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Comment by cmrdporcupine | Hacker News Reader

Let's talk about "unlimited PTO" -- I'm seeing more of this in my half-hearted job search and I'm really wary about it. I'd like to get my prospective employer to agree in writing to a certain number of days that would be considered normal/acceptable PTO, so I don't a) feel guilty for taking that amount and b) get shafted in performance assessments for taking a normal amount.

Has anybody had any luck getting a prospective employer who advertises "unlimited PTO" to do this in contract negotiation phase? Basically I don't want to just rely on the goodwill of said new employer to treat me respectfully for taking a good chunk of said PTO, and I want to define what is reasonable expectations up-front.

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This is a good idea. I've had two employers with "unlimited PTO". One of them explicitly set an expectation that I was expected to take at least 4 weeks per year. And it wasn't in writing, but everyone was told this, so there's "witnesses" which is better than nothing. This actually worked really well, and everyone seemed to take an appropriate amount of time, but no one was explicitly keeping track or expecting you to fill out paperwork just to take a break.

Another employer said you needed to talk to your manager and justify time off with regards to results, and the timing of your break, relative to releases, etc. In this scenario I hardly took any time off, but folks who clearly didn't care about their manager took SO MUCH. Learn from me, though: they never gave me the promotion I was chasing anyway.

Frankly, over my 20 year career, I've learned the best way to get promotions is to switch jobs.

The hook strategy works great in the beginning of a career.

My experience later on is once you want Director or VP level roles at a noteworthy company, prospective employers are only keen to hire you at whatever level you've actually achieved. The jump from Senior Engineer to Tech Lead is orders of magnitude easier, totally doable by bailing to the next gig.

Absolutely agreed. There is generally no way to get your current company to understand your worth to them. You're in the "friend zone" with your employer.

One of them explicitly set an expectation that I was expected to take at least 4 weeks per year.

That's interesting. In my state, you are owed accrued unused vacation time on your departure. One of the biggest reasons for going "unlimited PTO" is that there's no accrual, therefore they owe you nothing.

Does explicitly saying "4 weeks" put them back in the hook for that, or does saying "expect" get them back off the hook again?

> One of the biggest reasons for going "unlimited PTO" is that there's no accrual, therefore they owe you nothing.

IMO that's the only reason for employers to offer "unlimited PTO" schemes.

> Does explicitly saying "4 weeks" put them back in the hook for that, or does saying "expect" get them back off the hook again?

Hmm, at my most recent employer, I heard passdown from my manager that "the man above" (VP) had "guided" that 5 weeks was the ceiling for "unlimited" and that TPTB would look askance at anyone taking more. But this was all "off the record".

> unlimited > up to 5 weeks

This seems surreal to me, given that here (Germany) that is just above the legal minimum and every decent job gives 25-30 days. If someone offered "unlimited" here, I'd expect at least 40-50 days to be acceptable.

Legal minimum for salaried work in Canada is 2 weeks I believe, and I doubt there's a minimum at all in the US.

Google Canada capped us out at 5 weeks and that was after years of lobbying. But we could take copious unpaid time, and we were well paid, so.

I got 40 last year. talking with people, I understood that this is an acceptable amount. on the high side, but acceptable.

>> One of the biggest reasons for going "unlimited PTO" is that there's no accrual, therefore they owe you nothing. > IMO that's the only reason for employers to offer "unlimited PTO" schemes.

I think that's generally true, but at my company (which is a very small startup of about a dozen people) we have unlimited PTO because we just really don't want to bother with tracking it.

Yeah, that’s a lie people tell themselves. If someone was gone for 2 months, suddenly someone would start counting and tracking. But nobody does because of course, it’s not truly unlimited.

I have had two separate unlimited PTO jobs where I was gone on an extended vacation for ~2 months and no one batted an eye. The time off was discussed beforehand of course, I didn’t just not show up one day. But I got no complaints from anyone about it, just people asking to see photos from my trip.

Pretty sure I'm not lying to myself, thanks.

IMO that's the only reason for employers to offer "unlimited PTO" schemes.

A lot of companies also have continual headaches about requests for unused time to roll over into the next fiscal year. So not only is the accrual a problem in regards to terminated employees but it's a debt on the books that has to be tracked and serviced.

