It definitely doesn't mean employees get to unilaterally declare when they're taking time off, if that's what you're wondering. I still have to go through the discussion with my manager about "No huge milestones coming up then, right? Your team and customers are okay with this?", but it removes the friction of "Well, you haven't actually earned five full days of PTO, so you'll have to take one unpaid or we have to do the paperwork to treat this as an advance..." that can make arranging vacations awkward.