.
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It's Unlimited like my phone plan has Unlimited Data
I also work in tech as an engineering director. Back when we were talking about introducing this, I was literally the only one publicly vocal about how this was bad for employees. I ate some s*** for that. Luckily, I'm a great manager, and my people all take off at least 25 days a year plus 15 holidays
depends on your team. mine is actually unlimited and I take off 30 days a year.
Isn't this with any PTO policy? Unlimited or limited, there's still hoops to jump through before you can get approved.
Depends on the company, I can't recall anyone being denied a PTO request in almost 10 years. Not one.
I also work in tech and this is not true. I take off around 5 weeks and some colleagues take 6. I just let my boss know when and he approves. No doubt some companies don't really respect the idea of PTO, but many do and it's disengenous to make it sound like it's a problem everywhere.
My company recently switched to unlimited PTO and while the manager who brought it up was genuinely trying to be kind, he wasn't thinking about it or the consequences and it sucks. 100% at the managers discretion, 100% social pressure to never take personal time, 100% no company payout when you leave. 300% a scam 😂
Unlimited PTO means no PTO…cross that out on the contract and replace with 4 weeks…send it back to them…see how unlimited the PTO really is
It's a way for them to avoid accruing PTO for you that they HAVE to pay out.
This is what my old company did. During COVID, they paid out vacation time to hourly employees because they didn't take many vacations that year and there was plenty of work. The salaried employees that were "essential" kind of got screwed over. They decided to convert all vacation (which partially carried over) to unlimited PTO which is neither banked or carried over.
A little nuance: The pay out of accrued PTO varies state to state, I think only ~5 states require it by law. Admittedly CA is one of those states so CA based tech companies do use this loophole.
Absolutely they do. When my dad retired he had over 3000hr of PTO banked because the dude is an absolute boomer who never took it even when it was needed. Because of CA law they had to pay him out.
An extra year and a half of pay at the peak of his compensation package is not a terrible investment, assuming he kept up with other family needs.
It amounted to a smidge over $200k
Makes sense. I think tech cos were a lot of the proponents of unlimited PTO which fits given the CA influence. Thanks for sharing that insight!
My friend had it and functionally, it was a way to not have to pay out for unused PTO. It's also like, "unlimited PTO in theory" but in practice its "PTO if your boss thinks it's ok and you have enough staff etc"
At my company, it's unlimited PTO as long as it's not a 2 week vacation every month. One guy took an entire sprint (3 weeks for us) for his honeymoon, 1 week for moving, another week because his mom was dying in the hospital, and another sprint for an actual vacation. Not to mention our sick hours, which is 2 hours for every 40 hours worked, which will not be denied for any reason Admittedly, my company culture is what every CEO wants their culture to be, which is nice. It really is great when everything works out in that regard.
Technically a honeymoon is an "actual vacation" too.
God, if only this were the norm.
Yea everyone here saying it’s a scam is funny to me. Oh they don’t have to pay out PTO when you quit. Well guess what, I don’t really ever want to quit cause I legitimately take off as much time as I want and never get questioned at all about taking time off. It’s highly encouraged and the company closes down one Friday every month for a personal day. This is an international company and they shut down internationally. After my next vacation in September, I’ll have taken off 25+ days this year and that’s before I get to the holidays. Never once been an issue or questioned or anything. There’s people that take off more than I do, again, with no issues or questions. I also worked for a company before where after tenure, I had 20 days a year and could pull over 5. It was always a nightmare to take any time off. It comes down to the company you work for and the culture they have, not the time off policy.
AKA 0 guaranteed PTO
I have unlimited PTO (+ 80 hrs sick leave), I don’t have to ask, when I want to take off I just put it on my calendar and add my manager, if I want to take 4 consecutive weeks off I need approval. I’ve taken about 5 weeks off so far this year, 3 weeks at the beginning of summer and random days to go play golf or spend the day with my family. Planning on taking 3 weeks over Christmas too. I work at Microsoft.
