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Comment by danso | Hacker News Reader

There's an "unlimited time off" policy; what does Gitlab do to prevent that policy from being punitive in practice to employees?

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What sort of punitive things do you mean?

If you go over some secret 'limit' that no one will tell you about, you'll get put in the back of the line for promotions and raises and the front of line when it's time for cutbacks.

We don't track how much time you take off. If you want to take off more than 25 consecutive calendar days, you should discuss this with your manager first [0].

We expect that our people make sensible judgements about the time off that they take, but if it's not written in our handbook, there are no further rules.

> Always make sure that your job responsibilities are covered while you are away.

[0]: https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/#paid-time-off

I believe opposite case is usually prevented, people don't usually take time off for no reason, they go on vacation, family emergency etc., an observed side-effect of unlimited time off is usually people don't take time off at all, purely a cultural(company's) thing.

We are afraid of people taking too little time off. We're considering introducing a formal performance review point that will penalize the team member and/or manager if someone took less than two weeks of vacation (full weeks, not counting days) for not taking care of themselves. But we're not sure yet this is needed. For now the executive team tries to set the right tone by taking vacation themselves. I'm going to burning man and Hawaii this year and I don't work weekends.

Thanks. I didn't mean to be confrontational. I had just thought that after Kickstarter's change, the winds were turning against unlimited vacation policies, and that fixed vacation time was becoming status quo again.

I didn't take it as being confrontational, no worries. Not being able to measure if people take enough vacation is a drawback of unlimited vacations. But we feel that having to ask for vacations and administering them doesn't rhyme with our value of focussing on results instead of hours.

having a remote company also means if you have a cold you're not going to come in and pass it to everybody, and often you can still work no problem (no coworkers getting grossed out/annoyed by constant sneezing, no getting cold on transit on the way etc.) which likely means you need to take less time off, and being remote also means being able to deal with random daytime appointments much more easily, making time off for that not necessary either

In other companies, the policy has sometimes led to employees taking less time off, because of a reluctance to appear to be "that guy" who takes off more than everyone else.

http://digiday.com/agencies/dark-side-unlimited-vacation-pol...

> Asked how many days off she took last year, Dawkins was surprised. Forced to think about it, she realized it wasn’t very much: just 14 days, although “it felt like a lot.” There is a game to play, she admits: “You are subconsciously thinking about ‘does this appear to be too much time,’ but that’s human nature,” she said. “There have to be checks and balances with management so there’s a process in place.”

Kickstarter last year reportedly rescinded its policy because of this effect:

https://www.buzzfeed.com/carolineodonovan/at-kickstarter-fle...

> It’s always been important to us to ensure that our team is able to enjoy a quality work/life balance,” the Kickstarter spokesperson told BuzzFeed News. “What we found was that by setting specific parameters around the number of days, there was no question about how much time was appropriate to take from work to engage in personal, creative, and family activities.”

Another side effect: with no minimum number of vacation days in place, employers are not required to compensate employees for accrued vacation days when they quit.

Isn't 14 days more than the US average. I thought it was 10 days. So she wasn't really taking less than other companies.

> with no minimum number of vacation days in place, employers are not required to compensate employees for accrued vacation days when they quit.

Hmm...how does that work for employees in other countries? In the UK full time workers are entitled to 5.6 weeks holiday per year (so if you work 5 days a week, you get 28 days). And employers are obliged to pay unused days when the employee leaves.

Most places I've been have a distinction between personal or sick days (days taken with no notice) and vacation days which require at least 2 weeks notice before taking. Everywhere I've started I got 5 personal days and 10 vacation days.

In the UK, and I think most of Europe, sick days aren't limited and personal days would depend on company policy. Either can require documentation (doctor's note etc).

I have 30 days vacation, which is fairly typical. Giving twice the vacation length as notice (two weeks for one week off etc) is usually reasonable, but it's usually in the company policies.

Somewhere with unlimited vacation would need to ensure the employees used at least the legal minimum (20 days, plus public holidays).

> Isn't 14 days more than the US average. I thought it was 10 days.

The US average includes lots of different employers in lots of different industries. In most of them, seniority and other factors (many of the same ones that are correlated with pay) are positively correlated with time off. So, it could be both "above the US average" and below, e.g., what would be typically granted to knowledge workers of otherwise similar education and experience in fields of similar demand.

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