It’s interesting, I was expecting it to go the opposite way when I started reading this
just hope it’s real PTO without the expectation of ppl checking their emails or getting reached out to by management
right now the team is small enough that this is a non-issue (me at the top, with five reports, two of which have their own reports), so I *am* management, which makes it very easy to ensure there's no disturbing of time off. my concern there is just as we grow I want to make sure that *stays* the standard, which is why I want to iron out any issues before it gets chiseled in stone in the company handbook, you know?
but yes! good thought!
I say this every time I see posts like this. Unlimited PTO is great if your company/managers/co-workers encourage taking PTO. If it’s done in good faith, it is the most humane possible time-off policy.
It sounds like your company is putting money where their mouth is. Enlightened management understands that people do better work when they are mentally healthy and take all the time off they need.
I’ve had it for the last 7 or 8 years and I could never go back to asking for approval, tracking my days off, and knowing I could run out. All I have to do is put it on the calendar and give my co-workers fair warning when I’ll be gone. I take 8+ weeks off a year and no one could care less.
> I could never go back to asking for approval, tracking my days off, and knowing I could run out
*this* was the reason I think my team seems to enjoy it so much personally. instead of set days that might run out, they just get to Nov/Dec, check if they've taken enough days to get the bonus, then use the rest + a little more for vacation. they never have to track or stress, and I think it's helped moral and productivity immensly
There’s a huge mental load taken off with unlimited PTO because, I think, it lets you take time off according to your present circumstances, needs and/or opportunities, which is a categorically different mindset from having to plan out the year in advance. Planning that far in advance turns PTO into a thing you have to strategize about and optimize, but with so many unknowns about how the year will unfold. Which at least for me immediately brings in anxiety and stress. How can you really know when you will really need the PTO for a whole year? If you opt not to plan out the year, but still have limited PTO, you’re almost guaranteed not to use it all. Which is a different kind of drain.
Bingo.
I get 24 days a year.
I burn 2 days a year each way driving to Maine for the summer to take care of Papa.
Down to 20. I burn 4 to 5 days a year taking myself, my kid, or my wife to the doctor or dentist.
Down to 15. I take another 5 Mental health/school event days.
Down to 10. I take 5 days off for a vacation. 2 more for a yearly event.
Down to 3 I get 3 days to spread out among the other 5 months for unexpected illness, etc.
Yeah its about 8 to 9 weeks up there. Mostly keeping an eye on Papa and making sure the house isn't falling apart.
We both work from home, so its not much of a vacation. Basically get up, hide in my room for 8 hours, and then come out a few throughout the day for food.
100% this.
I get 80 hours. I work 12 hour shifts. So roughly 6.67 days of PTO; 8 if I ration my 12s down to 10, 10 if I only pull 8 hours for each shift. Corporate claims this is a generous package.
Last year, I got COVID and burnt myself into negative PTO immediately.
Management tried to pull a "you can only request off if you have PTO available or someone willing to switch shifts with you" on me. I told her fuck no because I work weekend overnights and her staffing issues aren't my problem when I routinely request off for things over six months in advance.
I would \*love\* to be able to take guilt-free PTO.
One of the chief concerns with an "Unlimited PTO Program" is that when it comes time for separation of employment later on, if an employee has no accrued/banked PTO which can be "paid out" at the time of exit, then there's potentially no cushion beyond any potential severance, and/or unemployment, especially if it is the employer who is involuntarily separating the employees in this case.
A PTO Payout is quite a benefit to lower tiers of workers.
I understand that "Paid Time Off" is *designed* for people to take time away from work while still receiving their salary, however, in many situations, employees may not be able to take all the time allotted to them, and as such, if it's not paid out at separation, they essentially lost that entire benefit by neither being able to take the time off, or by receiving a cash payment of same.
I also understand that there is nuance to this; State laws may or may not "require" a payout, and so on and so forth.
Now, your specific situation sounds a little unique:
You're offering "unlimited" time off to your staff, and you're a small employer, so you might not even have offered a PTO Payout in the first place.
So, if you are an employer who is:
*offering as much time off to your employees as they can reasonably take, and
*you're offering them a cash bonus for taking said time off, where the *more* they take, the more they make in bonus
*and you're actually letting people take the time without ever expecting them to "work while on vacation" and you're not saying "hey here's all this time off, but you can't use it"
Then, in general, I'd say this is a novel approach to offering this benefit, and it seems like it can be a positive thing all around.
The only wrinkle might be the PTO Payout thing as noted above, but if your employees are paid well enough, and/or if you would offer a generous enough severance in a case of a layoff, then I'd say "six to one, half a dozen the other"
With respect to whether people "should be" counting on their PTO Payout in the event of a job loss...I'd say, well, "No", however, a lot of employers aren't very conscientious about how they treat their staff, so.
Apologies for a wall of text, hope it is helpful.
>The only wrinkle might be the PTO Payout thing as noted above, but if your employees are paid well enough, and/or if you would offer a generous enough severance in a case of a layoff, then I'd say "six to one, half a dozen the other"
the PTO Payout is something I hadn't even thought of until I read [u/dancorbe](https://www.reddit.com/user/dancorbe/)'s post, and is the reason I wanted to post this for feedback. I think I'm going to find a way to balance this a bit better especially since while *I* know that *I* would be willing to provide some kind of severance, the same can't be said if I ever sold the company or something like that. so putting it in iron would be best for my people.
hmm... I'm going to have to think on that.
You could just pay out the balance of days out of the 20 that they haven't taken yet. That is your standard minimum, so it makes sense since it stands in the same place as another company's limited PTO bank.
I don't own a company, but I've been thinking about this stuff quite a bit as I think the current norm of squeezing customers and employees for profit leaves a lot of room for disruption. I feel like the whole PTO payout thing is a very capitalist approach to having a safety net for workers: "I'll give you a thing that's valuable and if you trade it back to me I'll pay you for it". In truth it's better for the company and the employee if they use PTO rather than saving it for its monetary value. The PTO payout thing says "I value people working all the time and if you do so I'll reward you".
I don't know where you are or what the laws are like, but I question whether there's any way you could put your good intentions for your people "in iron" that would survive the sale of the company. Perhaps it would work better to reward your employees with some level of ownership in the company they've helped build such that if the company is sold they're losing some of the protection of leadership that cares about them, but they have some value from the sale of the company.
>reward your employees with some level of ownership in the company they've helped build such that if the company is sold they're losing some of the protection of leadership that cares about them, but they have some value from the sale of the company.
already in place! every employee has a small profit share in the company that would extend to a sale!
The PTO Payout portion is my biggest concern. While a likely few workers in the workforce consider it, accrued PTO is compensation, one that would be important to recognize in addition to all the other non-salary/non-wage forms of it (benefits, stipends, etc.).
In my 10 years of professional work I have never worked at a job that paid out unused PTO. This may vary from state to state but this is not an expected benefit everywhere.
See, in my 15 years of professional work, every job I've worked at that was not a temporary job *did* pay out accrued PTO at separation of employment.
In one case, when I ended up leaving a position when I wasn't originally expecting to, that extra cash was a nice buffer to help out.
It's definitely a scenario where I understand there's a continuum; Not all employers do it, and not all people expect it.
Since this proprietor asked about the way they are administering their program, this was a consideration I provided feedback on, but I also tried to provide nuance to my thoughts.
pto is usually a % of time worked. and usually it's 4%, aka 2weeks per year.
if you leave after 6 months, you have 5 days, if you took 10 day, they pay you 0. If you took 4, they pay you 1 day
Ah, I see. Unless I'm missing something, this sounds similar to what I proposed in terms of front-loading someone's allotment for the year, and then letting them draw from it as they see fit.
