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Comment by aeyes | Hacker News Reader

This law change is a first step but I don't see why you can't pass a law which forces companies to make a worker take the full minimum annual leave.

When I worked in Germany the company I worked at did that. You had until the end of the first quarter of the next year to use all of your vacation days. If you still had vacation left after this date, they forced you to take them until the end of the second quarter - this was frowned upon and managers made sure it wouldn't happen.

I'm not sure if this is a law or just something the company did but the problem here isn't peer pressure. It seems to be part of the business model of Japanese companies because implementing and enforcing such a policy is easy.

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I ran the schedule for about 20 peers in a 24/7 shop (mostly because some MBA grad couldn't handle it but that's another story), and I was tasked with making folks took time off.

I was clear with everyone how it worked and always worked with everyone to make sure time off worked out for all involved. It really isn't that hard if you put the time in to getting along with folks / understanding what they want, etc.

Eventually though I would have to "force it". I'd schedule random days off here and there, suddenly a week off for some folks who never took time off. Most folks kinda liked it as a sort of "happy surprise". Everyone was salary so nobody lost any money or anything like that.

It actually worked out well, mostly because I made sure everyone knew what to expect / how it would happen if they just didn't use any PTO and I kept everyone up to date as to where they stood.

I was surprised by how many people just really ... never took time off until I made them.

Why do you think people avoided time off?

I usually end up just taking all my vacation at the end of the year in a big block.

Part of the reason is we don't schedule anything very far in advance, so I am hesitant usually to use vacation days early in the year when I might want to use them later on.

Also, my work schedule is flexible enough that there is rarely a reason to take time off. If I need to leave early, I leave early. If I need to go to an appointment, I go to an appointment. None of it affects my time off.

And I guess maybe I just like routine?

It's the midwest... people like to work.

It was also a really nice environment.

It was a sort of stress free ... high stress technical support situation. But everyone supported each other so it was surprisingly easy going.

As strange as it may sound, passing that law might be really difficult. The article mentions "In September, Shinjiro Koizumi, Japan’s environment minister, faced widespread opposition and even calls to resign over his plans to take paternity leave after his wife gives birth."

Things are changing in Japan, but progress appears to be moving at a glacial pace.

Ironically enough, Japan has one of the most generous paternity leaves in the entire world. It's just that no one* uses it.

https://qz.com/1084591/despite-japans-generous-paternity-lea...

Yes, and only for a plan to take ten days spread over three months. Apparently that’s bad enough for people to demand a resignation.

And he was going to take a whole two weeks of paternity leave.

In some EU countries the laws mandate that it's the employers responsibility to provide the legally required vacation, because of the implict expectation that if the employee does not take the accrued vacation days then it's quite likely that it's not actually voluntary but because of some pressure by the employer or peers. Explicit pressure would be illegal, but since that's impractical to prove or enforce, 'sending' people to vacation (at least the minimum legal amount) is not just afforded, but required.

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