Ask HN: What is your company's maximum vacation (at one time) policy? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: What is your company's maximum vacation (at one time) policy?

38 pointsdanesparza79 comments

My company (which shall remain nameless for obvious legal reasons) has recently implemented a policy that limits the "maximum amount of vacation time you can take at once" to 2 weeks at a time.

This hasn't affected me (I tend to take vacations shorter than 2 weeks at a time). The policy really seems to disproportionately affect my Indian co-workers -- who save up vacation and tend to take it in 3-4 week increments to visit family overseas.

I started to wonder: Is this a common practice to limit the maximum vacation time that can be taken at once? What is your company's policy on the subject?

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If you want to increase burnout (and its inevitable resultant churn) in an organisation, capping vacation length sounds like a surefire way to achieve that.

I think its better to take 1 week off 4x per year instead of 4 weeks off once per year. Working 11 months without a single vacation would cause me to burn out.

It takes about 36 hours one way to reach India. If I am going to spend so much time and money on flight, I would rather stay for 3 weeks and make best out of the vacation. Yeah, so this policy is a little strange imo.

Good point — I guess it's akin to the effect of napping on a macro scale. However, if I only ever take a week out, I find that I don't get the mental rest I need to come back to my work fully energised. So, perhaps a mixture of both is ideal? :)

For me it's the opposite. With ~3 weeks I manage to properly disconnect from work and recharge myself to get back. First week is winding down, second week is enjoying the time off, third week is looking forward to get started again.

I do take long weekends and the occational day off beside that though.

One of my staff members needs 1 month off to visit family in India. Our company does not limit Vacation time use.

I'd rather take 2 months off once every 2 years and go on an offroad motorcycle journey through Mongolia, than do small things a week at a time.

I think that's purely a matter of opinion and certainly doesn't apply universally. I'd rather spend three to four weeks visiting my family once a year than flying to Europe and back four times a year and maybe setting them for about a day each time.

I'm against any such limits, but one could argue that a week of vacation twice a year will be more helpful against the burnout than a single two weeks vacation...

People should be able to do what they want and companies shouldn't be so reliant on one person that they can't take a month or two away, but taking 3-4 spaced out 1-2 week vacations is better for preventing burnout than a single 6 week vacation. According to this article, maximum benefit is achieved at 8 days of vacation https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/09/15/opinion/sunday/vacatio... Would you rather have your employees recharging their batteries multiple times a year, once a year, or one every two years?

I'm from the US, and I've never worked for a company that regulated a limit. You only had to check with HR first & ensure you weren't negatively impacting your projects.

Sounds to me like your company got burned by someone taking advantage of their PTO, then overcompensated with this rule.

If your other coworkers aren't happy about it either, band together and bring it up as something to talk about. Explore other solutions together as a company.

All the coworkers bargaining for benefits with management like a group? That sounds like a union (not that it would be a bad thing).

As I no longer get vacation or sick leave, and get PTO instead, I can use it all up in one stretch if I want.

Previously, when the vacation time was actually vacation time, you had to get manager approval in advance for anything more than five consecutive business days. For us, it was a matter of filling in a form and getting it rubber-stamped, but I can see how that policy might be more selectively enforced for different classes of worker.

The common practice now is to limit the amount of PTO that accrues per pay period in the first place, and then cap the amount you can bank for the future. I have never had enough to take more than seven consecutive business days at once. And that has happened exactly once.

American employers (overgeneralizing) do not care about employee morale. They will use us up and throw us out if they can. The onus is entirely upon the employee to avoid their own burnout.

The letter-of-the-policy move here would be to take two weeks, work remotely or from a satellite office for one day, then take another two weeks. But I think this company may be treading on thin ice, legally. If the policy de facto discriminates against Indian employees, they may want to consult with an employment-law lawyer.

In my personal experience, traveling from the US to another country for a two week vacation isn't worth it. One week's worth of time is literally consumed by travel and jet lag. So the cap should impact more than just your Indian co-workers, assuming other people want to get out and see the world.