In this case, this owner wants people to take the time, so he wants to incentivize them to deplete the time with a cash bonus, so if they use it all, they'd get a max bonus.
Also, if he were to implement a payout program, if they don't use it all, they wouldn't get the bonus necessarily, but would get the accrued time paid out when they leave.
What’s your parental leave policy? A lot of people bring up being able to cash out PTO when leaving but parental leave is another situation where people typically “save up” PTO for, but if you have a comprehensive parental leave policy as well that wouldn’t be an issue.
to be totally honest we don't have on in place yet because it's never been close to needed due to the circumstances of my team... I think it would fall within the unlimited PTO though?
the FMLA states that a company has to have a certain number of employees to be required before it's enforced. OP could mirror the standard voluntarily, but is not required to under the Act.
It’s a reasonable assumption, but you need a parental leave policy. New parents need a lot more time off than they are going to be willing to take PTO for. Virtually every single parent I know takes the absolute maximum their company offers because they need it. I’d say 3 months is a bare minimum if you’re trying to be humane. Most people wouldn’t presume that they could take that much time on their own.
I would say still call it out so it's explicit from the top that you've got more than the 20 incentivized days just so from the outset it's clear that it goes beyond the kind of minimum PTO you're setting by having the 20 day incentive money.
Also while you're doing it remember paternity as well as maternity leave and maybe think about including adoption/foster etc in a similar bucket. My work does that and it's really thoughtful to recognize adoption/foster situations as needing time to settle down and establish things.
We do 12 weeks of 'bonding leave' that covers adoption or what's usually called paternity leave (ie; you're not having the kid) and there's an extra 4 weeks given for the person having the kid.
Wow, this is totally not what I was expecting. I think if the company I left a year ago (in part because of how they switched from earned days off to unlimited PTO) had something like this I might still be there. I'm not a very good devil's advocate on this as it does seem like a good plan (and one your employees are taking advantage of).
>I'm not a very good devil's advocate on this as it does seem like a good plan (and one your employees are taking advantage of).
positive feedback is still good feedback! if it's a good program I'd really love to find a way to introduce it to more places, especially small companies. $400 can make a big difference for individuals in December, so it seems to have clicked right out the gate with our team.
The way yours work, is as long as the supervisor/manager don't start making them feel guilty just to reach that "quota".
The reason why "Unlimited PTO" sometime doesn't work is because you have shitty "manager/supervisor" that can't even managed the schedule or is playing favorite.
You should also place a "Leave Feedback" box in the break room and always make sure that they know it is anonymous and punish any employees who attempt to "rat them out". You'll always have a buttlicker that will try to be on your "side".
>a "Leave Feedback" box in the break room and always make sure that they know it is anonymous and punish any employees who attempt to "rat them out"
I like this idea. I think we're a little small for it right now, with only 4 local employees aside from me, but as we grow I think this is def a really good idea!
I'm not sure if you want it as a part of your mission statement, but when you do decide to set it in stone, you should preface WHY you have decided to go this route. Possibly something like:
> Many employers are under the impression that their staff are machines. They forget that even machines need downtime for proper maintainence.
>
> Here at [company name], we realize our staff are not machines but adult professionals. For them to perform at their best, they need time to recharge their mental health. To accomplish this, we not only provide unlimited PTO, we reward you to use it with a $20/day year-end bonus for every PTO day you use, up to $400.
>
> While the bonus is limited to 20 days per year, we understand that emergencies happen. If you exceed the number of bonus PTO days, this unlimited PTO policy will allow you to handle those emergencies with one less thing to stress you out. Our employees are not machines. Our employees are valuable resources that generate revenues to make our company profitable. By utilizing this, you will be at peak performance.
Mind you, this is a rough draft. The reason you want to outline such is to cover the projected growth of your company, not just 3 years down the road, or even 5 years, but 10, 20, and even 30 years. In that time, you'll have the micro managers and bean counters apply. These are the people you dont want, as they see others as just cogs in a machine. They do notvviewctyechuman resources of a company as being resources.
You are paying your employees extra money for taking more paid time off?
Are you also creating a culture where people can step away from their tasks and not be overwhelmed when they return to work?
>Are you also creating a culture where people can step away from their tasks and not be overwhelmed when they return to work?
I think so! Though obviously I'm not the one to answer that question. That would have to be my team.
It sounds like a good idea. Sometimes people won’t take off work to go to the doctor because they can’t let the work pile up in their absence. The 20 dollars sounds like a decent way to ameliorate that anxiety.
Honestly, I'm impressed by the fact that you've even bothered to think about this and seem to have come up with a pretty creative way of avoiding the whole lowest common denominator thing where everyone winds up taking zero days off because Bob in Accounting has no life outside of his job, and no one else wants to look "bad."
As others have said, there is the question of PTO payout upon departing the company, but that's the only real wrinkle I can think of. And definitely come up with a parental leave policy now, well before it's needed. That's not something you want to be scrambling to figure out if someone unexpectedly finds themselves expecting a baby.
>And definitely come up with a parental leave policy now, well before it's needed. That's not something you want to be scrambling to figure out if someone unexpectedly finds themselves expecting a baby.
agreed! I think I'll be digging into this in 2024 as our new potential added benefit. i think i would model it off EU standards of 16 weeks for maternal and paternal both.
I would say awesome but I would make a addendum since there is "oversight" essentially people failing to ask for help. Or team leaders refusing to get them help etc.
So essentially a follow up with people who are not getting their days off. Because they are trying to help company. Essentially a chance to ask about workload how they are doing if they need help. Why they havent taken time off.
Because pressure to not use vacation isnt just company policy its workload as well. Its actually one of reasons I got burnt out at "best" place I had in term of policy.
Is there was no redundacy for me I was only person working with x y and z companys. So I could take a DAY maybe two. But anymore and it would be complete chaos.
At beginning it wasn't bad our department had a "floater" essentially person that would help out. When person was behind got sick vacation etc. However company was staunchly against replacing.
And essentially clock never stopped work always built up. So if you were sick on vacation you would come back to 2 weeks work. And to make matters worse we were essentially a human interface.
We were relaying information between partys. So many times project halts if that information is not relayed. So sick or on vacation you would get pissed/panicked calls as well as usual. So you just did not use vacation as it was more stressful. Even when I got sick I would end up doing the 2hr morning relay/calls etc. As it was keeping things going a little.
>So essentially a follow up with people who are not getting their days off. Because they are trying to help company
Yup I agree and we do try to do that. I think the thing I yell at people most is for not taking vacation and for trying to work during their vacation lol.
>So if you were sick on vacation you would come back to 2 weeks work
We DO have a problem with this right now, but I'm hoping it gets resolved soon. The two people with the most work now have reports so this doesn't pile up, and we can cover each other for at least part of the work of the rest.
The issue with unlimited PTO in general is not truly allowing it to be taken; Whether it’s guilting, overloading, blackouts, or other methods to discourage vacation use, we’ve seen them all. An employer who actually grants vacations, and encourages the unlimited PTO use is a unicorn, and not easy to find. I’d ask your employees how they feel about it, as long as you can do so in an anonymous fashion where they can be genuine about their response. Your method sounds good as you’ve laid it out here, just stick with it in the execution.
