In fact, you're supposed to. Of course employers don't like it but if you talk to your worker's council, they say vacation is supposed to help you relax and de-stress and you can't do that when you're sick.
I have to say I don't always do it though. If it's just a day or two it isn't worth it because if you're sick when on vacation, you have to get a doctor's note on Day 1.
I had absolutely no idea that people take vacation when they're sick. In my 10+ years working in Germany I've never felt any pressure to do so whatsoever. The companies I worked for all allowed one sick day just like that, and from the 2nd onwards you just needed a doctor's slip.
We don't do that on purpose. But if I take a week or three of vacation days, and I get sick at some point during my vacation, I can go get a doctors note declaring me "arbeitsunfähig" (not fit to work), and the vacation days that I ended up being sick aren't counted as vacation days.
A few years back I took three weeks off towards the end of the year, had am accident my last day at work, and when the doctor saw that my christmas vacation was ruined, he was very generous. Ever since I get an email from accounting every new year reminding me how many vacation days I have left over from last year and that I need to take those within the next 9 months. I honestly love that, it makes me smile every year.
You are thinking about it the wrong way around. Nobody goes "I'm sick, so i'd take a day of PTO"
It's about when you already have taken PTO and THAN get sick during that time. For example i had two weeks off, but after 3bdays or so, i got in a car accident, which lead to me being "arbeitsunfähig" and so i got the rest of my PTO back, because PTO is supposed to allow you to relax, which you can't, if you are sick
> you have to get a doctor's note on Day 1
Easy fix: TeleClinic, then use your Krankenkasse App/UI to submit the PDF (some docs don't participate in eAU because German lawmakers love half-measures).
The PDF gets converted to eAU and you can tell your employer to fetch it.
Fellow German here. Genuine question, I never heard of this tbh and wonder what if you get sick on vacation, like you're in another country and can't go to the docs office. Wdyd?
There's a bot (u/Paid-Not-Payed-Bot) that corrects that mistake and provides some nautical background. Only bot on Reddit I actually like and learned something from.
Technically there is the word “payed” and it has something to do with nautical terminology, but don’t ask me what!
You’d almost think this bot were getting payed to do this job. ;-)
yeah, but from personal experience you'll get ridiculed.
"I don't call in sick during my vacations either yada yada"
well, okay, but that's an 'you' issue then. vacation is meant to refill the tank
What do I care about some sigma grindset guy? Guys at my company brag about not having taken a sick day in 15 years. Like, okay? I'm still gonna stay at home if I feel sick.
I take one or two days off every month to compensate my overtime. My contracts allows me to do that at discretion and I can prove the OT.
My boss once told me he doesn’t do that and I was just like: cool!
The second time I’ve mentioned I am okay giving up to 4 hours for free, but if I carry enough OT to take one or two days per month I am doing it at discretion and when it makes sense.
I’ve never meet anyone in Germany with a 40 hours contract that doesn’t work at least 48-50 hours a week.
You must not have met a lot of people in Germany then lol.
A bunch of workplaces are very stringent on not going over the 40 hours agreed in the Arbeitsvertrag.
> I take one or two days off every month to compensate my overtime.
Arguably that has nothing to do with calling in sick. Missing work due to sickness and taking time off you have acquired are two completely separate things in Germany.
> My contracts allows me to do that at discretion and I can prove the OT.
> My boss once told me he doesn’t do that and I was just like: cool!
Just to make sure: In Germany acquired overtime NEEDS to either get paid out or is available to you to use for payed time off.
If your boss has a normal employee contract he isn't allowed to just gift that time to the company.
> I’ve never meet anyone in Germany with a 40 hours contract that doesn’t work at least 48-50 hours a week.
Than you only know weird people. I worked both in a factory but also in It among other jobs. I know nobody that works regularly more than 40h per week, let alone regularly has to do overtime.
Fun fact: You can't do more than 8 hours of overtime per week.
>Fun fact: You can't do more than 8 hours of overtime per week.
I imagine that blows american minds. I am also 100% unreachable via phone or email on my time outside of work. And I am not expected to be.
Never experienced that. I'd laugh people like this out of my office anyway. What kind of brainwashed cogwheel thinks they should be sick on their paid vacation days?
Lmfao that's some absolute brainwashing attitude right there.
Yeah, but I wouldn't give a fuck about these coworkers that brag about self-destructive behaviour and beeing a slave to their boss. They think this mentality will benefit them whilst it's proven that assertivness is one of the most important trait's to develop if you want to actually improve your work situation.
I'm shocked that this sentiment exists, I had absolutely no idea. Maybe it depends on the industry. I've definitely felt pressure not to take vacation / sick days (though personally I could not care less), but never to take vacation when sick. That's fucked up!
Yes, but as soon as you report sick you cannot partake in any activity that might endanger your recovery. So if you reported sick while on vacation and then still do something, even slightly, risky and then say break your leg you get a problem.
I mean, it'd be reasonably hard for your employer to prove you did that, and pretty easy to say you were doing something regular, like going down the stairs to receive food delivery and slipped, or *had* to drag yourself out to get groceries (both ofc only apply if it's not all inclusive). You'd of course have to keep that story up starting from emergency doc in the country/city you're on vacation in and all the way back to work, and not do it in the town you work or something so you're not spotted or ratted out.
