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Comment by vorpalhex | Hacker News Reader

I think one of the easiest wins here would be what some US startups with unlimited leave were practicing: a required minimum of days off.

Usually there were two check ins and if you didn't burn a minimum of leave by then, your manager would take your work laptop and send you home on paid leave until you met it.

Once leave becomes mandatory.. you can't judge people for taking it. Obviously the goal is for them to want to use the leave (and plan what they want to do with it) instead of forcing them to take it, but it's a leveling action.

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Unlimited leave is one of the those things that sounds great on the surface, but in practice not so much.

First of all, it's literally not unlimited and effectively boils down what you would've normally had anyway. But because of the murkiness and psychology involved it often results in people taking less time off than if they simply had N days of allocated vacation. It also means that if you quit or get laid off, the time you didn't take is worth $0. Additionally, as was alluded to, I've seen it breed resentment when people are seen as taking too much vacation.

The company has a big upside though, as they have less liability on the books.

Required minimum would help, but that's very rare.

Going through a transition to unlimited PTO now. Here's hoping it doesn't turn into a shadow policy with unwritten expectations.

I've worked at a small, mid-sized and large company, and unlimited time off worked the same at all three places.

Unless it is an emergency, communicate early and often, and it is not a problem. That way, you and everyone who depends on you knows what to expect (or not) and when to expect it (or not).

The best part about it is not worrying over small details, like if I take my time off in the summer and fall, will I run out of PTO before flu season hits this winter?

Yes, it is unfortunate that you dont have anything to cash out once you quit, and you might worry about taking too much off. As to the first, oh well, take the time off. As to the second, if you can't have an honest and fair conversation with you boss about your concerns regarding time off, you aren't going to have honest or fair conversations about a lot of really important work matters that process and time-tracking and firm clear cut rules won't fix.

Expect to be treated like an adult, act like an adult, and if you aren't treated like one, take advantage of the good market now and find a better job. That advice applies to a lot of maybe-maybe worries in the workplace for in-demand positions.

Unlimited PTO is definitely less time off than advertised, but these horror stories of race-to-the-bottom zero-time-off cultures are largely unfounded. I worked in SF for two years while at a series B startup and by the nature of the industry and my role, got to know many people at different startups.

I took something like, 3 work weeks off per year; most people took a bit more than I did, with a few taking 6+ weeks off in a year. The guy who took the least vacation, that our manager had to remind to take time off, probably took around 1.5-2 weeks off.

I absolutely hate unlimited time off. It turns it into a competition. If Jim managed to take 30 days this year and Joe only 15 effectively Jim got a free $15k to $30k bonus. There is all this pressure from both sides to use the least amount and to take the most.

All that disappears if you just give me a set number of days.

I worked at a well-known company with an unlimited vacation policy. Perhaps people did end up taking fewer overall holidays, but I would say the cognitive relief was worth it. If I needed a day off here and there, for any reason -- I knew I wouldn't have to stress about it.

Some days you just can't be arsed to go out.

Good point. That is an upside, I agree. For random days like that it's nice not having to think about deducting 8 hrs.

I, for one, took about five weeks off when working for a company with unlimited PTO.

It took some preparation and coordination, understanding my reasons (I had to settle some business overseas), but it was granted and paid for, and I was welcome to come back to work.

> I think one of the easiest wins here would be what some US startups with unlimited leave were practicing: a required minimum of days off.

Any examples of companies that are doing this? I haven't heard of many, at least in the SF Bay Area.

This reminds me of being an employee in Stockholm. You get scolded if you haven't booked thirty days of vacation into the calendar. Someone comes to your desk and makes you pick the dates.

You come back with a lot of energy too :-)

Yeah, but that energy dissipates pretty quickly. I took three weeks off recently. I came back very energized and upbeat. It took maybe 2 days to get back to "normal".

> You come back with a lot of energy too :-)

"Man Returns To Work After Vacation With Fresh, Reenergized Hatred For Job"

* https://local.theonion.com/man-returns-to-work-after-vacatio...