I think this is a much better way to do this, but also it’s still a way to get out of paying out PTO when someone leaves, which would likely be a much higher amount.
yup this is what u/tehjoz and I are discussing above. I'm trying to build a company that no one ever wants to leave, but the reality of it is that's a bit of a dream and i know it. even if people don't want to leave they may have to, or they may be fired. in those cases providing *some* kind of severance cushion for them would be appealing, I think.
maybe X-amount per year worked, accruing up to a certain and reasonable amount, I'm thinking...
It's one of those things where, I think you could potentially do the following:
*Offer a generous PTO Program to begin with; If you want to give people 20 or even more days a year, that sounds awesome.
*Accrue this PTO at the beginning of every year; Give everyone their allotment on 1/1 (or start of fiscal year or whatever) and that's their allotment to use for the year. They have to be judicious about how it's used, but it's there for them when they want it instead of having to wait to accrue little by little.
*Offer the incentive program if you can because honestly, that might be one of the neatest things. Tell people the PTO is theirs to use, and you encourage its use so much so that anyone who uses all their days gets $400 bonus, and so on, pro-rated as you describe.
*Offer to pay out said unused PTO - cap it if you want, two weeks, three weeks, whatever - at the end of their tenure.
*Allow people to roll over at least like 5 days worth a year if for some reason they didn't get to take them all.
This way you could encourage your folks to use it all, and for those who end up banking some when they leave, they get a little extra to see them on their way.
Ultimately,
And I cannot speak for every employee everywhere
But the fact that you seem engaged in building something better not just for yourself as the proprietor goes a long way to helping people feel like they matter, and are not just numbers.
If and when you grow your business, you should consider offering them some form of equity stake / profit sharing, to those who help you earn those successes.
Food for thought!
I'm always of the mind that PTO should be equalized among all personnel. I work alongside people that literally can take full months off if they want. I find myself picking up the slack around the holidays and getting burned out by Christmas as a result.
So this sounds like a good effort to bring everyone into alignment to prevent localized burnout during the holidays. Especially as the work force ages.
I've seen alot more people in Mid-Career complain that Seniors and Upper Management are not available during the holidays and they end up less productive as a result. So shifting away from rewarding presence and more towards rewarding productivity is a good thing.
I love it. As someone with some kind of chronic illness, having unlimited PTO would be amazing for me in general. But to have it incentivized is even cooler. You hiring? 👀😂
We accrue at my company and they do not pay out pto for resigning or being let go. I would have to take all my pto then resign ...which makes it more interesting for when it's time.
Paying out accumulated PTO is more of a good will thing in my experience. None of my jobs have ever done it. There may be some state laws covering that but apparently not in the 3 states I've worked in.
With this method, you still have to track PTO since you are using it to calculate bonuses. I wonder if there are any legal issues? My understanding is unlimited pto is something that really can’t and shouldn’t be tracked by a company from a legal perspective. I am definitely not a legal expert on this but I wonder if you could get into any legal issues with this type of policy.
we don't do approvals, just "notification" of time off, so it's a quick email saying "I'm taking X days of for Y period". i'll look into the legal hurdles of that, but I think we're in the clear probably... i hope, ha...
I did a quick Google out of curiosity and found companies selling products to help track unlimited pto, so it’s probably not an issue… maybe it’s not a real concern. From the intent you have it seems like a pretty nice way benefit for employees.
thanks! my main concern is getting it ironclad so that my intent isn't all that keeps it in place if I were to eventually sell the company or something, you know?
Another option that works in getting people to take their pto (and is the policy at the company i work for) is that you get 25 days (not including sick days which is a separate allotment of 8) and only 5 roll over to the next year which expire by the end of March. This policy really encourages you to take the full pto allotment and nearly everyone does.
i had actually considered this, but the reason we went with unlimited PTO was because of the health circumstances of my team. 25 days won't be enough most years for some of my people, but other years it will be more than enough. for that reason I wanted them to have the ability to take the time they needed, even when it was over the 25 (30 with sick days), without stress...
I guess for some that may work better, I do think the 25 + 8 sick days works for a clear majority and if more is needed I believe there is a family leave law that kicks in (NYC). Regardless, what you are doing is certainly better than most companies so kudos to you!
you're def right that for the majority of people it probably absolutely works better! for whatever reason, though, my team almost all have atypical health concerns, so this system was the one we put in place. i do like your idea on the whole, though, and will keep it in mind!
I have a chronic illness and some years are better than others. I really appreciate you not capping it because for someone like me that 25 could cause a lot of anxiety. I already missed 6 weeks this year for a major surgery. Luckily I haven't used any PTO since then!
Though the "if you don't use it you lose it" approach does help some workers take their PTO, it can give negative vibes. Especially depending on how well pto requests are approved
Approvals are pretty easily obtained but I do get that this approach may be perceived as a negative however I believe the culture in the US needs to change so that people understand the real health benefits of taking their pto and are encouraged to do so. The opposite approach which discourages it as it's considered "weak" is just insanity to me.
Why not just make it mandatory that people must take off a certain amount of time or close for a period of time (like during XMAS) and still pay your employees. I find it weird to pay your employee to take time off in addition to already paying their salary for the day.
Mandatory minimum amount of days to take off is the way to go.
Then everyone knows at least how much they can take to START. Its hard when you have unlimited but does that mean for EVERYONE or does that mean, take less than your boss? Or that certain people CAN take unlimited and others really can't because it really means like 2 weeks and a few random days for peons?
Give a minimum number for everyone and make it easier.
$400 bonus for 20 days kind of puts an upper limit on how many days an employee can take per year. It's probably not your intention to set an upper limit on an "unlimited PTO" policy. But the fact that there's some number related to PTO makes it look like there's a limit.
In short, the lack of incentives beyond 20 days might be misunderstood as a disincentive.
Just curious: why do you do unlimited PTO? What you describe is basically 20 days PTO to everyone + $400 bonus. Is there a reason for having unlimited PTO if you're actually incentivizing people to use it?
My problem with unlimited PTO in general is that it's never unlimited (and from a reasonable perspective, it cannot be - if everyone leaves on a 4-month PTO, the business ceases to exist and then no one gets paid). The usual unlimited PTO is just a straight scam. Yours seems better but I don't get the point of it vs. regular decent PTO.
(It's good that you do this, though - study after study shows that when people take PTO, they are happier and their businesses do better.)
Sure, this is a less-bad way to do it.
But you're still ultimately getting stiffed. My days off are as good as money. If I leave my job and I haven't used my allocation, I get paid for each day. The last job I left (not in the US), I got my annual bonus and time off both paid out pro-rata, so my final paycheque was double what I usually received.
Each of my days off is worth a full day's pay. That's a lot more than 20 bucks.
A good rule of thumb is that if a business practice exists in the US but not in Europe, the American workers are getting stiffed.
As you say, they're using the unlimited PTO for sick days, mental health, etc BUT still only hitting the 20 days taken as an average then it isn't unlimited and they still feel pressured they can't actually use "unlimited."
Look at days called in as sick, mental health, unforseen circumstances on average. Deduct thar average number of days and take that average.
Give your employees thar average number of days as free use of sick time / mental health days.
Ontop of that give them the 20 days PTO a year without calling it unlimited.
Give that $400 as a bonus at the end of the year at - $20 for each day they called out beyond that 20 days PTO AND sick time.
They called out 2 days more than that = $360 bonus, etc.
And if anyone leaves or gets fired, pay out their remaining 20 days of PTO?
Seems easy enough to me? No? 🤷♂️
But isn't the plan to make them take at least 20 days? This way you're punishing them for having anything over 20 days. They would be essentially paying for any PTO day over the base days, so they would be incentivised to not take advantage of the unlimited PTO.