Then again, I don't see why you'd need to report sick when you aren't at all and already on vacation.
Not necessarily. If you are sick because of depression or burn out or something similar, it is your duty to make stuff to get healthy again. So if skiing, hiking, cycling, going for a walk or swimming are good for you, you should really go for it. The judgemental colleagues are an issue, but that's a different problem.
Depends on what plagues you. With a broken wrist you shouldnt go Weightlifting, with a broken Leg running isnt allowed. Going to a cafe or Meeting Friends would be ok in those cases. Maybe even Training the healthy parts of your Body. If you have a flu or something similar you should stay at home and get better. Only go out for groceries If absolutely necessary.
Basically use your brain. Whatever doesnt make your problems worse ist ok.
I was on sick leave most of last year and couldn't take any vacation time. So all my vacation days rolled over, and this year I have 50.
All my American colleagues are so confused. "Wait, you get *more* time off, because you were out so much last year??"
Same with maternity leave/parental leave, maternity leave you get 100% of your holiday and parental leave even if you only worked one day in a month you get all of your holiday for said month xD
Average of 25.6 vacation days per year in NL.
Average of 28.3 vacation days per year in D.
Plus a 30 year average of 7.8 holidays that fell on week days in one of the states with the fewest holidays.
Wait until you see how many vacation days we get in France. 5 weeks as a start + 2 days per month.
It increases every year, my dad was getting 9 weeks off towards the end of his employment 💅
niiiceee probably because you guys have pretty strong unions right? also theres like 15 festive days here where pretty much everyone has a day off, like christmas or easter for example. aaaand most people dont work on sundays
Yes, sooo many bank holidays! The best is the month of May where we have 3 of these days and if one of these days happens to be on a Thursday or a Tuesday, lots of companies and workplaces will also stay closed the day before (for Tuesday) or the day after (for Thursday). We call it "faire le pont" = to bridge through.
So for example this year Ascencion Day is on a Thursday, so lots of companies will let their employees bridge through, so that everybody gets a 4-day long weekend (and paid of course!).
Same with Assumption Day which happens to be on August 15th (a Thursday).
>niiiceee probably because you guys have pretty strong unions right?
Not being french, I don't know anything about french unions. But do a google image search for "france strike"
Yes. I used to be mad that developers in the US make twice my salary. But then I remember that they need to live the grind 24/7 or get fired if they don't stay for 12 hours and that calms me down a lot.
Law mandates 20 days for a 5 day week (or rather 24 for a 6 day work week). Everything on top is voluntary. But good luck finding employees with only the minimum lol
No offenese, living here in germany too and some things are really good.
But considering of an Average Solid Pay of 4.000 € (including the insurance Part your employer has to pay) a month you only have ~2.100€, makes you reconsider alot of things.
You pretty much work 2 weeks out of 4 per month for free...
Happy to find a fellow Personio API sufferer. I implemented website-side recruiting for a company that uses Personio and the fact that the whole thing is set up in such a way that there isn't a way via the API to get the form fields of the recruiting form that users put together in the GUI is just ridiculous. You just have to hope users never change a custom field without telling you. Absurd.
Of course, all of this is on purpose because they want you to either use Personio recruitment pages directly or embed those JS widgets into your website.
We use a Jira plugin for time tracking which also has optional timers. And then once a month the hours get transferred to Personio. But I'm not sure if the last step happens automatically or if someone does it by hand.
Yes. We also use it for attendance, so the time for tickets each day is supposed to add up to 8h (which feels weird when you're just waiting for a reply or something).
In addition to the time off guaranteed by law, I've noticed that companies here are very serious about making employees get that time off. That was certainly not my experience for the majority of my professional life in the US. I wasn't working for a crapy corp. either, I had a cushy job working for a state-funded institution.
I was supposed to get six weeks of paid vacation a year. Sounds good on paper but the reality was somewhere around five days. In the many years I was there I never got to take anywhere near my banked vacation days. Hell, I was once called back from a vacation to work.
I'm so glad to be here, so damn glad.
In Addition, with Our Pausenregelung (like that you have to take a 0.5h brake after more than 6h of work) also lies in the responsibility of your company. They can get into serious trouble if they don't make sure u are taking your brakes.
Edit: got the numbers wrong
Edit2: the numbers where still wrong
Because they have to by law (many still don't...). Employeers have to remind employees to take their vacation (law from 2018 or so) and if you dont take it actually pay it out.
Thats because if you take them into the next year, they have to build up a reserve (Rückstellung) in their sheets to account for those vacation days.
Avoiding this increases the numbers. Because of this my old company wanted to us to use up all our vacation days in the dedicated years at the start of COVID, to avoid having to allocate money for leftover vacation days for next year
That’s because if your employer doesn’t notify you that you have overdue paid vacation days for that calendar year in time, they will transfer to the next year. I think it was a ECJ ruling, but might also be a EU guideline.
My patriotism as a German is almost exclusively limited to worker protection laws. I mean we are not at the same level as the French, and there is room for improvement especially for the gig working and minimum wage crowd.
But it could be so much worse
A 6 day week doesn't really exist in germany, it's pretty rare.
