I'm highly suspicious of "unlimited" vacation or leave policies because the line between reasonable and not is still there, it's just way less visible and ultimately arbitrary, depending on your management chain and workload. I can't wait for this fad to die. Let's just have generous, well-defined leave policies that don't put the onus on the employee to figure out what is OK and what isn't.
"Experience shows people perform better at work when they’re not worrying about home." People also perform better at work when they're not worrying about repercussions for being seen to abuse their "unlimited" leave.
Working at a SV company that recently instituted an unlimited vacation policy, I can't agree more.
This is probably an indication of other issues, but half of the team didn't realize there was a new policy, one team lead thought the guidance was "generally, this means about 3 weeks", the manager thought "generally, this means about 2 weeks", the actual policy states "generally, this means about 4 weeks".
It apparently simplifies things from a financial standpoint - not having PTO on the books, etc. but I'm of the opinion that it's a very anti-employee policy.
Edit: I very much agree with the "unlimited with a minimum" concept mentioned in the sibling comment. Without something like this, it's hard to see the policy as a real perk.
I'm highly suspicious of "unlimited" anything. In practice the term usually means "there is a limit, but we won't tell you until you've almost reached it."
I'm suspicious that they don't specify how much vacation you get so you can't "cash out" the vacation time. I too have an unspecified amount of PTO at Adobe. Recently people have been cracked-down upon because they were taking a month off every year to go visit family back in India (without doing any work whilst there).
Agreed. I'm a big believer in set vacation days. However I think untracked sick and personal days have merit. If you need to go to the dentist or stay home with your kid, do it. Similarly, I like core hours when you're expected to be in (crucial for meeting planning), but still have the flexibility to come in late or leave early.
I agree. My wife has "unlimited" vacation but taking even a single day raises eye-brows. A generous policy with an expectation to use the days is way better. This isn't even close to unlimited since I believe there's a 1 year window.
There might be a parallel with credit: Back when the maximum credit card interest rate charged in many states was limited to 18%, credit card companies tended to charge right at that, whereas when it was unregulated the interest was lower. [1]
You can look at a vacation cap as the same thing, where having a cap really can cause people to use more than they would if it were just whatever they could negotiate.
The biggest problem with "unlimited vacations" is that companies that offer these kind of policies cannot organize and compute their employees' workloads without using an arbitrary number of holidays, which will probably be set to the minimum.
Your manager will give you yearly (or quarterly) objectives with 10 or 20 days of vacations in mind, so if you use your right to unlimited vacations to take more than that, you will most likely be off your target, and that will be reflected upon your pay raise at yearly review time.
A fixed (and high) number of holidays is the only way to go.
I'm split on the whole unlimited policy myself. Mostly because I've known people who have sneaked out of work early or sneaked in late. Maybe that could be classified as separate behaviors, but what prevents someone from doing the same thing on this sort of policy? The honor system? I have no doubts in a small firm it would work out because you notice, but in a big company I can't see this working out so much.
It's a tool, which can vary in effectiveness depending on how it's used, which ultimately ties into corporate culture. Unfortunately, I suspect that in isolation an unlimited vacation policy doesn't generally promote a healthier corporate culture so it's not as advantageous as it may seem.
Unlimited leave policies encourage employees to self-police and conform to peer pressure. At a place like Netflix I can imagine the result being that people end up taking less than the industry average.
A better gimmick would be if Netflix picked one of the Nordics and announced that they were going to adopt all of the social policies provided by that country's government.
> I can imagine the result being that people end up taking less than the industry average
The industry average in the US is abysmal though. Yahoo 'doubled' theirs to 16 weeks, which is 1/3 of Canada's (and many other countries') legally mandated minimum. Taking double the industry average would still be abysmal by global standards.
> Unlimited leave policies encourage employees to self-police and conform to peer pressure.
I'm sympathetic to your concerns, but this is still a good thing and–importantly–a very good step in the right direction.