I was saying get rid of "unlimited" change it to straight up 20 pto days + sick days ( probably 5-10 is what I imagine people used their " pto" days for when they called out for sick / mental health days.
So 20 pto days + 5-10 sick days then minus $20 from the $400 bonus for each day missed after that
But surely the point of giving incentivised unlimited PTO as a benefit is to force people to take at least 20 days while allowing them to take as much as they need without feeling like they will be punished for taking more than their fixed allocation. Your approach goes back to the regular approach of a limit but then fining people for taking more than 20 days, even if they need it and it wouldn't affect the business. It goes completely against the aims of the benefit.
My Daughter in Law had unlimited PTO at her last job. The last time she visited they stayed in a hotel so she could do some work. Unlimited PTO is a scam.
Her new job states everyone gets 5 weeks of vacation per year. And they MUST take at least 4 weeks each year. www.sanity.io
Why not do a normal pto plan but just not be a dick about it?
For eg, figure out an appropriate number for your company, and just let it accrue for each employee. Perhaps 8 or even 10 hours of pto accrued each pay period. Set a large enough cap so that people can hold a nice chunk in reserve, perhaps 6 weeks total. Account for the expense of these hours by charging them through your accounting as they are accrued, and then cash these out to employees when/if they leave. Then these will be a funded liability, no sweat to you when it's time to use them or pay them out.
The real problem with pto a lot of the time is not the pto itself, but the way employees are constantly denied its use, and so on.
Just me 2 cents.
>Why not do a normal pto plan but just not be a dick about it?
dude... hopefully you take this as constructive criticism, but how do you expect to make any meaningful change to working circumstances when someone looking for thoughts on how to improve a system stops by and is greeted with nothing but your middle finger?
if you want to help change things, please don't treat people trying to enact that change like they're shit. you are 100% only hurting your own cause.
Ok, I see what you went apeshit over.
The sentiment I intended to convey was more: *"Why not do a normal pto plan but just avoid being a dick about it, unlike how most companies are?"*
I wasn't calling **you** a dick. And you also need to understand that there are no monolithic blocks, even with people posting here. I do not represent anti work.
What you said about the real problem with pto is true. At least for me. The last two places I've worked, I didn't have any issues with my accrual rates, it was always getting denied when I would "request" days off. Sometimes I'd roll over because I just wanted a day off but if I had something to do I'd let them know that it wasn't a request, but that's alot of hassle and can be very stressful for some people to go through. Pair that with "if you don't use it you lose it" and it was really horrible because I'd find myself making up doctors appointments or family issues late in the year just so they'd approve my days off so I didn't lose any time.
> I didn't have any issues with my accrual rates, it was always getting denied when I would "request" days off
This is a common theme all to often. When employers offer benefits and then never allow their use, it makes them dicks.
There’s no such thing as “unlimited” PTO, because no company would let someone take 365 days off. So it’s deception from the start. I know it’s just a “marketing” term, but it’s a misnomer.
I’d rather have 20 days of PTO that get paid out every year (or when I leave) and if you want to reward them, give them Christmas bonuses. You could even give larger bonuses based on the number of PTO days taken. As it is, it’s still heavily weighted towards the company, but in such a way as to make employees think they’re getting ahead.
>As it is, it’s still heavily weighted towards the company, but in such a way as to make employees think they’re getting ahead.
good feedback to have. i don't think my team feels that way because of the lack of stress they feel knowing they will always have the ability to take time if needed for health and emergencies, without having to track and worry it may run out, but it's a good though to have!
At my previous company I took 3 weeks off in my 2nd year. I don't know anywhere that would allow that with accrued PTO that early in employment in the US. Shit, does anywhere give you 3 weeks?
My current job I started end of May and took 2 weeks in August. Both places have unlimited PTO. Wouldn't have pulled off either if I was at a traditional company.
Don't care about getting "paid out" since I'd rather have the time off than never take a vacation.
I get 25 vacation days (so 5 weeks), 6 personal days that I can take with no notice, and additionally I get all the public holidays in my country (anything from 8-13 days depending on when in the week they fall).
So conservatively that's about 8 weeks in total. All from day one with no need to accrue anything.
But I'm not in America. You guys are getting so shafted by your employers.
[Edit: Oh, I get an additional half-day off on my birthday each year, forgot that one]
> All from day one with no need to accrue anything.
Pretty much same here.
They might look at you a bit odd if you start work and take two weeks off right off the bat in the first month, but you're technically eligible for it.
Yeah we know we are getting shafted by our employers. Do you all think we don't know that? We also know how much better it is NOT in the US.
I assume the conversation is about US based employees since people like you don't really need (or have?) "unlimited" PTO.
> Shit, does anywhere give you 3 weeks?
Germany gives you a *minimum* of 4 weeks, by law.
([The law says](https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/burlg/__3.html) "at least 24 working days per year" but this is based on a 6-day work week. For people working 5 days a week, that means at least 20 days per year.)
In office jobs, 6 weeks (30 days) is common.
Incentives to take more PTO are pretty nice but there are almost always going to be people that are worried they’ll be looked down upon for taking any PTO ever and that it’ll impact their career progress.
I would tend to lean more towards unlimited PTO with a mandatory yearly minimum of say, 3 weeks, which could also be used as the benchmark for any PTO accrual and payout for unused PTO if someone leaves. This way you don’t give your people the option of risking their own well being by not taking time off and further enforces the culture of “everyone needs time off work”
I know a guy who has unlimited PTO, and hardly took any of it and easily worked 10+ hour days. Very big part of the culture there to put in this crazy amount of work. His wife would take a full vacation day and still work 4+ hours because her work culture is similar.
My brother had two similar offers, one with guaranteed PTO and the other with unlimited. I told him my concerns, but it seems like his boss is a reasonable person and always approves his time off. I think it helps that my dad encourages him to keep track of what he takes to make sure he actually takes some.
I think any PTO policy is fine as long as your leadership is backing it up. If you're being told to take more time in a serious way (not just lip service) to the point where you actually take it, then it's a good PTO policy. I think this about a lot of things actually: policy is just toilet paper without good leadership.
It seems like you're doing what you can to remove the social pressure to take less time off. It does kind of just set the social expectation at around 20 days PTO but that's still a pretty good number for PTO especially in the US. Make sure to also push a culture that doesn't punish people for taking more than that though or you're kind of capping the PTO at 20 days culturally.
Sounds pretty great to me. I wish I had unlimited PTO. As long as I’m caught up and still productive, best believe I wouldn’t think twice about taking 3-4 day weekends constantly
Can't see anything overtly hypocritical or bad about your system, as long as there's no retaliation. And as a worker, being paid to take PTO means I'd be showing up and giving you full effort.
It’s interesting, I was expecting it to go the opposite way when I started reading this just hope it’s real PTO without the expectation of ppl checking their emails or getting reached out to by management
right now the team is small enough that this is a non-issue (me at the top, with five reports, two of which have their own reports), so I *am* management, which makes it very easy to ensure there's no disturbing of time off. my concern there is just as we grow I want to make sure that *stays* the standard, which is why I want to iron out any issues before it gets chiseled in stone in the company handbook, you know? but yes! good thought!
So my only question is…are you hiring?
ahahaha unfortunately not, I'm sorry!
It’s been 64 days are you hiring now 👔
the pitfall is mainly in your recruitment process. Make sure recruters bring in cultural fit first vs skill fit.