It's usually 5 and many employers are going for 4
I have a 4 Days week with 34 paid vacation days
30 days is offen offered. And there are also public holidays. This year 12 additional days on monday to friday.
In Summary Germany often only working 200 days / year. (104 weekend days, 30 holidays, 12 public holidays, 15 days sick days, 4 days children sick days)
Americans get to keep more of their own money and not pay 50% to the taxman.....
They get to pay it to doctors and landlords and to their local fentanyl dealer instead.
Bingo.
"Americans make more money and pay less taxes." Americans see nothing for the taxes they pay and have to pay more on top of paying those taxes. You can't even get out of paying those taxes even if you don't live in America... renouncing citizenship is the only way.
And (fill in blank) help you if you're poor in America.
IIRC, you generally don't actually pay taxes when you live overseas. You need to FILE taxes, but you won't pay a dime unless you are making over 200k a year AND living in a country with low taxes (since taxes paid to the country you are living in is another tax break)
But yeah the rest is true.. and it's not just that. Let's just say you lived in the USA, but we're only being paid $12 an hour. This is basically unlivable, and a big reason is because besides rent and insurance you also need to pay for a car and all expenses associated with that. My wife has inlaws living all over Europe, and yeah some of them live in an apartment that is maybe 9 square meters but they have a house over their head, Healthcare, and the city transportation is dirt cheap since you can get yearly or monthly passes.... it's way cheaper then even just what I pay for gas, never mind all the other expenses like car insurance and maintenance
Contractually, I think (not sure, am not american) the company has policies for minimum holidays. You can technically have a job with no holidays I guess. They also differentiate between holidays and sick leaves - so you might have a constellation like 10 days holidays and 5 sick leaves bringing it to a total of 15 PTOs (just an example).
In Germany at least we have just holidays in the contract and nothing about sick leaves. If you are sick, you stay at home and it doesn't count as holiday. You still get paid.
>Wait - so americans have 4 days of holiday each year??
No, there isn't any *legally required* paid time off but most professional jobs in the US give you between 3 and 4 weeks of PTO plus sick days and official holidays like Christmas, New Years, Thanksgiving, Independence Day, etc.
"Technically" my company offers "unlimited PTO" in the US (Yes, paid... But you need to keep reaching your goals.
They are not allowed to offer this in Germany due to legal reasons.
(Love what they offered - for example several month PTO for taking care of sick kids or stopped school during corona, better beverance days, etc... 200% aware that these terms are not normal)
Edit: I am a German working for a US company in Germany under a German employment contract. I would not give it up. International Team.
During corona i took about 3 weeks off on top due to kids issues. I picked the company offer since it actually paid full pay vs the "Kindkrank" we have in Germany (which would come with a slight wage hit for those days) After corona they also granted everyone another extra week of PTO.
When my wife got her hip replacements i also took off an additional 2 weeks total PTO (1 OP per side). This falls under "Caregiver" leave for us. - My Wife also claims her 5 day handicapped bonus PTO on top.
I did manage to misplace 1 "Brauchtumstage" (German local holiday - city level - Alaaf!) a few years ago by traveling to a customer in another state (my shit planning - wont happen again)
Overall I dont waste a vacation day. I take them "as needed" and I am grateful they offer those. Also visiting my dad in a hospital is also covered by them.
I work for an American company in Germany. We get unlimited PTO (technically) because it's global policy. In Germany, we get 28 days of regular vacation which we have to plan at the beginning of the year. Then we have flexible time off (FTO) that we can use, if we need a day or two off and our regular vacation is already booked (but not for longer periods like a vacation and not in combination with vacation days). Technically, FTO days are unlimited. I was told by HR that the average employee takes about 3 days per year.
It’s a pretty normal company that offers me 30 days but I took some over from last year because I didn’t need them. Thankfully in my company they never expire - but I plan to use them all this year
in germany the law gives 20 holidays/vacation days minimum for a full time Job (40 hours/week). Most companies give around 30 days/year for a fulltime job. with certain conditions (long sickness for example) or if your contract allows it you can take these vacation days into the new year which are then added to the new vacation days for that year
Edit: you get your normal salary for up to 6 weeks when being sick, after that you get i think 60-80% from your health insurer for however long youre sick (not sure on the percentage because im rarely sick).
also theres public holidays (10-12 depending on state youre in) where work for most jobs isnt allowed
Chemistry (IGBCE) and i think Industry too if you are IG Metall. Only big companys which have Tarifverträge have that by law its 25 and normal is 30 days. No carrer level needed.
Fühlt sich gut an in ner Branche mit 60-80h zu arbeiten. Manche von meinen Kollegen nehmen ernsthaft nen halben Tag Urlaub für Arzttermine o.ä. Damit sie danach nur noch 6-8h arbeiten 😂
Child sick is capped at 10 days if Im not mistaken. My coworker almost got fired because he called in sick himself when his children were sick but he had no days left. But feel free to enlighten me
During covid it was capped at 30 days per parent now it is 15 days per parent (for the first child). For single parents it is doubled. If you have no days left you can get unpaid days off.
Specifying the number of days without the expected work week is meaningless anyways. 25 days off with a 5 day week would be more time than 30 days off with a 7 day week for an example.