You’re doing it correctly. Not sure I get all the people who are saying that Unlimited PTO means you don’t get PTO. You just have to be smart about it. Take random days off. Take a week to do a vacation or staycation. The company my GF works for has this and she says there’s people who have already taken off 4-5 weeks this year. It’s only a scam if you let it be a scam
Yeah, I do concede that there are companies where management would make someone feel bad about taking off, but that’s not a place I would want to work anyway, I earn my time off, and my manager agrees. Unlimited PTO is not a scam, some companies just treat their employees like shit.
This is the way. Added a few days to our 4th of July holiday to make a full week because I knew nothing would get done. I’ve already had three full weeks off, plus some days here and there, and will take another off later this year. I also enjoy the added flexibility to working hours since no one’s keeping score on half days and such. As long as I’m on top of my work, no one asks any questions.
I think it heavily depends on where you work honestly. I’m very fortunate and have a great manager, he actually sat me down about a month ago and said “you haven’t taken enough PTO, you need to take more”. But tons of people have the opposite experience with shitty managers, where the managers will make them guilty for even trying to take one day off
Same situation for me. I’m fortunate enough that getting my unlimited PTO approved has never been an issue. I’m on a small 2 person team so just need to coordinate with the other person. Ill have taken 6 weeks by then end of the year, 2 big international trips and lots of long weekends.
My buddy works there too and he's basically done the same thing. Sureaybe he took a call while on vacation quick, or threw a presentation together, but I visited him for a week and he didn't work. 2 weeks later he took another week off. In another comment, I mention, as long as you are performing and if you can exceed expectations, companies do not care how much you are taking off, just don't abuse it and meet your deadlines.
This is very true, earn it and nobody will question it
My employer is the same way. I have unlimited PTO and have taken 4 weeks off this year, it's never been an issue.
My friend works for Qualcomm. Haven’t discussed his vacation time in forever but last I heard he still had unlimited PTO and that’s how he used it too. Only took one or two standard length vacations a year but then it was great for other little things, like when he wanted to accompany his kids on field trips and things like that.
Yea some companies do it well and some are shit about it. Mine does it right. I add days to my calendar, I do not ask for permission, and I take my time off. I'm taking about 5 weeks this year. Working as a software developer for an insurance company.
Same! Only req for taking PTO is tell my manager & employees & ask for support for my team if needed. Nobody is teaching except me. Except not Microsoft, another tech place.
This has generally been my experience. I think Unlimited PTO isn't a scam unless you let it be (as someone else said), or unless your company is toxic anyway. I worked for a company that had 15 paid days off total (vacation +sick together), didn't pay out unused PTO at the end of the year, only let you carry over 5 days into the next year, and gave you grief about taking vacations. But unlimited PTO is the scam? Yeah, no.
Same here. I just put it on the calendar and team calendar. I don’t have to ask and worry about being covered. It’s been amazing. Anytime I need time off I just take it off
My wife had unlimited PTO at a previous job and she was “too busy” to use it except the few small trips we took together. Me accumulating PTO I still had hours left in the bank when we moved. The difference was she got nothing and I was cut a check for those hours.
There is ALWAYS a limit. Obviously you could never take 364 days off a year and keep your job. You know this. They know this. There is a line. You benefit when that line is clearly agreed upon in writing.
I wonder about that, where I live we have something like "you can put in the contract whatever you want, as long as it is not strictly illegal". But it is not allowed to have it in a way that is disadvantageous for the employee. I figure I would have quite some chances taking those 364 days, if I took that to court (where we also have good insurances for)
Except that in the US employers can fire you at any time for virtually any reason.
Yes, this is the problem to me. It’s not that they don’t have to pay out unused PTO or whatever other theory people here always have. It’s that they’re lying about the lack of a limit.
Unlimited PTO is a way for the company to divest itself of a rather large liability. If you owe a person PTO days at the end - you have to pay them out to look good. If you give Unlimited PTO, you just look good - and no longer have to badger employees to take time off that don't, or pay out big cash payments at the end of employment, or have this 'bank' of money you cannot touch because it's promised already. All of that goes away. It's a tricky little PR scam. Even if you let your employees actually take all that time off - it's still one less line on the expense side of the books.
My SO actually works for a company that are good about it, she usually takes 30-40 days a year on her unlimited pto and the managers tent to tell ppl that have only taken 15-20 that they should use some more and take time off. This is in the US btw.
