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Comment by maccard | Hacker News Reader

I live in the UK with an unlimited PTO system. My partner works for a local company, so I ballpark try and match hers, but take an extra week or two per year depending. It's somewhere in the region of 40 days per year, plus the "holiday" closures.

I'm a lead _and_ I manage infrastructure. If you're a lead and your team can't handle you being out for a week then you need to spend more time leading and less time doing. Being out for longer requires active planning.

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Is that even legal in the UK? As far as I knew, UK has a statutory 20 days off for all salaried workers (28 with holidays). Is it 20 days off plus unlimited? Which isn't quite the same.

Not sure how it would work in the UK, but you can do it in a country like Denmark, but you'd need to split the time in two. You're legally required to provide 25 days, and for that to make sense financially, the company needs to keep track of the first 25 days as these are "earned" at a rate of 2,3 per month (something like that). Beyond the 25 days, you can grants as many "ferie-fri" (vacation/time-off)-days as you like. Technically the company can tell you when to use those, normally between Christmas and New Years, but they can waive that right and let employees decide for themselves. If you don't use your time, you can lose it, after a 1.5 years for the first 25 and a year for the rest.

So I don't think it would be an issue in the UK either, but the company needs to do the accounting right.

My contract says 20+bank holidays, but our internal policy says unlimited subject to local minimum requirements.

It's a small company, so it's an honour system. I've taken far more than my contractual minimum every year I've worked here, so having to get backpay or carry over hasn't come up just yet.

The UK actually has a statutory 5.6 weeks - which is 28 days - for all full time employees. Most companies will split that as 20 days flexible leave plus 8 public holidays, but it's not a requirement.

Many companies offer better than that as an additional benefit. For example, I currently get 24 days + 9 public holidays (Scotland) for a total of 33 days. I think I get an additional day after I've been with the company 4 years.

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