Sounds illegal in the UK. Workers are legally entitled to have 5.6 weeks (https://www.gov.uk/holiday-entitlement-rights).

ps. I have a tool to help workers get the longest possible vacation. Am I allowed to publish the link here?

please do

> ps. I have a tool to help workers get the longest possible vacation. Am I allowed to publish the link here?

I don't see why that'd not be allowed -- please do go ahead!

> Am I allowed to publish the link here?

Yes. If it's your own work, and it meets the rules, you can post it as a "Show HN" too. https://news.ycombinator.com/show

Thank you! Already posted as "Show HN" some days ago

5.6 weeks throughout the year is not incompatible with limits on the consecutive weeks at time though. Three vacations periods a year, each two weeks long, is still six weeks total, both satisfying the minimum number of days you preset here as well as the company limits on vacation length given by the OP.

Is there anything in UK law that prevents businesses from requesting that the 5.6 weeks be spread out throughout the year from their employees?

https://stretchyourannualleave.com

That's pretty cool, bookmarked :) I also like the design of the site. Well done!

Do enough people take off the day after Thanksgiving that it's considered a holiday? I don't get Black Friday off unless I specifically request it. Otherwise it's just a normal workday (though often the office is empty that day, so I guess it's a distinction without a difference).

Thank you! I got a list of the usual paid holidays observed by companies

When you wrote "help workers get the longest possible vacation" I thought of the trick of padding or extending vacation days. Taking vacation days on both ends of a holiday but not in the middle since they are mandatory days off anyway.

At some companies employees with seniority abuse that trick. They use vacation days before and after statutory holidays so it works out to be one long vacation. They often do this when lower ranks don't have first pick forcing them to use bigger blocks of vacation time. It creates a toxic work environment because everyone knows when a holiday is coming up "you know who" will be gone longer.

In Ireland and in the UK is not uncommon. Some friends use 2 or 3 vacation days before or after public holidays and end up with 7 or 8 days off and they are not abusing their "powers"

Do people consider this abuse? I go home over Christmas to see family, it's a complete no brainer to use about 5 days holiday and get 2 weeks off. Though my holidays don't interfere with anyone else's, I can see why that would frustrate others if they did.

I work at a medium-large US company. We have a standard "soft unlimited" vacation policy where the questionable policies like this would get farmed down to the individual management level. Up to 6 weeks is no questions asked at the corporate level.

In my division many people take one calendar month off, especially those with family overseas.

Would you mind sharing the name of the company? This is a despicable policy and I think people looking for jobs should know who to steer clear from.

I've never worked at a company that capped the maximum vacation that could be taken at once as a blanket policy. Though time off generally needs to be approved by a manager in advance, and I could imagine challenges getting some managers to approve very long vacations, people have always been able to work it out with advance planning.

I did work one place that mandated you needed to be out of the office for at least 5 consecutive days each calendar year. I'm not sure if it's still required, but there was a banking regulation that mandated it. The rationale was that if you were out of the office for at least a week, it would be harder to commit and easier to discover fraud.

I don't know what my current company's policy is, but my last company had a two week at a time maximum. Although, all policies were flexible at managements discretion. Just by asking I was able to take 3.5 weeks off.

We have people going away for 4-6 weeks to visit family. Limiting it to 2 weeks as a policy seems a red flag to me.

I don’t recall ever encountering an explicit “you can not exceed a vacation longer than X” policy- but most places I’ve ever worked have had a policy that generally sums up to “if you’re going to be taking a long vacation we need to review/plan around it a little differently than the typical process”

I took a month off for hunting and camping a few years back (possibly a decade ago) and what it amounted to was: go document the little things that no one knows you do to keep the ship afloat and cross train this guy in how to do it.

Interestingly, in terms of vacation I found banks to be better than technology companies. I have worked with two of them and both had instituted a policy where employees were compelled to take at least 2 weeks of leave. If not, upper management got involved and started asking question about work pressure.