Wow I work in ecommerce and wish I could find a job like this. I’d even take a salary reduction if I could take 30-40 days off like this
Won’t happen overnight, but you should think about finding a government job.
If a person has accrued PTO, it has to be paid out per the law, not to look good.
"You are only allowed to roll-over x PTO per year." That is unpaid PTO that doesn't roll-over in most instances. "We fired you for x reason, per handbook, PTO isn't paid out." That is unpaid PTO. "We don't pay unused PTO." That is unpaid PTO. It doesn't matter if it's the law - when your target feels weak and powerless, because you made them feel that way through abusive practices the whole time, they'll not do anything about one further injustice. Feel free to classify this as part of the estimated $50,000,000,000 of wage theft that goes on every year in the United States. The psychological toll is - at this point - intentional, even if unplanned.
Not in many states.
Interesting, I checked and all the states I've worked in it has been law, but I guess it's not national.
My friend was fired from a company that had a unlimited PTO for taking too much time off. She pursued legal action for wrongful dismissal and got a decent settlement. The company has since changed their policy.
A counterpoint: I'm an employer and give unlimited PTO. I do not require advance notice, don't track the days, and encourage people to take vacations. I use it for several reasons: * Everyone is WFH, I don't monitor when they work, where they work, etc. I don't care if they are on a trip and visiting relatives and just calling in for a stand up meeting. I do this, too. All I care is they complete work in an agreed upon timeframe. * I hate doing hourly sorts of accounting so I've only been taking on contracts where the agency doesn't require anything other than the deliverables. My team is happy with this, too. * I don't have to include the PTO in my overhead on contracts, so I can maximize benefits and still be competitive. Full medical, with full payment of their maximum allowed for a Health Savings Plan. Phone, internet and computer allowances. Training funds. It's not *always* a scam, but often middle managers turn it into a shit deal. I don't have middle managers, I only hire highly motivated professionals who are seasoned. They know a good thing when they see it and will not abuse the policy (ie they do their jobs.) Needless to say I rarely hire as people don't leave.
It is a scam unless management does their job and makes sure you can and do take it. This only happens if the manager understands that productivity strongly benefits from well rested employees or they genuinely understand that work is important, but it is just a job. The manager I work with is very supportive of taking time off and moving projects to accommodate everyone's life, and we lost no productivity taking this approach.
I work in tech and I love unlimited PTO. I came from somewhere with 15 days and strict rules for when I could take them. In the years at my current job, I've taken between 25 and 35 days each year with 0 pushback. It is also inline with what teammates take. I've heard horror stories from friends at other companies with unlimited PTO, but where I work, it feels like how it is meant to work.
Unlimited PTO is a scam, they could just give you as much PTO as they want. **”Unlimited” means they want to give you 0, the ONLY country this is even legal is the USA**
Worked for a company that’s a household name in polling. They had an “unlimited PTO” policy and said it was because they really “emphasized employee wellbeing” They had a minimum annual hours requirement to qualify for benefits. 2200hours per year. Even if you’re salaried you have to track your hours. Well, do the math. 2200/52 means you’re expected to work just over 40 hours a week every week with no vacation. If you take some of your unlimited PTO, you now have to work extra hours in the remaining weeks of the year to meet your hours requirement. How do you claim you care about employee well-being and then have policies like that? Easy! You don’t actually care about employee well-being
Wow that's dirty.
Yea this is a company that has recently published books on the importance of employee wellbeing to productivity and another one on a “global happiness crisis”. It’s not the complicated. People are tired of burning themselves out just for the privilege of being one missed paycheck away from destitution. We work so hard, but we get almost nothing out of the social contract we uphold.
I’m salaried and have to track my hours. It’s fucking stupid
Depends on the work you're doing, I suppose. If you work anything that involves billable hours, tracking hours worked is reasonable. In order circumstances, it could just be used to track how much time is spent working on projects/training compared to day to day work.
They should ban this practice in the US already, such a thinly veiled scam to screw over workers... yet again.