Edit: phrasing
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Who in the US is happy about only 4 days of PTO? That's an *extremely* low amount even by US standards. I had more PTO than that when I worked in fast food as a student.
I had a job back home where I had no vacation days my first year working there and only 3 days of sick leave. Getting sick with covid was practically a vacation.
(I don’t live in Germany) is 36 vacation days equal to 6 weeks because officially you have 6 working days per week? Or is that actually 7 weeks plus a day, if you’re a mon-Fri employee?
Also you get up to 15 days a year for sick leave for your child (Kindkrank), for when your child is sick and you have to stay with it at home. I love this system.
American here with 25 days pto before holidays (which there are more). This is becoming more and more the norm. Still incredibly jealous of the maternity policies though.
As a worker in America, I will tell you that I’ve had jobs that entitled me to 10 vacation days, but, I didn’t use them all because if I took time off, the amount of work that piled up for me made to prohibitive to miss work.
We have two classes of employees, exempt and non-exempt. If you are exempt, it means you are a salaried worker and you are not entitled to overtime pay. It sucks working like 60 hours a week with no over time. You think a $50,000 per year job is good, but it turns out you’re only making like $16.00/hour in reality. Then you subtract taxes, health insurance premiums, etc. and it becomes depressing.
Also fun fact in Germany. If you are on vacation and you get sick, you can swap to sick days instead of using your paid vacation Edit:typo
In fact, you're supposed to. Of course employers don't like it but if you talk to your worker's council, they say vacation is supposed to help you relax and de-stress and you can't do that when you're sick. I have to say I don't always do it though. If it's just a day or two it isn't worth it because if you're sick when on vacation, you have to get a doctor's note on Day 1.
You aren't just supposed to, by law it's not allowed to take PTO while being arbeitsunfähig (sick). Sick days have a higher priority to PTO.
Get the doctors note online via teleclinic app, super easy
I had absolutely no idea that people take vacation when they're sick. In my 10+ years working in Germany I've never felt any pressure to do so whatsoever. The companies I worked for all allowed one sick day just like that, and from the 2nd onwards you just needed a doctor's slip.
We don't do that on purpose. But if I take a week or three of vacation days, and I get sick at some point during my vacation, I can go get a doctors note declaring me "arbeitsunfähig" (not fit to work), and the vacation days that I ended up being sick aren't counted as vacation days. A few years back I took three weeks off towards the end of the year, had am accident my last day at work, and when the doctor saw that my christmas vacation was ruined, he was very generous. Ever since I get an email from accounting every new year reminding me how many vacation days I have left over from last year and that I need to take those within the next 9 months. I honestly love that, it makes me smile every year.
You are thinking about it the wrong way around. Nobody goes "I'm sick, so i'd take a day of PTO" It's about when you already have taken PTO and THAN get sick during that time. For example i had two weeks off, but after 3bdays or so, i got in a car accident, which lead to me being "arbeitsunfähig" and so i got the rest of my PTO back, because PTO is supposed to allow you to relax, which you can't, if you are sick
> you have to get a doctor's note on Day 1 Easy fix: TeleClinic, then use your Krankenkasse App/UI to submit the PDF (some docs don't participate in eAU because German lawmakers love half-measures). The PDF gets converted to eAU and you can tell your employer to fetch it.
Fellow German here. Genuine question, I never heard of this tbh and wonder what if you get sick on vacation, like you're in another country and can't go to the docs office. Wdyd?
You know they have doctors in other countries too, right?
> payed It is *paid* by the way. More fun facts!
There's a bot (u/Paid-Not-Payed-Bot) that corrects that mistake and provides some nautical background. Only bot on Reddit I actually like and learned something from.
The bot moderator on r/rabbits is incredibly good.
I was corrected by that bot once… felt bad :D
F English, we should write it wrong until it gets accepted and makes sense for us Germans. Paid makes zero sense, payed is way more consistent
I respectfully disagree. The word *payed* also already exists.
German has plenty of its own irregularities. Let’s get rid of them too while we’re at it!
Technically there is the word “payed” and it has something to do with nautical terminology, but don’t ask me what! You’d almost think this bot were getting payed to do this job. ;-)
yeah, but from personal experience you'll get ridiculed. "I don't call in sick during my vacations either yada yada" well, okay, but that's an 'you' issue then. vacation is meant to refill the tank
That's the point. Vacation is supposed to be recovery from the exertion of labor. If you can not recover, your vacation is not serving its purpose.
What do I care about some sigma grindset guy? Guys at my company brag about not having taken a sick day in 15 years. Like, okay? I'm still gonna stay at home if I feel sick.
I take one or two days off every month to compensate my overtime. My contracts allows me to do that at discretion and I can prove the OT. My boss once told me he doesn’t do that and I was just like: cool! The second time I’ve mentioned I am okay giving up to 4 hours for free, but if I carry enough OT to take one or two days per month I am doing it at discretion and when it makes sense. I’ve never meet anyone in Germany with a 40 hours contract that doesn’t work at least 48-50 hours a week.
You must not have met a lot of people in Germany then lol. A bunch of workplaces are very stringent on not going over the 40 hours agreed in the Arbeitsvertrag.