My last job was at a technology company. While there was no limit of vacation time, the unsaid rule was to limit it to 1.5 week - 2 weekends + 5 days.

Those 9 days were upper limit or lower limit?

upper limit.

Financial companies often require two week vacations to keep fraud down - if you're not there to cover your tracks then it will be exposed.

The FDIC recommendation: https://www.fdic.gov/news/news/financial/1995/fil9552.html

Places I've worked previously (am independently contracting these days) had similar policies in theory but they were really more guidelines to try and keep continuity in place. If you planned in advance and had cleared it with your colleagues then a 1-month or longer break was completely do-able. I should add I'm speaking from a UK point of view.

UK, more than 10 working days consecutively requires director approval according to the written policy, but I can't imagine it ever being denied or enforced (I have never had or heard of a holiday request being denied at all). We're not allowed to carry days over though, so people do not generally accrue large holiday allowances.

By Swedish law we are allowed to have 4 uninterrupted weeks of vacation during July/August, my company doesn't care and if I wanted I could take even my whole 6 weeks at once.

Or even more, I could get my 6 weeks and negotiate some more unpaid vacation days if/when needed, I know people who took 3+ months off for personal projects.

I believe in NL, there is also a minimum : each employee should at least have a 2 week vacation, uninterrupted, each year.

Same in Poland, although it is often not enforced in practice.

I forgot to mention : this is also a very effective policy to uncover fraudsters.

Considering how little vacation US workers get, this is disgusting. What a shitty policy at what I imagine can only be a shitty company. I've never heard of such a policy anywhere, except in companies that pretend to offer "unlimited" vacation (obviously no company in the world ever has or ever will offer unlimited vacation). Shitty policy but not any worse than say cutting vacation days in half because people aren't using them quickly enough, pretending to have unlimited vacation that's highly limited, not giving employees any time off whatsoever, suing states to avoid complying with their time off laws, etc. The bottom of the shit barrel for US companies goes so deep, no one knows just how deep.

I don't know of a set in stone amount, it's not uncommon for people to save up a month to go stay with family in Asia. US based company. The team plans accordingly, I think it's a good idea, though I tend to not take as much time as I should sometimes.

France : this is all regulated. The law says that

- you have a certain amount of days off (varies by job, in my case about 40 days a year)

- you have to take 10 days in a row (2 weeks) during the "hot season" (June to September IIRC)

Beside that this is an agreement between you and your boss. I guess it would be illegal to formally set a cap on continous vacation, in practice it may happen but I've never heard of that.

People will typically take 2 to 4 weeks during summer (with an average of 3). In smaller companies one can be forced to go on vacation in August when the company closes.

No limit, except the 6 weeks vacation a year. This is in Germany though so YMMV. I usually take a long 3-4 week vacation, 1-2 weeks over Christmas, and the rest of the days I use to make weekends longer going camping, skiing, climbing and hiking.

The internet suggests that in Germany it is up to the employer when employee holidays are taken. For example, if the business wants to shutdown over Christmas, it is well within its rights of that business to have its employees take holidays at this time. The minimum number of holiday days must be taken by the employees over the course of the year, but when the employer says it is acceptable to. As such, there seems to be nothing stopping them from allowing no more than two weeks at a time, just like the business in question here.

Is this information outdated/incorrect?

I don't think it's incorrect, but from my experience it applies more to factory jobs. They'll have a 2 week shutdown in summer, and a 1-2 week shutdown over Christmas. Everybody has to take vacation then, which sucks in terms of traffic and flight prices.

My employer does officially close on some days on Christmas, but you are allowed to work from home (if you have a job where home office is possible).

Don't think we have a limit, but it's probably reasonable.

I took 3 weeks over xmas.

The most annoying thing here is they say they want 4 weeks notice for any vacation, even just a day, however I've not really seen it enforced.

Current company - don't know. Previous company - 12 weeks (approx. 4 weeks annual leave that would carry over for a year, so it was possible to take 3 years worth consecutively.)