Playing devil's advocate a little, but this "peer pressure" idea seems to come with paid vacation too. I think, to an extent, it's peoples own responsibility to resist this peer pressure, rather than the company's. I would always take paid vacation on principle, for example. If you don't want me to take it, don't offer it to me–and if you don't offer it to me, I'll take a job somewhere else, thank you. I'm quite happy for the quality of my work to be judged on its own merits. Which is not to say it's easy to do if you're working at a company with an entrenched culture of abusive expectations. But we only become complicit in it if we give into peer pressure rather than asserting our rights, no?
That said, I say this from the privileged position of living in a country where taking paid vacation is expected, so perhaps it's easy for me to say...
"We want employees to have the flexibility and confidence to balance the needs of their growing families without worrying about work or finances ... Each employee ... works with their managers for coverage during their absences."
So, the conversation could be just "Hey manager as per the new policy, I would like to be a full-time mum / dad for the next 12 months; will you arrange cover for me?" Is that right, no questions asked?
If Netflix's "unlimited vacation" policy actually meant that, they surely wouldn't need to publish a _second_ "unlimited" parental leave policy as well?
I'm a hiring manager at Netflix. If one of my employees told me "I'm going to take the year off, see you in a year," I'd basically go "OK, have a great time with your kids. Send us a picture every once in a while."
And then I'd backfill them. And when they got back, I'd have an extra engineer. Chances are by that point I'll be looking to expand the team anyway.
Funny enough, in Canada 1 year maternity leave is the standard for mothers. Paternity leave is less common, but it can usually be split from the mothers amount, or used in total if she doesn't work.
"With this in mind, today we’re introducing an unlimited leave policy for new moms and dads that allows them to take off as much time as they want during the first year after a child’s birth or adoption"
Ah, unlimited for a year. So no taking 30 years off after your child is born then.
Mind you, Netflix has an unlimited time off policy, but today’s policy update is a clear reminder that the company wants the best talent.
I suspect many of these simply end up as less formal polices. However, there are large benefits to allowing for extended leave which few Americans actually use. It’s bad enough that some companies require people to take at least 2 weeks off every year.
You've got to wonder what would happen if someone tried to take that full year off, then was fired for taking "too much" of their "unlimited (up to a year)" time off after having a child.
Congratulations Netflix. I'm personally a big believer that equal maternity and paternity leave is crucial for future equality in the workforce, and Netflix have just set a great example to the rest of the industry. And a full year is excellent too. Hopefully other employers will take notice, or even better it becomes a legal requirement. Why it isn't already in some countries[1] continues to mystify–to my mind, a business should not be considered successful unless it can afford to, and does, treat its employees like human beings.
I've seen quite a few reactions to the Netflix unlimited PTO policy that are similar to the reactions to the new Maternity and Paternity policy. Many of these opinions are the likes of:
* "I'm suspicious of this."
* "No one takes any vacation at Netflix because of this."
* "Unlimited == None"
* "Peer pressure means that everyone works 52 weeks a year."
* "Without a PTO policy you can't cash out unused vacation. This is a rip off."
The thing I haven't seen in these statements are "I work at Netflix and this is what it is really like"...
Here we go - I work at Netflix (as an engineer) and this is what is really like:
* I'm pressured to take vacations.
* Managers are taught that they are examples to the teams therefore they must take regular vacations.
* I take more vacation now than I did when I had 2/3/4/5 weeks a year of stated, paid, vacation.
Questions I've answered about this:
* Does my team fall apart when someone leaves for 4 weeks? No. They're adults and they know how to prepare to be away for a while.
* People must raise their eyebrows at you when you leave! No.
* You get called all the time right so you keep your laptop with you on vacation? No. They're adults and they know how to get along without me for a while.
* You must do tons of extra work when people go on vacation! No. People don't just drop stuff and run. They prepare, get stuff ready, postpone things until they're back, etc.