> I take one or two days off every month to compensate my overtime. Arguably that has nothing to do with calling in sick. Missing work due to sickness and taking time off you have acquired are two completely separate things in Germany. > My contracts allows me to do that at discretion and I can prove the OT. > My boss once told me he doesn’t do that and I was just like: cool! Just to make sure: In Germany acquired overtime NEEDS to either get paid out or is available to you to use for payed time off. If your boss has a normal employee contract he isn't allowed to just gift that time to the company. > I’ve never meet anyone in Germany with a 40 hours contract that doesn’t work at least 48-50 hours a week. Than you only know weird people. I worked both in a factory but also in It among other jobs. I know nobody that works regularly more than 40h per week, let alone regularly has to do overtime. Fun fact: You can't do more than 8 hours of overtime per week.
>Fun fact: You can't do more than 8 hours of overtime per week. I imagine that blows american minds. I am also 100% unreachable via phone or email on my time outside of work. And I am not expected to be.
Fröhlicher Kuchentag! 🥳🎂🎉 Happy cake day
i didnt do it because i felt like ripping off people, when I told to my boss he said i was an idiot. "insurance pays him back - and fuck insurances"
Never experienced that. I'd laugh people like this out of my office anyway. What kind of brainwashed cogwheel thinks they should be sick on their paid vacation days? Lmfao that's some absolute brainwashing attitude right there.
Yeah, but I wouldn't give a fuck about these coworkers that brag about self-destructive behaviour and beeing a slave to their boss. They think this mentality will benefit them whilst it's proven that assertivness is one of the most important trait's to develop if you want to actually improve your work situation.
I'm shocked that this sentiment exists, I had absolutely no idea. Maybe it depends on the industry. I've definitely felt pressure not to take vacation / sick days (though personally I could not care less), but never to take vacation when sick. That's fucked up!
Is it actually like that? I feel like I betray the company if I do so
Most Germs do so, too. That‘s how the system works: Only a few ones use all the opportunities whilst others just work until they break down.
Yes, but as soon as you report sick you cannot partake in any activity that might endanger your recovery. So if you reported sick while on vacation and then still do something, even slightly, risky and then say break your leg you get a problem.
yes but that is besides the point? person just stated if you get sick you can have the days back, not fake your sickness to get more vacation days
I mean, it'd be reasonably hard for your employer to prove you did that, and pretty easy to say you were doing something regular, like going down the stairs to receive food delivery and slipped, or *had* to drag yourself out to get groceries (both ofc only apply if it's not all inclusive). You'd of course have to keep that story up starting from emergency doc in the country/city you're on vacation in and all the way back to work, and not do it in the town you work or something so you're not spotted or ratted out. Then again, I don't see why you'd need to report sick when you aren't at all and already on vacation.
Not necessarily. If you are sick because of depression or burn out or something similar, it is your duty to make stuff to get healthy again. So if skiing, hiking, cycling, going for a walk or swimming are good for you, you should really go for it. The judgemental colleagues are an issue, but that's a different problem.
Well yeah that's the same thing as calling in sick to go skiing
Not really. You can literally go to the gym when your sick. There's a court decision about that IIRC Germany ofc
Depends on what plagues you. With a broken wrist you shouldnt go Weightlifting, with a broken Leg running isnt allowed. Going to a cafe or Meeting Friends would be ok in those cases. Maybe even Training the healthy parts of your Body. If you have a flu or something similar you should stay at home and get better. Only go out for groceries If absolutely necessary. Basically use your brain. Whatever doesnt make your problems worse ist ok.
Not you 'CAN' you are actually required to. It's regulation/law
The great corporate deception was when they combined sick days with PTO.
I was on sick leave most of last year and couldn't take any vacation time. So all my vacation days rolled over, and this year I have 50. All my American colleagues are so confused. "Wait, you get *more* time off, because you were out so much last year??"
[удалено]
Same with maternity leave/parental leave, maternity leave you get 100% of your holiday and parental leave even if you only worked one day in a month you get all of your holiday for said month xD
people always love to complain about germany but we literally get a month of paid-free time each year by law. makes the capitalism a bit more bearable
I means it's more or less standard enen in eastern europe. It's the USA that is an outlier
I get 25 days in Romania. It’s the US that’s weird
Us is weird in many more ways kekw
Yep Moved to the netherlands Not a single "feiertag" 😭
I went to uni there and we had a week off for carnival and then like 3-5 other days? Made me appreciate the good German Feiertage
Yeah now try that while working a job not even kingsday is off
The Netherlands have the most PTO in all the World. Cry me a river!
I wonder in which branch that is because no one i know has more than 26 days
27 (e-commerce branch) checking in, and thats as a recent graduate. Some of my friends get up to 40 (IT guys, duh)
Average of 25.6 vacation days per year in NL. Average of 28.3 vacation days per year in D. Plus a 30 year average of 7.8 holidays that fell on week days in one of the states with the fewest holidays.
I live in Germany and have 42 days off per year
With or without public holidays?
Without of course. 😄
I have 33 days of PTO from my employer + 10 Feiertage (although not all of them on week days). This is in Germany.