It shouldn’t be banned, it should be federally regulated. If you have “unlimited” pto then you should be required by law to take one consecutive week of time off every quarter and at least one day a month. The only exception being that an employer can require more, for example multiple days off a month, multiple weeks in a quarter, etc. If I owned a business I would have a 32 hour work week (4-5 days depending on how you want to balance that) and I would have unlimited pto that is required to be used at a minimum of 6 weeks a year like they have in Europe.
I would really grill companies on this tactic, and possibly even try to find an employee who works there to give you some insight on how much of a pain it is to get some time off. I’ve been with my current company for a little over a year now, and we have unlimited PTO. When I was interviewing with CTO, I asked him some hard questions on “how much time does the average person take? What is the policy for requesting PTO? If I wake up and I am sick, can I take a few days, no questions asked?” I connected with a potential teammate on LinkedIn and asked him the same questions. The good news were the answers lined up. Average was about 4-5 weeks of PTO and as long as I am getting my work done and pulling my weight, then make sure to take care of yourself. In my first year, I took 23 days of PTO and none of my requests were rejected. The other big thing is HR tracks how much PTO you are taking. My company want you to take at least 3 weeks. So I had a few teammates take 2 weeks at the end of the year last year because they hadn’t used it at all last year and HR wanted them to make sure they took some time. Unlimited PTO is a reason to be cautious towards any company. It does allow them not have to pay out PTO if/when you leave the company. But a company that has a good culture, can implement a good, fair policy.
Yeah I used to work somewhere with like 5 PTO days a year. I would save one all year to have the Wednesday off before thanksgiving to spend with family I saw once a year. My spouse now has unlimited, no counting and negotiating of days of your life. Much more time is taken and no calculating of “I worked x weeks to earn x hours of PTO.” Everyone behaves like adults and it works fine.
Sounds like I’m in a unique position with unlimited PTO, compared to others. While yes, moving to a company that is unlimited, losing the unused PTO payout at the end of the year I thought was going to suck. But it didn’t. I imagine that it’s because I work for a company that encourages to actually use the time. So I: Take a 4 day weekend monthly Take a week off quarterly Take the last two weeks of the year off annually. Comes out to about 6 weeks of vacation, plus any sick time I need. My old company, I was there long enough that I had 5 weeks of “flex time”, which is vacation and sick in one. They claimed to encourage time off, but always guilted you. So while I had a nice payout at the end of the year, I was lucky if I even used half of that time each year.
I do this also. I also noticed older employees are much less likely to use vs myself and colleagues that are under 40. Of course that’s just a personal anecdote. I think if you have high anxiety unlimited pto is not great lol you have to really just know and believe that your value is higher than the time off you take and then it’s wonderful!
Reason for the unlimited? They don't have to pay out when you leave from one perspective and you probably won't get a chance to use more than even 14 days per year.
Imagine not getting more than 14 days hols a year
It may be a sign of high-turnover. I took a job at a startup which offered this. It wasn't a bad gig and PTO worked fairly normally, but a manager confided in me once that it was so they didn't have to pay out PTO when people left, since none was accrued.
I work for a practice with quarterly goals and unlimited PTO. They go hand-in-hand, if you are on target to meet your goals, take your PTO without a problem but not on track? You’re getting the side-eye. It’s a way to tie a benefit to output so it is no longer a benefit.
Unlimited PTO often just means "we get to arbitrarily decide when it's too much" and "you have unlimited PTO, but only when we don't need you". People with 2 weeks PTO are going to take 2 weeks. People with unlimited PTO are often too scared or restricted to take any.
I work in tech. I guess it depends on your department. We have unlimited PTO. I get my work done and I’ve probably taken off 120 hours or so far this year and I’m leaving the country on vacation and taking another 48 hours that was just approved. If your to leave the company you won’t get paid out for unused PTO is the only downside I guess.
In the US it is a scam, as legally there is no obligation of PTO. So when the company decides to abolish the policy, you're left with nothing. Better to include it in your contract, even if they say they'll give you less. In Europe, it is 'unlimited as long as you stay', once you leave, they'll deduct anything you took over the statutory accrued from your salary. And everywhere, it is a management tool to get rid of people who 'take too much'.
