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I read something somewhere once that claimed that employees with "unlimited time off" actually take less than the standard US average.

It's nice to say "you can take time off whenever you feel you should", but in reality it's extremely difficult to create a culture where this is actually respected.

I'd actually rather have the policy of "X weeks, but we're not actually looking that hard". That way I don't have to plan things down to the very last day, and rest easy knowing there some give, but also still feel entitled to take what's mine.

What you say is true, and there a lot of reasons why. One of them is that companies that trust their employees enough to have unlimited time off also tend to give their employees substantial ownership of whatever they are working on. They want to make sure their "baby" is being taken care of properly and is looking good as a matter of personal pride. The cultural pressure is not to not take time off but to make sure what you own is as good as possible.

In the case of my company, which also has unlimited time off, there is this same pattern of engineers that do not want to take vacation. Managers encourage (gently force?) people to take time off that are not taking at least a few weeks a year off on their own. The actual range of vacation taken at my company seems to be from about two weeks (that would be me) to about six weeks.

We offer unlimited time off and I, as the CTO, do keep track. But only to make sure folks are taking time off! I push people to GTFO - unplug, etc. I also have a sense during my weekly 1:1s, who is getting a little frazzled. I then encourage them to unplug for a bit. I think it works well.

There's a bit of a meta-meme right now of "No managers!" which is pushback against "Command and Control" - which I whole-heartedly agree with. However, for hard-working "Type A" sorts of programmers, it's easy to get so focused that you don't take care of yourself, even as a responsible adult.

I view my job as a gardener - tending to the care and feeding of folks that work with me. Every now and again a person needs a mental "weeding", and so a vacation is needed. :D

I have a friend who works as an electrical engineer for the Israeli army. He told me that in some ways working for the military is better than working as a civilian, since a boss only cares about the work you, whereas your officer is responsible for you as a person, including your health and well-being.

Cultural pressure is certainly a plausible explanation, but so is the fact that the offering of unlimited time off simply correlates with employees who like their jobs.

Our policy is officially, "Take however much time of you need, we don't want to track it just make sure you get your job done"...

Below that there is an addendum, however, "We expect people will probably take around 5 weeks off per year". This isn't set up as a maximum, rather it is set up as a way to provide that sort've benchmark for people to know whats acceptable. However, no one here is counting... seriously.

Sounds like a terrible idea: your decision on how much time off will be taken as how much you are committed to the company. Better everyone to have X weeks off with flextime.

It seems to me that even when you are not at work you are still having an input which suggests that it might be more than work for you? If that is the case, then take holiday as and when you need it, I'm sure if it starts becoming excessive and there isn't an acceptable reason for it (meeting family in another country or a life changing experience vs. sitting at home watching tv) they will pull you up on it.

Possibly slightly off topic..

I work at a UK startup-going-on-teenager. A few months I had an amazing opportunity to transport a 50m ex-minesweeper from Holland to Turkey, I booked off 3 weeks and came back 2 months later not expecting a job anymore. When I finally did get back, they were actually really forgiving and keen to get me back in to the office; I'm not sure if they need me in order to help support their planned growth, or because they are genuinely very laid back, other factors suggest the first.

First 2 weeks being back were great, but once the novelty and the story telling had worn off and the day to day grind set back in I have experienced a great deal of resentment to the structure of the company; I think that being exposed to a great deal of personal freedom will break down any barriers that have been built and cause issues when you do finally go back.

I've worked at two startups with no vacation policy. My inference is that it is very much a cultural thing. My first company some people really took the opportunity to heart but most were subtly pressured not to take much time off. Plus, lots of people did working vacations. Then at the beginning of September last year they told the entire marketing team that there was no more vacation until the end of the year because the CEO felt marketing was gone too much that summer. In fairness, we had Christmas to NYE off but still. Plus, it made it harder for the sales team where they always had to meet their quota because vacation was never factored in.

In my second company, people take what they need and my boss told me not to contact him unless it was an emergency. I loved it. Set the cultural cue for me on how he perceived vacation time. People seem to take what they need. The CEO encouraged people to take advantage of our ski passes this past season during snow storms.

Bottom line: Management sets the cues and cultural norms. People practice what they see when there aren't official guidelines.

I think those companies need to add a "minimum time off", for example, unlimited days off, but you must take at least 30 days off per year (20 vacation days + 10 public holidays).

It's probably one of those things, like where you get to set your own price on a meal you eat at a restaurant.

IIRC when people try 'price your own meal' they invariably end up taking more money than when they charge the set price as per menu.

It wouldn't surprise me to know that 'unlimited time off' actually means less time is taken, for the simple reason that if you're told '2 weeks' then that's what you work towards, conciously or not.

Agreed. My girlfriend is currently working at a startup with 'unlimited' time off, and she basically hasn't taken any time off in 4 months. She also has been working 6 or 7 days a week. If she had a specific 3 weeks of vacation to use, I imagine she would have at least taken some days.

I worked at a company with 'unlimited' time off, it very much favoured the company. In California you need to hold cash for all employees holiday pay, with a pto system you dont need to worry about that, people took a fairly minimal (by uk standards) amount of holidays, and even then there was the off remark by managers about counting days etc.

There is an argument to be made that no guaranteed vacation days means that companies don't have to pay you for your unused vacation days if you leave or are let go.

I'm in a similar boat, its not "unlimited time off", its "we trust you to take what you need". I personally feel that I do pretty well with this system. I probably take 6-8 weeks off per year, usually no more than 2 weeks at a time. It's generally well planed, especially for the periods that are more than a day or two long. Theres only a couple of other people that take as much time as me, but I've never noticed any ill will towards any of us from either management or coworkers. (I think I take a healthy amount of vacation and that my preformance yhe rest of the time reflects this.)

Also worth mentioning, I'm usually somewhat available during vacations if something comes up - for example, I spent Christmas eve debugging a couple of years ago.

My company switched to unlimited time off recently. It's been a great success and people are definitely taking full advantage of it. What's important is that our company culture is a very "life balance is important" type of culture. This trickles down all the way from the CEO to regular employees. Even the management and VPs take big vacations.