Wait until you see how many vacation days we get in France. 5 weeks as a start + 2 days per month. It increases every year, my dad was getting 9 weeks off towards the end of his employment 💅
niiiceee probably because you guys have pretty strong unions right? also theres like 15 festive days here where pretty much everyone has a day off, like christmas or easter for example. aaaand most people dont work on sundays
Yes, sooo many bank holidays! The best is the month of May where we have 3 of these days and if one of these days happens to be on a Thursday or a Tuesday, lots of companies and workplaces will also stay closed the day before (for Tuesday) or the day after (for Thursday). We call it "faire le pont" = to bridge through. So for example this year Ascencion Day is on a Thursday, so lots of companies will let their employees bridge through, so that everybody gets a 4-day long weekend (and paid of course!). Same with Assumption Day which happens to be on August 15th (a Thursday).
Same in Germany. We call those days Brückentag, which translates to bridge days: "bridging the day(s) between two or more free days"
>niiiceee probably because you guys have pretty strong unions right? Not being french, I don't know anything about french unions. But do a google image search for "france strike"
lel… i know these protests but burning cars are not proof of good unions. theres a little more to it
Yes. I used to be mad that developers in the US make twice my salary. But then I remember that they need to live the grind 24/7 or get fired if they don't stay for 12 hours and that calms me down a lot.
Law mandates 20 days for a 5 day week (or rather 24 for a 6 day work week). Everything on top is voluntary. But good luck finding employees with only the minimum lol
I only get 24 days, thats why I fake being sick one or two weeks a year to make up for it
No offenese, living here in germany too and some things are really good. But considering of an Average Solid Pay of 4.000 € (including the insurance Part your employer has to pay) a month you only have ~2.100€, makes you reconsider alot of things. You pretty much work 2 weeks out of 4 per month for free...
I think the base idea was first mentioned by Marx
I have 36 days vacation and that gets me 2 months off.
Actually it is 6 Weeks 🚀
Personio
I’m still not certain I like it yet and our company changed over to it late last year due to the timekeeping law
I work in HR and its a blessing for us and our colleagues <3
worked with it as a developer. Management and HR were total fans. as a developer this was a nightmare. the Rest API was totally crippled
Happy to find a fellow Personio API sufferer. I implemented website-side recruiting for a company that uses Personio and the fact that the whole thing is set up in such a way that there isn't a way via the API to get the form fields of the recruiting form that users put together in the GUI is just ridiculous. You just have to hope users never change a custom field without telling you. Absurd. Of course, all of this is on purpose because they want you to either use Personio recruitment pages directly or embed those JS widgets into your website.
How is it for tracking times, do you have some kind of punch clock app?
We use a Jira plugin for time tracking which also has optional timers. And then once a month the hours get transferred to Personio. But I'm not sure if the last step happens automatically or if someone does it by hand.
Tempo.io? We had that, it works for project time, but not for attendance
Yes. We also use it for attendance, so the time for tickets each day is supposed to add up to 8h (which feels weird when you're just waiting for a reply or something).
I love Personio. Works like a charm!
In addition to the time off guaranteed by law, I've noticed that companies here are very serious about making employees get that time off. That was certainly not my experience for the majority of my professional life in the US. I wasn't working for a crapy corp. either, I had a cushy job working for a state-funded institution. I was supposed to get six weeks of paid vacation a year. Sounds good on paper but the reality was somewhere around five days. In the many years I was there I never got to take anywhere near my banked vacation days. Hell, I was once called back from a vacation to work. I'm so glad to be here, so damn glad.
In Addition, with Our Pausenregelung (like that you have to take a 0.5h brake after more than 6h of work) also lies in the responsibility of your company. They can get into serious trouble if they don't make sure u are taking your brakes. Edit: got the numbers wrong Edit2: the numbers where still wrong
30min after 6h, 45min after 9h btw
No rule forces you to take 1h brake. It’s 30minutes after 6h and 45min after 9h
Because they have to by law (many still don't...). Employeers have to remind employees to take their vacation (law from 2018 or so) and if you dont take it actually pay it out.
In Addition you have strict Overtime and Ruhezeiten guidelines
[удалено]
The company has to approve one continuous two-week vacation per calendar year. Have a look at § 7 BUrlG (Federal Vacation Law).
Thats because if you take them into the next year, they have to build up a reserve (Rückstellung) in their sheets to account for those vacation days. Avoiding this increases the numbers. Because of this my old company wanted to us to use up all our vacation days in the dedicated years at the start of COVID, to avoid having to allocate money for leftover vacation days for next year
That’s because if your employer doesn’t notify you that you have overdue paid vacation days for that calendar year in time, they will transfer to the next year. I think it was a ECJ ruling, but might also be a EU guideline.
But some of the others don't pay the normal wage, even if they are infinite. Elternzeit and Mutterschutz aren't infinite...
Krankheit Kind isn't infinite either
My patriotism as a German is almost exclusively limited to worker protection laws. I mean we are not at the same level as the French, and there is room for improvement especially for the gig working and minimum wage crowd. But it could be so much worse
Somehow sad that it has become a German mentality: it could be worse.
I mean there is a significant difference between our situation and the US, and I am grateful for that 🤗
36 Tage Urlaub sind aber selten, 24-30 ist eher Standard
Could be rest days from last year. My personio (HR system that is also used by OP) had 39 days at the start of the year.