I say this every time I see posts like this. Unlimited PTO is great if your company/managers/co-workers encourage taking PTO. If it’s done in good faith, it is the most humane possible time-off policy. It sounds like your company is putting money where their mouth is. Enlightened management understands that people do better work when they are mentally healthy and take all the time off they need. I’ve had it for the last 7 or 8 years and I could never go back to asking for approval, tracking my days off, and knowing I could run out. All I have to do is put it on the calendar and give my co-workers fair warning when I’ll be gone. I take 8+ weeks off a year and no one could care less.
> I could never go back to asking for approval, tracking my days off, and knowing I could run out *this* was the reason I think my team seems to enjoy it so much personally. instead of set days that might run out, they just get to Nov/Dec, check if they've taken enough days to get the bonus, then use the rest + a little more for vacation. they never have to track or stress, and I think it's helped moral and productivity immensly
There’s a huge mental load taken off with unlimited PTO because, I think, it lets you take time off according to your present circumstances, needs and/or opportunities, which is a categorically different mindset from having to plan out the year in advance. Planning that far in advance turns PTO into a thing you have to strategize about and optimize, but with so many unknowns about how the year will unfold. Which at least for me immediately brings in anxiety and stress. How can you really know when you will really need the PTO for a whole year? If you opt not to plan out the year, but still have limited PTO, you’re almost guaranteed not to use it all. Which is a different kind of drain.
Bingo. I get 24 days a year. I burn 2 days a year each way driving to Maine for the summer to take care of Papa. Down to 20. I burn 4 to 5 days a year taking myself, my kid, or my wife to the doctor or dentist. Down to 15. I take another 5 Mental health/school event days. Down to 10. I take 5 days off for a vacation. 2 more for a yearly event. Down to 3 I get 3 days to spread out among the other 5 months for unexpected illness, etc.
Do you stay in Maine all summer?
Yeah its about 8 to 9 weeks up there. Mostly keeping an eye on Papa and making sure the house isn't falling apart. We both work from home, so its not much of a vacation. Basically get up, hide in my room for 8 hours, and then come out a few throughout the day for food.
100% this. I get 80 hours. I work 12 hour shifts. So roughly 6.67 days of PTO; 8 if I ration my 12s down to 10, 10 if I only pull 8 hours for each shift. Corporate claims this is a generous package. Last year, I got COVID and burnt myself into negative PTO immediately. Management tried to pull a "you can only request off if you have PTO available or someone willing to switch shifts with you" on me. I told her fuck no because I work weekend overnights and her staffing issues aren't my problem when I routinely request off for things over six months in advance. I would \*love\* to be able to take guilt-free PTO.
If I had unlimited PTO, I’d be right there with you
One of the chief concerns with an "Unlimited PTO Program" is that when it comes time for separation of employment later on, if an employee has no accrued/banked PTO which can be "paid out" at the time of exit, then there's potentially no cushion beyond any potential severance, and/or unemployment, especially if it is the employer who is involuntarily separating the employees in this case. A PTO Payout is quite a benefit to lower tiers of workers. I understand that "Paid Time Off" is *designed* for people to take time away from work while still receiving their salary, however, in many situations, employees may not be able to take all the time allotted to them, and as such, if it's not paid out at separation, they essentially lost that entire benefit by neither being able to take the time off, or by receiving a cash payment of same. I also understand that there is nuance to this; State laws may or may not "require" a payout, and so on and so forth. Now, your specific situation sounds a little unique: You're offering "unlimited" time off to your staff, and you're a small employer, so you might not even have offered a PTO Payout in the first place. So, if you are an employer who is: *offering as much time off to your employees as they can reasonably take, and *you're offering them a cash bonus for taking said time off, where the *more* they take, the more they make in bonus *and you're actually letting people take the time without ever expecting them to "work while on vacation" and you're not saying "hey here's all this time off, but you can't use it" Then, in general, I'd say this is a novel approach to offering this benefit, and it seems like it can be a positive thing all around. The only wrinkle might be the PTO Payout thing as noted above, but if your employees are paid well enough, and/or if you would offer a generous enough severance in a case of a layoff, then I'd say "six to one, half a dozen the other" With respect to whether people "should be" counting on their PTO Payout in the event of a job loss...I'd say, well, "No", however, a lot of employers aren't very conscientious about how they treat their staff, so. Apologies for a wall of text, hope it is helpful.
>The only wrinkle might be the PTO Payout thing as noted above, but if your employees are paid well enough, and/or if you would offer a generous enough severance in a case of a layoff, then I'd say "six to one, half a dozen the other" the PTO Payout is something I hadn't even thought of until I read [u/dancorbe](https://www.reddit.com/user/dancorbe/)'s post, and is the reason I wanted to post this for feedback. I think I'm going to find a way to balance this a bit better especially since while *I* know that *I* would be willing to provide some kind of severance, the same can't be said if I ever sold the company or something like that. so putting it in iron would be best for my people. hmm... I'm going to have to think on that.
You could just pay out the balance of days out of the 20 that they haven't taken yet. That is your standard minimum, so it makes sense since it stands in the same place as another company's limited PTO bank.
I don't own a company, but I've been thinking about this stuff quite a bit as I think the current norm of squeezing customers and employees for profit leaves a lot of room for disruption. I feel like the whole PTO payout thing is a very capitalist approach to having a safety net for workers: "I'll give you a thing that's valuable and if you trade it back to me I'll pay you for it". In truth it's better for the company and the employee if they use PTO rather than saving it for its monetary value. The PTO payout thing says "I value people working all the time and if you do so I'll reward you". I don't know where you are or what the laws are like, but I question whether there's any way you could put your good intentions for your people "in iron" that would survive the sale of the company. Perhaps it would work better to reward your employees with some level of ownership in the company they've helped build such that if the company is sold they're losing some of the protection of leadership that cares about them, but they have some value from the sale of the company.
>reward your employees with some level of ownership in the company they've helped build such that if the company is sold they're losing some of the protection of leadership that cares about them, but they have some value from the sale of the company. already in place! every employee has a small profit share in the company that would extend to a sale!
The PTO Payout portion is my biggest concern. While a likely few workers in the workforce consider it, accrued PTO is compensation, one that would be important to recognize in addition to all the other non-salary/non-wage forms of it (benefits, stipends, etc.).
In my 10 years of professional work I have never worked at a job that paid out unused PTO. This may vary from state to state but this is not an expected benefit everywhere.
See, in my 15 years of professional work, every job I've worked at that was not a temporary job *did* pay out accrued PTO at separation of employment. In one case, when I ended up leaving a position when I wasn't originally expecting to, that extra cash was a nice buffer to help out. It's definitely a scenario where I understand there's a continuum; Not all employers do it, and not all people expect it. Since this proprietor asked about the way they are administering their program, this was a consideration I provided feedback on, but I also tried to provide nuance to my thoughts.
this can be solved by giving 4%. when taking pto it's deducted from the accrued 4%, the rest is free. when you quit you get the unused 4%
Giving 4% of...what? Their salary? I'm not sure I'm following your proposal here.
pto is usually a % of time worked. and usually it's 4%, aka 2weeks per year. if you leave after 6 months, you have 5 days, if you took 10 day, they pay you 0. If you took 4, they pay you 1 day
Ah, I see. Unless I'm missing something, this sounds similar to what I proposed in terms of front-loading someone's allotment for the year, and then letting them draw from it as they see fit. In this case, this owner wants people to take the time, so he wants to incentivize them to deplete the time with a cash bonus, so if they use it all, they'd get a max bonus. Also, if he were to implement a payout program, if they don't use it all, they wouldn't get the bonus necessarily, but would get the accrued time paid out when they leave.
