And I kind of did a mental “well, yeah… you’d have to be a real ghoul to think otherwise,” perplexed by the very idea that HR would feel the need to say it at all.
Guess I was wrong.
I worked at a place where I made the 24/7 schedule for a team. Part of my job was to make sure everyone took a minimum of PTO.
Lotta people would take none, ever if given the chance.
Now, today is a very different story, and I use it responsibly, but I'm at a very different stage in my life.
Just so I know, what’s the proper utilization of PTO?
The whole point of compelling people to take PTO is for the mental health benefits associated with not working- decompressing, resetting, call it whatever you want. I didn't have other hobbies, didn't have money for traveling, and didn't have anyone to do those things with. My social circle was more or less as obsessed as I was. Most evenings were spent watching TV together while we worked on our laptops, either on side projects for fun or actual work.
Had I taken more PTO, my behavior in my off time would not have been any different than that of my work time. I wouldn't have gotten the benefit supposedly derived from being forced to take PTO. The one exception was a few days off to do some home renovation work that I didn't want to try to fit into evenings or weekends.
It’s your time, you can use it how you want.
The way you want to use it is how you end up using it. You’re welcome to use your time to do things that others see as destructive. Of course there may be consequences.
I do believe in forced PTO because it creates an opportunity for someone to think about what to do with that time (which like you said, hopefully many people choose to use that time to decompress or rest). Up to them what decision they make. It tells a company what happens when a specific person is gone (Is Kelly the only one who knows how to do X? Is Chris stealing?).
I think there’s possibly a company culture argument where you don’t want a person on PTO logging into Slack, grabbing Jira tickets, going to meetings, or whatever. In that case you maybe end up firing the person if they cross whatever line too many times. But of course if the person is valuable enough, you might look the other way. Or your culture might be such that you don’t care. Up to the company.
I don’t doubt it, but the employer does get to decide how long you’re at work…. even in the hopes that the employee might make a good choice.
AT&T wrote me up for missing pages while I was battling cancer! And I supposedly had std/ltd/fmla/etc. my current job , which I’m grateful for beyond words , would just about be sick at the idea of treating anyone like that.