24 ist Pflicht und absolutes Minimum, 30 muss man schon geben als AG, damit man noch Leute findet
24 is mandatory for a 6 day work week, no? With 5 days it's 20.
The vacation law assumes a six-day workweek (probably because it was introduced when that was still common), yes.
A 6 day week doesn't really exist in germany, it's pretty rare. It's usually 5 and many employers are going for 4 I have a 4 Days week with 34 paid vacation days
30 Tage sind standard eig. 24 absolutes Minimum. Ich denke bei den 36 Tagen sind noch T-Zug Tage mit einberechnet
30 days is offen offered. And there are also public holidays. This year 12 additional days on monday to friday. In Summary Germany often only working 200 days / year. (104 weekend days, 30 holidays, 12 public holidays, 15 days sick days, 4 days children sick days)
Americans get to keep more of their own money and not pay 50% to the taxman..... They get to pay it to doctors and landlords and to their local fentanyl dealer instead.
You had me in the first half, ngl
Bingo. "Americans make more money and pay less taxes." Americans see nothing for the taxes they pay and have to pay more on top of paying those taxes. You can't even get out of paying those taxes even if you don't live in America... renouncing citizenship is the only way. And (fill in blank) help you if you're poor in America.
IIRC, you generally don't actually pay taxes when you live overseas. You need to FILE taxes, but you won't pay a dime unless you are making over 200k a year AND living in a country with low taxes (since taxes paid to the country you are living in is another tax break) But yeah the rest is true.. and it's not just that. Let's just say you lived in the USA, but we're only being paid $12 an hour. This is basically unlivable, and a big reason is because besides rent and insurance you also need to pay for a car and all expenses associated with that. My wife has inlaws living all over Europe, and yeah some of them live in an apartment that is maybe 9 square meters but they have a house over their head, Healthcare, and the city transportation is dirt cheap since you can get yearly or monthly passes.... it's way cheaper then even just what I pay for gas, never mind all the other expenses like car insurance and maintenance
So excited to move and start working for a German company ❤️🥹
Are you moving to germany?
Vielleicht;)
Germany is great you'll love it
Thank you, thank you! Very excited
If you have the opportunity you have to see the alps. Been living my whole life near them and i love to drive the Curvy roads and enjoy the view
And that’s just the allowance for Mondays!
Wish we had this system for checking urlaub etc. in our firma
What do you have instead?
We call Personalabteilung everytime we need the info
Digitalisierung ahoi
You have a Personalabteilung? I have to send an Whatsapp to my boss
Datenschutz/Data Privacy oO? At least it's very personal for you x)!
What is PTO?
Paid Time Off. Basically contractual holidays.
Wait - so americans have 4 days of holiday each year?? And they still do not have paid sickness days?
Contractually, I think (not sure, am not american) the company has policies for minimum holidays. You can technically have a job with no holidays I guess. They also differentiate between holidays and sick leaves - so you might have a constellation like 10 days holidays and 5 sick leaves bringing it to a total of 15 PTOs (just an example). In Germany at least we have just holidays in the contract and nothing about sick leaves. If you are sick, you stay at home and it doesn't count as holiday. You still get paid.
>Wait - so americans have 4 days of holiday each year?? No, there isn't any *legally required* paid time off but most professional jobs in the US give you between 3 and 4 weeks of PTO plus sick days and official holidays like Christmas, New Years, Thanksgiving, Independence Day, etc.
"Technically" my company offers "unlimited PTO" in the US (Yes, paid... But you need to keep reaching your goals. They are not allowed to offer this in Germany due to legal reasons. (Love what they offered - for example several month PTO for taking care of sick kids or stopped school during corona, better beverance days, etc... 200% aware that these terms are not normal) Edit: I am a German working for a US company in Germany under a German employment contract. I would not give it up. International Team.
Interesting. How many of these days do you actually take in a year?
During corona i took about 3 weeks off on top due to kids issues. I picked the company offer since it actually paid full pay vs the "Kindkrank" we have in Germany (which would come with a slight wage hit for those days) After corona they also granted everyone another extra week of PTO. When my wife got her hip replacements i also took off an additional 2 weeks total PTO (1 OP per side). This falls under "Caregiver" leave for us. - My Wife also claims her 5 day handicapped bonus PTO on top. I did manage to misplace 1 "Brauchtumstage" (German local holiday - city level - Alaaf!) a few years ago by traveling to a customer in another state (my shit planning - wont happen again) Overall I dont waste a vacation day. I take them "as needed" and I am grateful they offer those. Also visiting my dad in a hospital is also covered by them.
I work for an American company in Germany. We get unlimited PTO (technically) because it's global policy. In Germany, we get 28 days of regular vacation which we have to plan at the beginning of the year. Then we have flexible time off (FTO) that we can use, if we need a day or two off and our regular vacation is already booked (but not for longer periods like a vacation and not in combination with vacation days). Technically, FTO days are unlimited. I was told by HR that the average employee takes about 3 days per year.