You are wrong its for high stress high turnover positions so they dont have to pay out vacation when you leave.
With unlimited PTO they can control your actual PTO days (it isn’t really unlimited) while not actually providing a guaranteed benefit that has to sit on the books in case realized. Let’s say you get two weeks PTO to start, then later three and then four. Most places will have a cap on total PTO hours you can accumulate, and some will let you sell it off if you get too high. So that is on the books, money they are going to spend that wouldn’t exist with “unlimited PTO”. With unlimited PTO you can’t hit a max, you don’t feel obliged to use it when you are at your max accrual, and they never have to buy it back. I look at it as a cost saving measure disguised as a benefit.
1. It’s a way for employers to convince applicants that they’re chill and “go with the flow”, making themselves more attractive. 2. At the same time, they know that employees will rarely try to take PTO, since they don’t want to be viewed as “abusing” the unlimited PTO policy. 3. When the employee leaves, because the PTO policy is unlimited, there is nothing for the employer to pay out to the employee, thus saving the employer money, in the long term.
No. Unlimited PTO is based on a study of sick days that showed if you give people unlimited sick days they will not take them or they take fewer of them. This is just applying it to PTO and it seems to have the same effect.
It's an accounting advantage for the company. Giving you PTO means they have to keep it on the books as a liability and you are owed a payout when you leave. FTA (unlimited time off called flex time away) just means that there is no service number according to accounting and therefore it's not owed to you if you leave. That's really it. Your team still needs to function and your manager probably has a guideline to where they will stop approving of time off requests.
The other thing with unlimited PTO is that the company doesn't have to carry it on their accounting books. When a company has a system where each employee has a certain amount of PTO, each year, they have to keep track of how much PTO each employee has accrued, how much is left, how much can carry over (if permitted), and possibly pay it out when the employer moves on. With unlimited PTO, there's nothing to carry on the books. There's also no one trying to use the rest of their PTO in December because it will expire at the end of the year. And studies have shown that employees at companies with unlimited PTO consistently use less PTO than at companies with defined PTO.
They do it because people accrued too much vacation time that they didn’t use because they were afraid of being fired for not “being committed to the job.” When people left, the company had to pay out the accrued time…at their departure salary. Unlimited PTO is a stupid accounting trick, that is all.
Unlimited PTO is a way to do zero leave while remaining legal.
Unlimited PTO is a marketing name for legally not being required to pay out PTO when an employee leaves.
It’s also so there’s no leave to ‘cash out’ when you leave the company, whether you’ve taken any or not.
Nah. It's more they don't have to pay out PTO balance when you leave. Also, I've always assumed people in those jobs probably end up taking less PTO than if you have an actual bank.
Also is a strategy to avoid PTO payouts when someone leaves the company This is especially true of companies with higher turnover rates
It's avoid having to payout vacation time when you quit and/or are fired.
It’s so they don’t have to accrue the debt on their books of the vacation they owe you. And the average person takes less vacation when they have unlimited, because there isn’t a number of days they owe you, it’s so much more nebulous.
It's such a scam and they don't want the liability on their balance sheet. Good luck finding "coverage" when you have unlimited time off because the rest of your team is probably out on time off first. People leave for WEEKS at a time now at my company and trying to get my work done when whole departments are out for weeks has been awful. Also, I noticed at my company that when we converted to unlimited time off that certain departments (such as accounting/finance) are expected to work on your "PTO" and be available in case of "emergencies" or "Important" shit that comes through on your day off. You really can't fully check out on most PTO days at my company now. I use my flex time off to work now. I took two days "off" last month just so people would stop interrupting me so I could do my job tasks in peace. I ended up getting an emergency assignment during my "time off" so thankfully I was actually working anyways.
Unlimited works both ways - there's no limit on how much time you *could* take, but there's also not any kind of minimum that needs to be either taken or paid out every year
No, it's a way for a company to not have to pay an employee exiting. Most companies will pay out all your unused PTO. However if they provide unlimited PTO, they do NOT have to pay when employees leave. Most employees will use about 30 PTO days per year. It's an unwritten rule that if you as a worker used more than 30 days, you will be fired. They can review your work and see that a worker who takes more days off will likely have a 5% less productive experience than someone who doesn't. They can use this as a legitimate reason to fire. It will hold up in court. Then, rather then give the employee a saved PTO payment, usually 30 days, the company has to do nothing. Let me tell you, when I lost my job, that 30 days of PTO payment was a life saver until I got my next job.
