Hacker News Reader

Comment by gitfan86 | Hacker News Reader

Unlimited is such an absurd word. It should be "Flexible". It should be we will NOT fire you if you take 23.5 days instead of the ideal number of 22. Also, if you take 18 that is not a problem either.

View on HN

It's not "flexible" either. It's "non-accrued". The only reason it's non-accrued is so that the company doesn't have to pay you left over PTO when you leave the company and gets it off their books. Everything else is a euphemism to make employees feel good about getting fewer benefits.

You could have this flexibility with accrued PTO. I've previously given employees additional, off-the-books time off because they needed and deserved it and when we all got laid off they still got the remaining PTO paid out.

Edit: add section on flexible alternative

My second job, I agreed on a start date having forgotten that I had a week-long cruise booked for the very next week. It had been arranged a year or so before by a friend and just was not on my mind. So I started week 3 of that job with a -40 hour PTO balance.

Companies have a lot of flexibility in deciding how the accruals work. But, as you said, the important part is that when it accrues, at that point it's a legally-obligated right for you to either receive that time or be paid for it.

One hint is that you only see this in jurisdictions without strong labor laws around PTO. Some places, you have to give at least X weeks accrued a year for all full time employees (might be laddered by tenure) and you have to allow them at least Y continuous days/weeks per year; they may also have to to spend all of their accrued time within a short-ish window (limited rollover).

In this sort of environment, I've never seen a company claim "unlimited".

Intercom are headquartered in Ireland, and have unlimited PTO. When I interviewed with them, the recruiter said she averaged about 4 weeks a year (which is below the legal minimum). You do have to take the leave within the first quarter if the year following.

> he recruiter said she averaged about 4 weeks a year (which is below the legal minimum)

how does that work?

I think she, like anyone else in that situation would be forced to take leave before the end of March of the following year.

I don't want accrued benefits. That means that someone owes me 1000s of dollars and I cannot have that debt honored unless I quit my job?

I generally try to work at places that value my contributions but do not try to micromanage me. If I want/need to take time off, I do. If at some point I'm taking off so much time that they no longer feel that I'm contributing enough to the company, then fine they can let me go.

I’ve always worked at accrued vacation companies, but it was never really an issue. You can take vacation in January if you want, although if you blow your whole vacation in January and quit in February I suppose that could cause problems.

The contract will often have a payback clause or reduced time for the first year of vacation hours if they are granted annually. So the benefit is earned more than it is awarded ahead of time, the company shouldn't complain that you use it.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com