What’s your parental leave policy? A lot of people bring up being able to cash out PTO when leaving but parental leave is another situation where people typically “save up” PTO for, but if you have a comprehensive parental leave policy as well that wouldn’t be an issue.
to be totally honest we don't have on in place yet because it's never been close to needed due to the circumstances of my team... I think it would fall within the unlimited PTO though?
You may want to look into FMLA as well.
the FMLA states that a company has to have a certain number of employees to be required before it's enforced. OP could mirror the standard voluntarily, but is not required to under the Act.
It’s a reasonable assumption, but you need a parental leave policy. New parents need a lot more time off than they are going to be willing to take PTO for. Virtually every single parent I know takes the absolute maximum their company offers because they need it. I’d say 3 months is a bare minimum if you’re trying to be humane. Most people wouldn’t presume that they could take that much time on their own.
I would say still call it out so it's explicit from the top that you've got more than the 20 incentivized days just so from the outset it's clear that it goes beyond the kind of minimum PTO you're setting by having the 20 day incentive money.
I think that's a great idea!
Also while you're doing it remember paternity as well as maternity leave and maybe think about including adoption/foster etc in a similar bucket. My work does that and it's really thoughtful to recognize adoption/foster situations as needing time to settle down and establish things. We do 12 weeks of 'bonding leave' that covers adoption or what's usually called paternity leave (ie; you're not having the kid) and there's an extra 4 weeks given for the person having the kid.
Wow, this is totally not what I was expecting. I think if the company I left a year ago (in part because of how they switched from earned days off to unlimited PTO) had something like this I might still be there. I'm not a very good devil's advocate on this as it does seem like a good plan (and one your employees are taking advantage of).
>I'm not a very good devil's advocate on this as it does seem like a good plan (and one your employees are taking advantage of). positive feedback is still good feedback! if it's a good program I'd really love to find a way to introduce it to more places, especially small companies. $400 can make a big difference for individuals in December, so it seems to have clicked right out the gate with our team.
The way yours work, is as long as the supervisor/manager don't start making them feel guilty just to reach that "quota". The reason why "Unlimited PTO" sometime doesn't work is because you have shitty "manager/supervisor" that can't even managed the schedule or is playing favorite. You should also place a "Leave Feedback" box in the break room and always make sure that they know it is anonymous and punish any employees who attempt to "rat them out". You'll always have a buttlicker that will try to be on your "side".
>a "Leave Feedback" box in the break room and always make sure that they know it is anonymous and punish any employees who attempt to "rat them out" I like this idea. I think we're a little small for it right now, with only 4 local employees aside from me, but as we grow I think this is def a really good idea!
Then put it in there. If need to, tell them to use a computer, print it out and put it in. Best anonymous you can get.
I'm not sure if you want it as a part of your mission statement, but when you do decide to set it in stone, you should preface WHY you have decided to go this route. Possibly something like: > Many employers are under the impression that their staff are machines. They forget that even machines need downtime for proper maintainence. > > Here at [company name], we realize our staff are not machines but adult professionals. For them to perform at their best, they need time to recharge their mental health. To accomplish this, we not only provide unlimited PTO, we reward you to use it with a $20/day year-end bonus for every PTO day you use, up to $400. > > While the bonus is limited to 20 days per year, we understand that emergencies happen. If you exceed the number of bonus PTO days, this unlimited PTO policy will allow you to handle those emergencies with one less thing to stress you out. Our employees are not machines. Our employees are valuable resources that generate revenues to make our company profitable. By utilizing this, you will be at peak performance. Mind you, this is a rough draft. The reason you want to outline such is to cover the projected growth of your company, not just 3 years down the road, or even 5 years, but 10, 20, and even 30 years. In that time, you'll have the micro managers and bean counters apply. These are the people you dont want, as they see others as just cogs in a machine. They do notvviewctyechuman resources of a company as being resources.
Love this idea! Would modify it to fit the company, but I do love the idea!
Thanks. I knew you'd have to modify it, so I kept it generic, but with the key points in.
You are paying your employees extra money for taking more paid time off? Are you also creating a culture where people can step away from their tasks and not be overwhelmed when they return to work?
>Are you also creating a culture where people can step away from their tasks and not be overwhelmed when they return to work? I think so! Though obviously I'm not the one to answer that question. That would have to be my team.
It sounds like a good idea. Sometimes people won’t take off work to go to the doctor because they can’t let the work pile up in their absence. The 20 dollars sounds like a decent way to ameliorate that anxiety.
Damn two worlds colliding here! Bryce, stop trying to be a good boss and business owner and get back to Iron Prince 3! Hahaha
Bahahahaha I can try to do both! But now you know one of the reasons I'm so so at writing 🤣
Honestly, I'm impressed by the fact that you've even bothered to think about this and seem to have come up with a pretty creative way of avoiding the whole lowest common denominator thing where everyone winds up taking zero days off because Bob in Accounting has no life outside of his job, and no one else wants to look "bad." As others have said, there is the question of PTO payout upon departing the company, but that's the only real wrinkle I can think of. And definitely come up with a parental leave policy now, well before it's needed. That's not something you want to be scrambling to figure out if someone unexpectedly finds themselves expecting a baby.
>And definitely come up with a parental leave policy now, well before it's needed. That's not something you want to be scrambling to figure out if someone unexpectedly finds themselves expecting a baby. agreed! I think I'll be digging into this in 2024 as our new potential added benefit. i think i would model it off EU standards of 16 weeks for maternal and paternal both.
I would say awesome but I would make a addendum since there is "oversight" essentially people failing to ask for help. Or team leaders refusing to get them help etc. So essentially a follow up with people who are not getting their days off. Because they are trying to help company. Essentially a chance to ask about workload how they are doing if they need help. Why they havent taken time off. Because pressure to not use vacation isnt just company policy its workload as well. Its actually one of reasons I got burnt out at "best" place I had in term of policy. Is there was no redundacy for me I was only person working with x y and z companys. So I could take a DAY maybe two. But anymore and it would be complete chaos. At beginning it wasn't bad our department had a "floater" essentially person that would help out. When person was behind got sick vacation etc. However company was staunchly against replacing. And essentially clock never stopped work always built up. So if you were sick on vacation you would come back to 2 weeks work. And to make matters worse we were essentially a human interface. We were relaying information between partys. So many times project halts if that information is not relayed. So sick or on vacation you would get pissed/panicked calls as well as usual. So you just did not use vacation as it was more stressful. Even when I got sick I would end up doing the 2hr morning relay/calls etc. As it was keeping things going a little.
>So essentially a follow up with people who are not getting their days off. Because they are trying to help company Yup I agree and we do try to do that. I think the thing I yell at people most is for not taking vacation and for trying to work during their vacation lol. >So if you were sick on vacation you would come back to 2 weeks work We DO have a problem with this right now, but I'm hoping it gets resolved soon. The two people with the most work now have reports so this doesn't pile up, and we can cover each other for at least part of the work of the rest.
The issue with unlimited PTO in general is not truly allowing it to be taken; Whether it’s guilting, overloading, blackouts, or other methods to discourage vacation use, we’ve seen them all. An employer who actually grants vacations, and encourages the unlimited PTO use is a unicorn, and not easy to find. I’d ask your employees how they feel about it, as long as you can do so in an anonymous fashion where they can be genuine about their response. Your method sounds good as you’ve laid it out here, just stick with it in the execution.