My fun story about that is the large company I worked for a couple of decades ago - they still had a policy that allowed you to bank up to a year's worth of vacation time. After a few employees decided to retire a year early by taking a 52-week vacation and then retiring, the whole policy was trashed.

Imagine having a coworker retire and you can't fill the headcount for an entire year because they're still an active employee.

They could fill the headcount. It’s another dumb policy that prevent them from filling it.

Works needs to be done and there’s no one to do it, the fact you can’t hire is a problem.

> you can't fill the headcount for an entire year

Why couldn't you?

Because, as mentioned above, this was an old-school company. Departments had budgets, and your labor budget was fixed and pretty much determined how many people you could have.

That retiree on 'vacation' was drawing a paycheck and was still part of your yearly budget. Asking for a replacement meant increasing the budget by that extra person's salary, and that was a bureaucratic problem.

Oh, and here's the fun conclusion to the story I forgot to mention. When the policy was cancelled and rollover was taken away, every employee got paid a one-time lump sum for their accrued rollover time. Some people got 30-40 weeks of pay in a single check. And that launched many employees into a higher tax bracket for that year. Lots of fun all around.

Where I am, only five days roll over, and PTO is accrued over a year. I think that if I were to quit in January, I would get a very small payout for my un-used PTO days.

I would much rather work somewhere with unlimited PTO, and not have to nickel-and-dime my vacation time. (Although, yes, this assumes that I'm lucky enough to work at a place that doesn't abuse the unlimited PTO promise.)

I worked at a YC startup with unlimited time off. They worked us like dogs, but even they honored the "unlimited" part of that clause. Some people took many weeks of vacation a year without any punishment or judgment I could identify.

In fact, I've heard about "unlimited vacation" being a trap at companies, but have never seen that actually happen at any of the companies I've worked at which had unlimited PTO as a benefit (n=2, mind you).

On the other hand, I find that I myself do not take much vacation unless there is a "PTO economy" I am trying to game. If you tell me I have unlimited vacation days, I will take maybe 2 weeks a year off, mostly around the holidays. Knowing that I could take more time off seems to be enough to keep me from burning out.

On the other hand, if you tell me I have 4 weeks a year off, and I lose any unused days at the end of the year, I will take exactly 4 weeks every year off, like clockwork.

So, for me, I think that having a set number of days a year is better over all, as it paradoxically encourages me to take more vacation. /anecdotal.

n=4 for me, but I’ve had the same experience. Unlimited really has meant unlimited. And I take advantage of it, taking maybe 4-6 weeks per year average. But twice I’ve taken a single 6-8 week international vacation in the summer with no complaints whatsoever (and that in addition to other time off during those years). I really do think it’s entirely dependent on the company you’re at, but unlimited PTO isn’t universally a scam.

This isn't contractual, but I always ask "so, how many days did you take last year" or "how many days does the leadership team take" or "how many days does the team take on average".

Give me a feel for what I'm walking into.

I don't know if a company with unlimited PTO would put it in a contract, because that might put them on the hook for a payout for unused vacation when you leave. IANAL.

In some countries like Canada you have to pay out unused vacation regardless, its the law.

Well, that's the other thing. I'm in Ontario, and I'm not even 100% sure on the legality of "unlimited PTO" here.

Presumably it's basically, legally, no contractual paid PTO but then they let you take PTO anyways? Because if they put N days in writing, well, then it's just the same as always. A liability on their books, etc.

At this point, I'd ask a lawyer.

Also in Ontario with unlimited PTO. They have to pay out the minimum provincially required amount of vacation if you don’t take it, so two weeks.

> In some countries like Canada you have to pay out unused vacation regardless, its the law.

But this is a totally incoherent statement. The company offers unlimited PTO. When you leave, they have to pay you an infinite amount of money? That obviously is not the law, no matter how much you say it's the law.

Could be that not having a set number of days avoids the payout, as I believe is the case in the US. Another charitable interpretation of their comment might be “Unlimited PTO is at odds with Canadian law, so potentially could be illegal.“

In the UK there is a statutory minimum of 21 days holiday. If you quit or are fired from a company with an unlimited PTO policy and haven’t yet used your statutory minimum (calculated pro rata) you will be paid for those extra days in your final salary payment.