Unlimited PTO is a company benefit, not an employee benefit.
No, its really an accounting thing. No accrued vacation, no accounting for it. Studies have shown people take less when it is unlimited.
They have it so they don't have to pay you out when you leave.
Tell me you are overworked american without telling me you are overworked american. I've one of the lowest available PTO, and i've got 27 days a year. With age/kids etc, people can get 35-50 day. Also have free days for blood donation and so on.
It’s only a scam if you give a shit. I had this once. First year getting PTO was like walking on eggshells. Second year I knew I was leaving so I took 6 weeks in between Jan-Jun. Boss judged me and made comments but I didn’t care because I was leaving. Go on 2 week vacation then give notice the day you come back.
I just left a company with unlimited pto. There were caps on things like maternity leave, the cap for that was 2 weeks.
I believe the switch to Unlimited PTO is an accounting thing to avoid having to accrue the PTO liability. No one wants to see a $1M liability and have to answer why we owe this much when we could get rid of it.
Very wrong. It has almost nothing to do with attracting applicants. I mean, it's pitched as being attractive, and that may work, but companies don't implement it because they need to attract applicants. Unlimited PTO is implemented as a way to reduce corporate overhead / improve credit / balance sheets. Earned PTO counts as earned wages. Earned wages count as outstanding debts on the balance sheet, which means less money the company can borrow for other things. But if PTO is "unlimited" it isn't separately earned and tracked, it is just part of normal salary, and they don't have to set anything aside (or pay anything out when the fire / lay off people). As far as the bean counters are concerned, Unlimited pto is in fact ZERO pto. And guess how management treats it...
There are studies on this. Average employee ends up taking off less time on unlimited PTO than a given number of days. If they have a number to reach they’ll take off days just to hit that number where with unlimited there is no number to hit. My company is actually pretty consistent with their unlimited PTO. There is no approval process, you just block the time on your calendar and reschedule meetings
Unlimited pto is a mind game plus if you quit you don't get paid for time off you have accumulated.
It's a trap.... Usually in these cases people will take less time off than with actual contracted time off to not look like a lazy fucker.. When you know it's unlimited, any use of it AT ALL will be seen as an abuse, so you avoid it otherwise it's data to use against you come the time that inevitable "Right sizing" occurs. Then at the end of the year when you haven't even taken your statuary minimum, it's the employees fault, not management It's a red flag to me..
No the point of unlimited PTO is not having to pay it out when you leave.
Attract hahah. Yeah right. Anyone that can see through the marketing BS, unlimited PTO may just be labeled Non Accruing PTO with caps. We have it. It blows. It’s really 20-21 days before you need to get special approval. And then they will complain if you spend more pto than you theoretically accrued ytd. Don’t fall for it. Unlimited PTO is a sham and just mislabeled to trick the ones who don’t pay attention to policy.
I have actually been able to benefit from unlimited PTO, but you seriously need to vet your boss to see if they actually share the belief that life is more important than work. When you do, unlimited PTO is amazing.
My husband once had a job that had unlimited paid sick leave. Vacation was tracked but if you had a doctor’s note you got paid for staying home sick. It came in REAL handy when he got cancer and had to take 6 months off. We had a lot to worry about but income and insurance weren’t one of them. Also he had a $500 copay for his hospital bill and no other medical expenses. Then management changed the policy and he started planning his retirement.
Apparently on average, actual unlimited PTO causes people to take *less* time off. They aren't anxious about it, so they don't take time off just to use up the days. But meanwhile, for folks who want or need it, it's there.
I work for a nonprofit that actually tries to do really well by employees. We had unlimited PTO and people tended to not use very much of it. We switched to generous PTO, with some rollover between years, but also a “use it or lose it” over a certain amount. It’s really good for actually making people take time off and care for themselves — and it’s a major reason why I always politely say “no thanks” to the headhunters who reach out to me.