Happened to me last week. Had to pick 23 days between now and 13th of April.

I picked at random, the `manager` and I both know I'll be working at home anyway.

I honestly do not understand this mentality. You're given 23 paid days off, why would you donate that time back to your employer?

So that the employer will see him more favorably than the other employees at the same level when making decisions in which all other things are equal.

From the candor of GP's comment, I would venture to guess that both he and the manager are type-A personalities who want to be at work all the time. My dad was and is like that. He progressed much further in his career than he would have otherwise and our family was none-the-worse for it. Not everyone is like that, but I don't see it as incomprehensible (or even a problem).

Although I'm not the same as my dad, I've long felt an individualist stubbornness that leads me to a similar conclusions. When I was a kid, we had a birthday party at a bowling alley and the attendants put the bumpers[1] up in our alley and wouldn't take them down. I was so incensed that I instead made a game of trying to whack the bowling ball hard enough against the bumpers to bounce over them. I was elated when I got one all the way into the next alley.

My gut reacts to the idea of "mandatory days off" in an intuitively similar way, even though I probably wouldn't be incensed about it the way I was about the bumpers in the bowling alley as a child. I'm probably on the extreme end of a cultural and value difference between Americans and Europeans.

[1]: https://cdn.mykidlist.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/0211010...

> So that the employer will see him more favorably than the other employees at the same level when making decisions in which all other things are equal.

There's a bit of that. The main reason though is that I am way out of touch and unable to separate work/whatever life for a bunch of different reasons. Let's say I am a mess right now and not caring much about losing vacation.

> From the candor of GP's comment, I would venture to guess that both he and the manager are type-A personalities who want to be at work all the time. My dad was and is like that. He progressed much further in his career than he would have otherwise and our family was none-the-worse for it. Not everyone is like that, but I don't see it as incomprehensible (or even a problem).

Not really, maybe. I am a teamplayer and a people pleaser but I have some type A tendencies (types only tell a part of the story anyway). I have nothing to show for that though (not a top leet coder, not a top lead manager, etc. I am good, reliable but I am not shining).

I think if I was more "type A" I would not let such things happen.

> [1]: https://cdn.mykidlist.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/0211010....

How did you do that :D

Will you also donate 12% of your salary to the company?

Well... the company actually owes me money for travel expenses (which are the four digit numbers) that I had to pay upfront.

Mandatory leave is common in the financial sector, where it is used as an anti-fraud device. Keeping your employer from figuring out the scheme you're pulling is a lot harder when you have to have someone cover for you for two weeks.

It’s not just anti-fraud. If you force someone to take a vacation, you force the organization to be able to function without them. This prevents a situation where only a single person is able to make something critical work.

In Europe this is pretty standard practice everywhere. Say you have 30 days of vacation per year. You have to take at least 20, and 10 of those have to be consecutive. Otherwise your manager gets a bollocking from their manager and HR. In theory at least.

The rest of the days might be lost, transferred into next year’s vacation with a cutoff (like until end of Q1 next year or end of the year otherwise they are lost), or with no cutoff and they stack up forever.

Yes, that's what experienced, too in Germany. Both in the private and public sector.

Here in Norway it is 5 workweeks (6 for those over 60 I think), 2 can be transferred (either way I think) and 3 are mandatory.

And if you delay two weeks to next year that means 5 mandatory weeks that year.

And: it is not just in theory. It is the law and both parts can get in trouble if you don't follow it.

When people from here write "here", which "here" do they mean? The one here, or the one there?

Thanks for pointing it out. I've updated my post.

At least in Czech Republic, this is mandated by - you have to take your PTO in the calendar year it was awarded to you (20 days are mandated by law, by in practice companies give 25 to stay competitive) & your employer has to let you take it (not necessarily when you want, but it has to be in the calendar year).

If the PTO is not taken, the company can be fined by the state, so this is taken rather seriously.

It’s mandated by law almost everywhere in Europe but since countries don’t fully align their laws there may be significant some differences are n how many days and the actual conditions.