Yes, that is usually the motivation for not specifying vacation time. People mostly don't take vacation not allotted.

It helps to understand what employers are looking for when they advertise unlimited PTO. In many cases it's because they don't want to accumulate liability on the books for unused PTO/sick time, which they then have to pay out if you leave. They are less concerned about how much you take. (That's true for my company, certainly.)

So it's perfectly reasonable to ask for clarification about how much time off is reasonable, what are the terms for approval, etc. A decent employer will be glad to explain their policies and even put them in writing if they have not already.

I’ve often got the impression that unlimited PTO is really a tool to get workers to forget that they have promised time off. When PTO is a scarce resource, workers plan ahead to use what’s available. Without knowing how much you have, you’re left to plan abstractly, trying to navigate the question of “am I overstepping my boundaries by asking for this much time off?” Thus you take less time.

I think it is more to avoid having to pay out accrued vacation time when an employee leaves.

Works out to the same thing. They get more work time from the employee for the money they spend.

It’s both. There’s literally no downside for the employer. Someone who abuses it is underperforming. You just fire them if it becomes a problem.

That's an advantage of it, but I sort of expect it wouldn't be that popular with companies if it lead to people taking significantly more time off.

California labor law regarding vacation time is relatively generous compared to other states, that's probably another part of it (my state allows use it or lose it, for example).

An amusing thing comes to mind. The example in the article was about a clause that, if taken literally, would hurt the employee. In this case it seems to be the opposite (putting aside the concerns you bring up, which I share). Technically you could just give proper notice for a vacation after 2 weeks at the job and never return.

I don't know where to go with that, it's just funny.

Yeah, I mean, it's pretty clear that "unlimited PTO" is... not. It leaves judgement in the employers hands, rather than in a written agreement.

Seems to me it's a way of removing contractual obligations for PTO from the employment agreement and turning them into something that is fundamentally at the whim of the employer. While it's saying "you can take as much as you want", it also does not contractually enshrine anything, and there's nothing on the books to pay out at termination time, either.

Just say you are going on an unlimited vacation with your unlimited pto.

It's telling that you don't tend to see this in Europe, where leave is more generous and people actually take it. (Typically around 6 weeks, including public holidays).

Yeah it's pretty foreign here in Canada, too. A Silicon Valley import. Prospective employer (US-ian) seems to be doing this, though. But it remains to be seen what they'll do for an offer to a Canadian. Guess I'll find out.

Before I quit Google I had 5 weeks PTO + a whole pile of unpaid "flex" days if I wanted them. It could get hard to use all 5 weeks sometimes.

Our bay area company considered unlimited until employees pushed back. The standard was 5 weeks PTO plus 5 bonus weeks ever 5 years (so ~6 weeks per year average). People realized it was far better to have a solid number than "unlimited".

I’ve seen the ambiguity in “unlimited PTO” as well. At $job we’re starting to talk about “mandatory minimum PTO” instead. Everyone’s required to take at least one contiguous week every quarter, and hopefully more besides.

At other gigs I’ve seen the same things you fear, where “unlimited” means “as little as possible.”

>b) get shafted in performance assessments for taking a normal amount

I suspect a contractual guarantee isn't going to protect much from that. If you're taking 4 weeks but everyone else on your team is taking 2, there's going to be an impression that you're less "hard working" (warranted or not) than everyone else. However, if you get passed up for a promotion it's going to be hard to prove that was the reason behind it.

edit: the mandatory minimum that the sibling comment talks about fixes this.

A lot of places have a "mandatory minimum" and that might be the phrase to ask about.

I wouldn't index on this too much. I've worked for companies with unlimited PTO where I took 6-8 weeks a year while still getting stellar performance reviews and companies with a fairly generous fixed number of accrued vacation days where people rarely took off and performance was all about your impact with no consideration for vacation used.

The only thing you can count on is if you live in a state that requires payouts for unused vacation, you'll at least get more money if you don't take vacation.

> performance was all about your

perceived

> impact

Does your company have a way to measure if your accomplished +/- 10%? (+/- 4 weeks of work)

It's telling that you consider 6 weeks a lot. In Germany, 5 weeks are the legal minimum, most employers offer 6-7 weeks.

> Let's talk about "unlimited PTO"

I refuse that outright and demand unlimited unpaid time off.

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