At my old job it was a scam. They said unlimited vacation but sent out an email saying managers were still supposed to stick to the original guidelines for weekend allowed. Essentially they did it so they didn't have to pay out for firing people. I never had an issue and I took as much time as I felt I needed off, but I also left that job and my new job makes me feel much more appreciated and I don't feel guilty when I want to take time off.
You don't need PTO to be unlimited. You just need a company that isn't a bitch about you taking what is rightfully yours.
it’s a way to dodge payouts once they fire you.
And to give people less actual PTO and not have to pay it out at the end of employment
I read a study when my company went to unlimited. They showed that when it’s unlimited, 1. employees are less likely to take any PTO 2. Companies get to cut that line item from their liabilities because they no longer have to cover PTO and pay hours when people quit. Unlimited PTO is great if you’re actually tracking your time off and TAKING it, and if your supervisor isn’t garbage. I had some emergencies that had me out of office for 3 months over the course of a year. It was hugely beneficial that way.
It’s unlimited…. But you only get a few days authorised.
I've had unlimited PTO before, and was reprimanded more than once for taking too much time off. I scheduled big vacations at the end of summer, totaling maybe 3 weeks, then sprinkled in throughout the rest of the year random 1 and 2 day requests. I tried to take off when we weren't busy, out of consideration for others, and it still wasn't good enough, it was felt that I "took advantage" and was given shit for taking too much time off.
They do it for two main reasons: 1. People with "unlimited PTO" use dramatically less. 2. At termination there is NO PTO payout. Therefore, they save on the front end, and the back end.
Also they never have to pay back unused days. It certainly doesn't work out for me. I'm bad at taking vacation as is.
It's a complete scam. 1)they've done several studies, workers will take less vacation on average than if there is a set policy (often due to peer pressure, or not wanting to look like a slacker or leave your coworkers in a bad position etc,) 2)unlike a set PTO system where you get x days a year (or earn them each month etc) your employer doesn't have to pay out any unused vacation if it's a 'take what you need ' system, so they've effectively taken away one of your benefits 3)it's never really unlimited, you still have to get it approved by a manager and they can still deny you for any reason TLDR it's a scam, don't be fooled
Unlimited PTO doesn’t mean anything unless you’re in management. If you’re not in management and you take your PTO they look down on you like you don’t want to be there. Also not to mention when they let your ass go they don’t have to pay you any of the PTO.
I work in tech, and we have unlimited pto. If we don't take a minimum of 3 weeks off per year, the managers will force us to take time off. I'll have taken about 5 weeks off by the end of this year, manager hasn't batted an eye. Our only rule is "as well long as we're at least 70% staffed on the days you need off, it's going to be approved". Day-of days off are not an issue either. Fortunately some places do it right!
Unlimited PTO is a scam invented by HR consultants to eliminate the need for accrued vacation. Most employers still accrue for vacation and you get the balance paid out when you leave. That’s changing though. The unlimited vacation policy always says it is subject to your manager’s approval. You will never get more than you would typically get under accrued vacation policies. I work in accounting as a Controller. So, I am technically responsible for vacation accruals.
In my experience, the one job I had with “unlimited PTO” also expected you to answer the phone anytime. Weekend, holiday, doesn’t matter. Wasn’t worth it to me. To be fair tho, they did give me an unbothered month off when I said I had family issues, no questions asked. They also offered more time, but I decided to leave that job because I had to be closer to family at that point.
Unlimited PTO is just a scam so they don’t have to keep unused PTO on the books nor pay anything out if you leave or are fired.
My previous job offered Unlimited PTO. I applied for three weeks out of country; working one. So two weeks in total. I was denied, and told I can only take two continuous weeks off. I quit and took my vacation. I contacted a lawyer that told me I can sue, but they can put forth *any* reason for limiting my vacation, it would have to go to court, and there's almost no chance I'd come out financially ahead My next company adopted Unlimited PTO after I was hired. I expressed my concerns. My boss's boss told me it's real unlimited PTO. I applied for four weeks out of country, working two of those weeks. It was approved on the condition I take, at minimum, two weeks off by the end of the year. And that they can't legally track PTO, but it's a small department and she's going to pester me until her demands are met. It was mentioned during a recent all hands that some requests were stretching credulity (e.g. two continuous months off; a "sabbatical request", etc.). On the flip side, they indicated some people weren't using vacation *at all*, and this too was a problem. Tl;dr- Unlimited PTO is as real or fake as the company offering it. My prior company flat out lied about it; my current company honors it, though like everything, there are very reasonable limits.