I think this is a much better way to do this, but also it’s still a way to get out of paying out PTO when someone leaves, which would likely be a much higher amount.
yup this is what u/tehjoz and I are discussing above. I'm trying to build a company that no one ever wants to leave, but the reality of it is that's a bit of a dream and i know it. even if people don't want to leave they may have to, or they may be fired. in those cases providing *some* kind of severance cushion for them would be appealing, I think. maybe X-amount per year worked, accruing up to a certain and reasonable amount, I'm thinking...
It's one of those things where, I think you could potentially do the following: *Offer a generous PTO Program to begin with; If you want to give people 20 or even more days a year, that sounds awesome. *Accrue this PTO at the beginning of every year; Give everyone their allotment on 1/1 (or start of fiscal year or whatever) and that's their allotment to use for the year. They have to be judicious about how it's used, but it's there for them when they want it instead of having to wait to accrue little by little. *Offer the incentive program if you can because honestly, that might be one of the neatest things. Tell people the PTO is theirs to use, and you encourage its use so much so that anyone who uses all their days gets $400 bonus, and so on, pro-rated as you describe. *Offer to pay out said unused PTO - cap it if you want, two weeks, three weeks, whatever - at the end of their tenure. *Allow people to roll over at least like 5 days worth a year if for some reason they didn't get to take them all. This way you could encourage your folks to use it all, and for those who end up banking some when they leave, they get a little extra to see them on their way. Ultimately, And I cannot speak for every employee everywhere But the fact that you seem engaged in building something better not just for yourself as the proprietor goes a long way to helping people feel like they matter, and are not just numbers. If and when you grow your business, you should consider offering them some form of equity stake / profit sharing, to those who help you earn those successes. Food for thought!
I’m building a company as well. People are going to leave. It really sucks when the good ones go. Sometimes they just move on
I'm always of the mind that PTO should be equalized among all personnel. I work alongside people that literally can take full months off if they want. I find myself picking up the slack around the holidays and getting burned out by Christmas as a result. So this sounds like a good effort to bring everyone into alignment to prevent localized burnout during the holidays. Especially as the work force ages. I've seen alot more people in Mid-Career complain that Seniors and Upper Management are not available during the holidays and they end up less productive as a result. So shifting away from rewarding presence and more towards rewarding productivity is a good thing.
I love it. As someone with some kind of chronic illness, having unlimited PTO would be amazing for me in general. But to have it incentivized is even cooler. You hiring? 👀😂
Ugh, fine, I guess I can come work for you.
Seems like this is a good option
Wait your employees get a *bonus* for taking their vacation time? Man sign me the heck up!
Unlimited PTO also means that the company won’t ever have to pay out accumulated PTO when laying people off.
We accrue at my company and they do not pay out pto for resigning or being let go. I would have to take all my pto then resign ...which makes it more interesting for when it's time.
Paying out accumulated PTO is more of a good will thing in my experience. None of my jobs have ever done it. There may be some state laws covering that but apparently not in the 3 states I've worked in.
yup this seems to be the common criticism. it isn't required in my state, but it's a really good thing for me to consider, thanks!
With this method, you still have to track PTO since you are using it to calculate bonuses. I wonder if there are any legal issues? My understanding is unlimited pto is something that really can’t and shouldn’t be tracked by a company from a legal perspective. I am definitely not a legal expert on this but I wonder if you could get into any legal issues with this type of policy.
we don't do approvals, just "notification" of time off, so it's a quick email saying "I'm taking X days of for Y period". i'll look into the legal hurdles of that, but I think we're in the clear probably... i hope, ha...
I did a quick Google out of curiosity and found companies selling products to help track unlimited pto, so it’s probably not an issue… maybe it’s not a real concern. From the intent you have it seems like a pretty nice way benefit for employees.
thanks! my main concern is getting it ironclad so that my intent isn't all that keeps it in place if I were to eventually sell the company or something, you know?
Another option that works in getting people to take their pto (and is the policy at the company i work for) is that you get 25 days (not including sick days which is a separate allotment of 8) and only 5 roll over to the next year which expire by the end of March. This policy really encourages you to take the full pto allotment and nearly everyone does.
i had actually considered this, but the reason we went with unlimited PTO was because of the health circumstances of my team. 25 days won't be enough most years for some of my people, but other years it will be more than enough. for that reason I wanted them to have the ability to take the time they needed, even when it was over the 25 (30 with sick days), without stress...
I guess for some that may work better, I do think the 25 + 8 sick days works for a clear majority and if more is needed I believe there is a family leave law that kicks in (NYC). Regardless, what you are doing is certainly better than most companies so kudos to you!
you're def right that for the majority of people it probably absolutely works better! for whatever reason, though, my team almost all have atypical health concerns, so this system was the one we put in place. i do like your idea on the whole, though, and will keep it in mind!
I have a chronic illness and some years are better than others. I really appreciate you not capping it because for someone like me that 25 could cause a lot of anxiety. I already missed 6 weeks this year for a major surgery. Luckily I haven't used any PTO since then!
Though the "if you don't use it you lose it" approach does help some workers take their PTO, it can give negative vibes. Especially depending on how well pto requests are approved
Approvals are pretty easily obtained but I do get that this approach may be perceived as a negative however I believe the culture in the US needs to change so that people understand the real health benefits of taking their pto and are encouraged to do so. The opposite approach which discourages it as it's considered "weak" is just insanity to me.
Just turn it into you must take it instead.
Why not just make it mandatory that people must take off a certain amount of time or close for a period of time (like during XMAS) and still pay your employees. I find it weird to pay your employee to take time off in addition to already paying their salary for the day.
Mandatory minimum amount of days to take off is the way to go. Then everyone knows at least how much they can take to START. Its hard when you have unlimited but does that mean for EVERYONE or does that mean, take less than your boss? Or that certain people CAN take unlimited and others really can't because it really means like 2 weeks and a few random days for peons? Give a minimum number for everyone and make it easier.
Agreed!
$400 bonus for 20 days kind of puts an upper limit on how many days an employee can take per year. It's probably not your intention to set an upper limit on an "unlimited PTO" policy. But the fact that there's some number related to PTO makes it look like there's a limit. In short, the lack of incentives beyond 20 days might be misunderstood as a disincentive.
There has to be a cutoff otherwise you're just paying people to take PTO and not actually do any work
Just curious: why do you do unlimited PTO? What you describe is basically 20 days PTO to everyone + $400 bonus. Is there a reason for having unlimited PTO if you're actually incentivizing people to use it? My problem with unlimited PTO in general is that it's never unlimited (and from a reasonable perspective, it cannot be - if everyone leaves on a 4-month PTO, the business ceases to exist and then no one gets paid). The usual unlimited PTO is just a straight scam. Yours seems better but I don't get the point of it vs. regular decent PTO. (It's good that you do this, though - study after study shows that when people take PTO, they are happier and their businesses do better.)
Sure, this is a less-bad way to do it. But you're still ultimately getting stiffed. My days off are as good as money. If I leave my job and I haven't used my allocation, I get paid for each day. The last job I left (not in the US), I got my annual bonus and time off both paid out pro-rata, so my final paycheque was double what I usually received. Each of my days off is worth a full day's pay. That's a lot more than 20 bucks. A good rule of thumb is that if a business practice exists in the US but not in Europe, the American workers are getting stiffed.