I work in a place with an "unlimited" vacation policy, your release being discretionary by your manager per your delivery and current work load, etc. However its also been shared that you may only take up to 2 weeks at a time, essentially killing someone's opportunity to work for a while and do an extended euro trip or something. I tend to do 1 week at a time so I get maybe 2 and some odd extended holidays here and there.

We have 5 weeks of paid vacation, which usually occurs in July (Norway). But I can take longer vacation if I want, just without pay and that's no fun. Usually I have about 2-3 weeks overtime during a year. So technically I could take a 7-8 week holiday, but I prefer to spread it out evenly.

I live in Norway. State mandated 25 days off / 4 weeks + 1 day (paid). Can demand 3 of those weeks at once during summer, and 1 whole week at once any other time.

Most companies more lax than that. I have two extra weeks over the mandated, and can take them basically how I want as long I ask in advance.

I have never worked anywhere with that policy in the US. I have taken month long vacations at two different companies. I gave months of advance notice and got it cleared before hand. At your company, I would still try to ask for a month off well in advance and see what their response is.

A team member is currently on a 7-week vacation. No questions asked whatsoever. This is in NL.

Do they define a longer vacation as a sabbatical? Or is there a specific business reason why someone would be limited to just two weeks? Is your employer in the US or another country? What state is your employer in, if it's in the US?

I can take my full amount at any time, assuming it's not in the middle of some massive project already scheduled. But those are rare. I don't think it's common, and you're just being taken advantage of.

No limits here. In the US with 4-5 weeks (depending on length of employment) of vacation per year. We have people who say "see ya" at the end of November and we don't see them again until mid-January.

https://www.nlrb.gov/rights-we-protect/protected-concerted-a...

UK. No limit. All vacation has manager approval though never heard of it being denied. Also have a various schemes for large amounts of unpaid leave while still returning to your original position.

No limit, though most of us who do 3-5 weeks take it over xmass because we're visiting family overseas and work is petty dead for 2 or 3 weeks then so it's less disruptive. US company.

I work in the legal industry and my employer has sabbaticals.

Employees who have been here for X years (10 for salaried, 13 for hourly) get two months of PTO.

An additional month of PTO can be taken at the same time.

Edited for formatting.

Switzerland: 4 weeks/year by law, two of them must be granted consecutively. By law time and length can otherwise be decided by the employer, even though it is rarely enforced.

None, a limit like this would be illegal in my country.

Where?

The Czech Republic and basically anywhere else in the EU.

I can't readily find anything to confirm this for UK. Sources like Gov.uk and the TUC say employers can say when you take your leave.

Eg https://www.gov.uk/holiday-entitlement-rights/booking-time-o...

https://worksmart.org.uk/work-rights/hours-and-holidays/holi...

I meant continental EU, I'm not sure about the UK. While these websites says nothing about forbidding the employer from setting a limit, they also don't say that it's allowed.

Frustratingly silent on this point, all the examples I saw are 2 week holidays too.

I encountered this policy at a previous job at an MSP. A good portion of the workforce were from other countries so the situation was very similar.

That sounds completely insane and abusive to me. Where I live, I'd assume – though I'm not sure – that this is illegal to mandate.

I think many US companies especially small companies have some version of "check with your manager first"

We advise 3 weeks but you can take longer if you have it available and discuss with your manager first.

10 days per year after 5 years of employment, maximum of 10 days at once. Great, isn't it?

No cap. I can take 5 weeks on a stretch if I want to (and have enough extra bits in store)

This is ridiculous. What reason did they give?

I don't agree with the policy but surely it makes it harder to manage staffing levels and re-engagement will take longer for longer absences. I'd call it mean rather than ridiculous.

sounds illegal where i'm from.

Sadly this was the policy of my last defunct startup. We did get to enjoy the benefit, tho, twice:

For every day early we delivered a point release, the whole team got double days holiday, half paid for bonus.

Editing got in s twist somehow I have dumped the context in my profile because have to go away just now.

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