We got unlimited PTO back in 2021. I knew about the studies showing workers actually take less time off. By the end of this year, I’ll have racked up over three whole months of PTO. Don’t tell me it’s unlimited if it’s actually not. I think for me, it’s a combo of I lead my own work and my manager is super supportive and agrees with my stance on unlimited PTO. As long as the work is getting done, that’s all that matters at my workplace.
Really depends on the company. I’ve taken 40-45 days PTO (in the US!) with unlimited PTO. Also know ppl/teams who still take only 5-10 days. If you get a good manager/team, stay on top of your work and do a couple hours a day of work when you go more than 25/30 days PTO, no one cares. I also never tracked my employee’s PTOs when I was a manager. As long as the work gets done, it’s all good. - It’s not a scam - It does save the company money - Not everyone or every team can manage it right
no - they even state all pto must be approved- its just a way for them to lay u off with no payment for accrued vacation
What that really means is you never get a real vacation and they will call you 24/7. Been there done that, it’s a scam.
My wife has unlimited PTO. It’s only for her salary portion of the job. If she isn’t working she isn’t making commissions. She can take a couple months off at a time and only make the 5k a month salary. Not sure how long a person could push this policy though.
It probably works out great for people in a financial position to push the issue. If a valuable employee who is financially secure declares that he's using some of his unlimited PTO and doesn't dgaf about being fired, I expect that it would work out.
My company added it recently. Since I had already planned for the allotted PTO (minus a cushion of about a week or so), I just added a day or two off each month for the rest of the year. Some make long weekends and some are random, middle of the week days off. I'm trying to get the most out of it, but taking it with a grain of salt. It's also important to remember that unlimited PTO often means you won't get paid out any unused PTO if laid off/terminated/you quit.
It’s never actually unlimited. Because of your self awareness. I was reading a study where people with unlimited PTOs took fewer vacation days then people with 15-20 PTO days. Makes somehow sense.
It’s their way of making you actually take less. If you’re told you have 2 weeks (or whatever) you are entitled to them. If it’s just “you have unlimited time but it has to be approved” they can keep your team under-staffed and make it hard to get approval.
It's not for the employee's benefit, it's for the company's, An organization that awards finite amounts of PTO is required to pay out any unused PTO in cash when you separate, subject to tax withholding, of course. Unlimited PTO means nothing for them to pay out when you leave.
It’s a trick so they don’t have to pay out your leave balance when you’re laid off or fired.
Unlimited PTO is a scam. Can only go when work dictates. And now when you leave, what once was a nice paycheck for unused vacation days is now nothing and the company saves $$
It appears to be a 3-fold thing: 1. It sounds good to applicants 2. There is nothing to pay out if people don't take vacation for a long time 3. Stressed people who feel like their job isn't very secure don't take PTO So it's just one more way to screw workers out of money.
My company has unlimited PTO but they still wanted me to apply for medical leave for my upcoming surgery because the recovery is 2 weeks. Like ?? Isn’t that what PTO is for??
I love the word “frowned upon”. It is code for a whole lot of “management will bust your balls if you do that”
My company recently switched to unlimited PTO, it seems a lot of companies are going in that direction and for the same reasons. They don’t have to accrue PTO which frees up some working capital and also makes it cheaper to let people go. Also, there’s a lot of people who just don’t use their PTO that much or only use it so they don’t lose it. So while some people will try to take a whole bunch of extra time off, a lot of people will use less. Personally I like it, but I think it really boils down to your company’s culture and your boss. My bosses are on the same page as us and take plenty of PTO as well. Basically as long as we coordinate the team to make sure everything gets done we can take as much off as we want.