In Poland about the same, but with an interesting twist: it's not the company, or CEO, or HR, that risk a fine; the first person fined is your direct manager, personally. Works like a charm, I have to admit.

Agreed, this is a pretty good way to address the "bus number" problem in technical projects.

It also forces people to communicate details somewhat.

“Fatal bus error” as some call it.

Although around Old Street the buses don’t really go above walking speed.

I prefer the term “lottery factor”. Winning the lottery sounds a lot more positive than getting killed by a bus.

Won a bus, hit by the lottery.

Today I learned.

For others reading, here is what I found:

> at a minimum, covers those officers and employees involved or engaged in transactional business or having the ability to change the official records of the institution

https://www.dfs.ny.gov/legal/industry/il960822.htm

> The New York State Banking Department considers it to be a prudent business practice for every bank, and branch or agency of a foreign banking corporation, to promulgate and maintain a written vacation policy which, at a minimum, covers those officers and employees involved or engaged in transactional business or having the ability to change the official records of the institution. This policy should also cover all other staffers who are capable of influencing or causing such activities to occur. The Department strongly recommends that all traders be covered by the policy.

> Employees in such sensitive positions should be required to take at least two (2) consecutive weeks of vacation (or other leave) on an annual basis. During such time, the officer or employee must be off-site and off-line. In other words, not only should he/she be physically absent from your premises, but he/she should also not be permitted to effect any transactions or other banking business from off-site, such as through an off-site computer link.

https://www.dfs.ny.gov/legal/industry/il960822.htm

archived at: https://outline.com/Y3dcgF https://archive.md/LJvbH

LinkedIn does. The whole company goes on break for the 4th of July week and the last week of the year.

I feel Palantir used to and I think Netflix does

At GitLab we have a very flexible PTO policy and although I've never heard of a colleague being forced to take time off, we do have a couple of stern remarks codified in our handbook and constantly remind each other to do so:

> We don't frown on people taking time off, but rather encourage people to take care of themselves and others by having some time away. If you notice that your co-worker is working long hours over a sustained period, you may want to let them know about the time off policy.

> Not taking vacation is viewed as a weakness and people shouldn't boast about it. It is viewed as a lack of humility about your role, not fostering collaboration in training others in your job, and not being able to document and explain your work. You are doing the company a disservice by being a single point of failure. The company must be able to go for long periods without you. We don't want to lose you permanently by you burning yourself out by not taking regular vacations.

https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/paid-time-off/

I mean this is such an obvious solution I was pretty sure this is what the article would share as what Japan gov is mandating. So I kept reading and paragraphs after paragraphs discussed the problem without getting to what the title is. I gave up.

I used to work for a large (American) company where vacation days were traditionally accrued but there was a "cash-out vacation hours" button on the HR portal. It was just another way pressure people into working more hours.

Accrued leave is a liability on a company’s books, and it can easily become very large. Minimizing that liability is a typical motive behind such schemes.

At Philo, we believe so strongly that people need to take time off to do their best work, that we took it one step further — we pay people $1k / week to take at least 2 weeks off during the year. We also have unlimited PTO, and to my knowledge, have never rejected or discouraged a request for PTO.

It's also worth pointing out that most normal expenses (rent, food, etc.) don't stop when you take time off, so we decided that if we want people to feel like they can actually take a vacation and get away, we should actually be giving them a bonus from their normal salary to enable that.

We try to do a lot of things to respect our team and create a culture of positive work/life balance, and so far, we feel really good about the results of the tradeoffs we've made.

Mandatory Leave is common in certain financial institutions. It's to make sure you can't keep a scam going that requires you to be the person doing something every day.

It won’t work because there’s no real labor regulation enforcement in a Japan and Abe and his cronies have no interest in fixing that either. Unpaid overtime and off-the-clock work is already a widespread problem in Japan. All you’d end up with is vacations on paper.

Workers are required to use five days of leave per year since last April. If they don't their employer can be fined.

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