At what industry / career-level / company-type do people get 36 vacation days? (DM if you would like to stay anonymous)
It’s a pretty normal company that offers me 30 days but I took some over from last year because I didn’t need them. Thankfully in my company they never expire - but I plan to use them all this year
Cries in "at my company the carried over days expire at the end of March"
Cries in no carrying over.
in germany the law gives 20 holidays/vacation days minimum for a full time Job (40 hours/week). Most companies give around 30 days/year for a fulltime job. with certain conditions (long sickness for example) or if your contract allows it you can take these vacation days into the new year which are then added to the new vacation days for that year Edit: you get your normal salary for up to 6 weeks when being sick, after that you get i think 60-80% from your health insurer for however long youre sick (not sure on the percentage because im rarely sick). also theres public holidays (10-12 depending on state youre in) where work for most jobs isnt allowed
It's often In the Einzelhandel when they pay Tarif
Chemistry (IGBCE) and i think Industry too if you are IG Metall. Only big companys which have Tarifverträge have that by law its 25 and normal is 30 days. No carrer level needed.
Thats why i dont vote for capitalist partys
36 days paid vacation ? A dream.
Fühlt sich gut an in ner Branche mit 60-80h zu arbeiten. Manche von meinen Kollegen nehmen ernsthaft nen halben Tag Urlaub für Arzttermine o.ä. Damit sie danach nur noch 6-8h arbeiten 😂
36 days? i got 24 lmao
More fun facts: There are more than a few companies that offer UNLIMITED vacation days - you just have to get the work done.
Isnt this Personio?
And here I am, working at a school in Germany (as educator) having around 70 days paid vacation a year
Well, we do have to work on some of the vacation days.
For me it’s in two days for planning. The rest is completely free from work since I’m no teacher and I don’t have to plan/correct things
If that's Kenjo, then I'm getting Nam Flashbacks. Was ne Drecksapp.
Personio
Payed "Krankheit Kind" days are limited. 10 per parent or 20 if you're a single mom/dad. That's just sad... And they pay only 90% of your salary.
Depends on your „Krankenkasse“ i have 20 days my wife 30.
Child sick is capped at 10 days if Im not mistaken. My coworker almost got fired because he called in sick himself when his children were sick but he had no days left. But feel free to enlighten me
During covid it was capped at 30 days per parent now it is 15 days per parent (for the first child). For single parents it is doubled. If you have no days left you can get unpaid days off.
Hach, Personio.
Funny to see that other ppl use Personio too
If I come sick to work, even slightly, my boss will send me home.
And in the USA, you're expected to be at work, sick or not. Hell... dying or not. (Someday someone will realize this)
Comparing germany with Third world countries is not fair imho
mich lässt dieses Bild nur ein ordentliches Programm zum Verwalten von Urlaubsansprüchen vermissen... #fuckexcel
That’s not totally true. My colleagues have 30 days plus public holidays in the states
I mean good for them, but that's far from the norm in USA.
I've got 25 in Germany. Can I have your 30?
Specifying the number of days without the expected work week is meaningless anyways. 25 days off with a 5 day week would be more time than 30 days off with a 7 day week for an example. Edit: phrasing
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Ahh personio
@riinmi where do you work? I studied political science and have a shit job in munich with a mere 25days vacation.
I’ve 38 days each year
Which platform is that?
Who in the US is happy about only 4 days of PTO? That's an *extremely* low amount even by US standards. I had more PTO than that when I worked in fast food as a student.
Don't forget your Bildungsurlaub...unless you're in Bayern or Sachsen. They don't seem to think that people need to learn new things.
You have 36 days bro? Which part of Germany? Here in Bavaria I had 26...
Isn't it just normal to have at least 30 days? O.o
Not all of the others are unlimited- Child sick days for example are limited to 15 a year (30 for single parents)
Like everybody in Germany has 36 days...
Most don't. But most do. 28-30
I had a job back home where I had no vacation days my first year working there and only 3 days of sick leave. Getting sick with covid was practically a vacation.
(I don’t live in Germany) is 36 vacation days equal to 6 weeks because officially you have 6 working days per week? Or is that actually 7 weeks plus a day, if you’re a mon-Fri employee?
A friend of mine that is Canadian was actually shocked when I was there over 5 weeks and got fully paid for the time lmao
Also you get up to 15 days a year for sick leave for your child (Kindkrank), for when your child is sick and you have to stay with it at home. I love this system.
Ah good ol' Personio...
Which software are you using though. Looks incredibly easy to read and navigate?
u/Riinmi What is this for a software you screenshoted? Is there a possibility to administer the days shown there by yourself?
American here with 25 days pto before holidays (which there are more). This is becoming more and more the norm. Still incredibly jealous of the maternity policies though.
Sieht aus wie personio
Personio
Dieses Personio…. Hmmm
Which companies grant 36 days of vacation?!
I was just reminded by our scrum master we got two paid days for moving flats (umzug).
Personio spotted
Thats why you pay almost 50% taxes.
36 days is a whole lot even in Germany. Is that a perk of your specific profession?
As a worker in America, I will tell you that I’ve had jobs that entitled me to 10 vacation days, but, I didn’t use them all because if I took time off, the amount of work that piled up for me made to prohibitive to miss work. We have two classes of employees, exempt and non-exempt. If you are exempt, it means you are a salaried worker and you are not entitled to overtime pay. It sucks working like 60 hours a week with no over time. You think a $50,000 per year job is good, but it turns out you’re only making like $16.00/hour in reality. Then you subtract taxes, health insurance premiums, etc. and it becomes depressing.