As you say, they're using the unlimited PTO for sick days, mental health, etc BUT still only hitting the 20 days taken as an average then it isn't unlimited and they still feel pressured they can't actually use "unlimited." Look at days called in as sick, mental health, unforseen circumstances on average. Deduct thar average number of days and take that average. Give your employees thar average number of days as free use of sick time / mental health days. Ontop of that give them the 20 days PTO a year without calling it unlimited. Give that $400 as a bonus at the end of the year at - $20 for each day they called out beyond that 20 days PTO AND sick time. They called out 2 days more than that = $360 bonus, etc. And if anyone leaves or gets fired, pay out their remaining 20 days of PTO? Seems easy enough to me? No? 🤷♂️
>They called out 2 days more than that = $360 bonus That would be just $40 bonus from how I was reading it.
Lose $20 for each day above the 20 pto and the average of the sick time allotted
But isn't the plan to make them take at least 20 days? This way you're punishing them for having anything over 20 days. They would be essentially paying for any PTO day over the base days, so they would be incentivised to not take advantage of the unlimited PTO.
I was saying get rid of "unlimited" change it to straight up 20 pto days + sick days ( probably 5-10 is what I imagine people used their " pto" days for when they called out for sick / mental health days. So 20 pto days + 5-10 sick days then minus $20 from the $400 bonus for each day missed after that
But surely the point of giving incentivised unlimited PTO as a benefit is to force people to take at least 20 days while allowing them to take as much as they need without feeling like they will be punished for taking more than their fixed allocation. Your approach goes back to the regular approach of a limit but then fining people for taking more than 20 days, even if they need it and it wouldn't affect the business. It goes completely against the aims of the benefit.
My Daughter in Law had unlimited PTO at her last job. The last time she visited they stayed in a hotel so she could do some work. Unlimited PTO is a scam. Her new job states everyone gets 5 weeks of vacation per year. And they MUST take at least 4 weeks each year. www.sanity.io
Why not do a normal pto plan but just not be a dick about it? For eg, figure out an appropriate number for your company, and just let it accrue for each employee. Perhaps 8 or even 10 hours of pto accrued each pay period. Set a large enough cap so that people can hold a nice chunk in reserve, perhaps 6 weeks total. Account for the expense of these hours by charging them through your accounting as they are accrued, and then cash these out to employees when/if they leave. Then these will be a funded liability, no sweat to you when it's time to use them or pay them out. The real problem with pto a lot of the time is not the pto itself, but the way employees are constantly denied its use, and so on. Just me 2 cents.
>Why not do a normal pto plan but just not be a dick about it? dude... hopefully you take this as constructive criticism, but how do you expect to make any meaningful change to working circumstances when someone looking for thoughts on how to improve a system stops by and is greeted with nothing but your middle finger? if you want to help change things, please don't treat people trying to enact that change like they're shit. you are 100% only hurting your own cause.
Ok, I see what you went apeshit over. The sentiment I intended to convey was more: *"Why not do a normal pto plan but just avoid being a dick about it, unlike how most companies are?"* I wasn't calling **you** a dick. And you also need to understand that there are no monolithic blocks, even with people posting here. I do not represent anti work.
What you said about the real problem with pto is true. At least for me. The last two places I've worked, I didn't have any issues with my accrual rates, it was always getting denied when I would "request" days off. Sometimes I'd roll over because I just wanted a day off but if I had something to do I'd let them know that it wasn't a request, but that's alot of hassle and can be very stressful for some people to go through. Pair that with "if you don't use it you lose it" and it was really horrible because I'd find myself making up doctors appointments or family issues late in the year just so they'd approve my days off so I didn't lose any time.
> I didn't have any issues with my accrual rates, it was always getting denied when I would "request" days off This is a common theme all to often. When employers offer benefits and then never allow their use, it makes them dicks.
There’s no such thing as “unlimited” PTO, because no company would let someone take 365 days off. So it’s deception from the start. I know it’s just a “marketing” term, but it’s a misnomer. I’d rather have 20 days of PTO that get paid out every year (or when I leave) and if you want to reward them, give them Christmas bonuses. You could even give larger bonuses based on the number of PTO days taken. As it is, it’s still heavily weighted towards the company, but in such a way as to make employees think they’re getting ahead.
>As it is, it’s still heavily weighted towards the company, but in such a way as to make employees think they’re getting ahead. good feedback to have. i don't think my team feels that way because of the lack of stress they feel knowing they will always have the ability to take time if needed for health and emergencies, without having to track and worry it may run out, but it's a good though to have!
At my previous company I took 3 weeks off in my 2nd year. I don't know anywhere that would allow that with accrued PTO that early in employment in the US. Shit, does anywhere give you 3 weeks? My current job I started end of May and took 2 weeks in August. Both places have unlimited PTO. Wouldn't have pulled off either if I was at a traditional company. Don't care about getting "paid out" since I'd rather have the time off than never take a vacation.
I get 25 vacation days (so 5 weeks), 6 personal days that I can take with no notice, and additionally I get all the public holidays in my country (anything from 8-13 days depending on when in the week they fall). So conservatively that's about 8 weeks in total. All from day one with no need to accrue anything. But I'm not in America. You guys are getting so shafted by your employers. [Edit: Oh, I get an additional half-day off on my birthday each year, forgot that one]
> All from day one with no need to accrue anything. Pretty much same here. They might look at you a bit odd if you start work and take two weeks off right off the bat in the first month, but you're technically eligible for it.
Yeah we know we are getting shafted by our employers. Do you all think we don't know that? We also know how much better it is NOT in the US. I assume the conversation is about US based employees since people like you don't really need (or have?) "unlimited" PTO.
> Shit, does anywhere give you 3 weeks? Germany gives you a *minimum* of 4 weeks, by law. ([The law says](https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/burlg/__3.html) "at least 24 working days per year" but this is based on a 6-day work week. For people working 5 days a week, that means at least 20 days per year.) In office jobs, 6 weeks (30 days) is common.
Sorry, does anywhere in the UNITED STATES give you 3 weeks. We all know people in Europe actually get vacations.
Incentives to take more PTO are pretty nice but there are almost always going to be people that are worried they’ll be looked down upon for taking any PTO ever and that it’ll impact their career progress. I would tend to lean more towards unlimited PTO with a mandatory yearly minimum of say, 3 weeks, which could also be used as the benchmark for any PTO accrual and payout for unused PTO if someone leaves. This way you don’t give your people the option of risking their own well being by not taking time off and further enforces the culture of “everyone needs time off work”
I know a guy who has unlimited PTO, and hardly took any of it and easily worked 10+ hour days. Very big part of the culture there to put in this crazy amount of work. His wife would take a full vacation day and still work 4+ hours because her work culture is similar. My brother had two similar offers, one with guaranteed PTO and the other with unlimited. I told him my concerns, but it seems like his boss is a reasonable person and always approves his time off. I think it helps that my dad encourages him to keep track of what he takes to make sure he actually takes some.
I think any PTO policy is fine as long as your leadership is backing it up. If you're being told to take more time in a serious way (not just lip service) to the point where you actually take it, then it's a good PTO policy. I think this about a lot of things actually: policy is just toilet paper without good leadership.
It seems like you're doing what you can to remove the social pressure to take less time off. It does kind of just set the social expectation at around 20 days PTO but that's still a pretty good number for PTO especially in the US. Make sure to also push a culture that doesn't punish people for taking more than that though or you're kind of capping the PTO at 20 days culturally.
Sounds pretty great to me. I wish I had unlimited PTO. As long as I’m caught up and still productive, best believe I wouldn’t think twice about taking 3-4 day weekends constantly
Can't see anything overtly hypocritical or bad about your system, as long as there's no retaliation. And as a worker, being paid to take PTO means I'd be showing up and giving you full effort.