* Managers must "encourage" you not to take vacations. Nope, opposite.
* You feel irresponsible taking time off then. No I don't.
* People must leave for months a time right? The policy gets really abused! No, stop it. Assuming the extreme case must be the common case is silly. You're smarter than that.
* This can't possibly be true. You're a liar/shill/idiot! Next.
* This doesn't/can't work at my company. Therefore, it can't work at yours! Netflix corporate culture is likely very different than your company. Take a look at the culture deck presentation.
Thanks for sharing an honest 1st party perspective.
Would you mind clarifying on:
>"I'm pressured to take vacations."
Is that as a result of the following bullet around managers being taught to be a good example? Or is it because the day-to-day is stressful and the average hours are not even close to 9-5 so the pressure to take vacation is to combat burnout? (Not saying that is actually the case at Netflix, but I've heard of other places where the day-to-day was miserable, so they forced vacation to prevent burnout vs. solving the root issue of reducing overall workload, promoting true work/life balance throughout a given week, etc.)
Honest question: why don't people just leave for months at a time? Is it because everyone understands that "unlimited" is actually "one month a year, more or less" or whatever the actual amount is?
> * I take more vacation now than I did when I had 2/3/4/5 weeks a year of stated, paid, vacation.
And how much is that?
When I worked at a BigCo (in Europe), our holidays amounted to around 10 weeks per year. Senior employees (with more than 10 years) would get even more (around 12). Which means you can take a week off every month. Now that is a lot of holidays. And these were enforced, you had to take all of these (for legal reasons, the company has to either pay the holidays to you, or force you to take them, and most of the time financial reasons dictate that it's better if they don't pay you).
This and other things have sold me into applying to netflix. However, looking at your job openings, EVERYTHING has "senior" on it or "director". Literally, go check it out: https://jobs.netflix.com/jobs
Does that mean I'm automatically disqualified because I am only just graduating college?
Doesn't Netflix already offer unlimited vacation? Parental leave isn't vacation, of course, but the cynic in me thinks this is another example of a case where a corporation can benevolently offer the moon while replying on peer pressure to ensure that no employee accepts what is on offer to anywhere near its fullest extent.
Does Netflix publish any stats about vacation usage?
Although the word "unlimited" gets thrown around in casual usage, of course no company is going to pay you forever if you never show up for a day of work. You've still got to get your job done at a high level perspective (say quarterly) but the idea is that management is not tracking every hour you show up to work or decide to take off; they're looking at results not attendance.
In that light I'm reading this as essentially setting the expectations bar very low, potentially to nothing, for a year.
Basically this policy and pretty much all of Netflix's policies come down to behaving like a professional and treating other people with the same expectations. If you lose that culture and either side starts to misbehave of course things could go very badly. But that culture is very important to Netflix and they are always working consciously to preserve it.
I haven't seen any official stats about vacation (as someone else pointed out, in order to do that they'd have to track it) but I've never known anyone to have a problem with it. I've seen quite a few people take 3 weeks or so at a time because they're going overseas, and in Silicon Valley that's pretty unheard of.
Disclaimer: I'm not a lawyer, I don't speak for the company, yada, yada. I'm just a rank and file employee interpreting what I know.
That's because I don't know of a single manager here who tracks vacation usage. There's a general allergy to doing that, because that can lead to trying to manage that number and then the 'unmetered vacation' is no longer so unmetered.
I suppose I could, for my people, try to find all the out of office notifications, but that'd be a silly level of effort.
(There's no consistent process across the board for dealing with vacations, but to the best of my knowledge the typical way this works -- and the way it works in my own group -- is that an engineer will at some point probably mention to me that they're taking days off casually. I try to make sure it's clear to them that they're not asking for permission, and then move on).
Does Netflix publish any stats about vacation usage?
I would love to see stats. I doubt they'll publish them. If people use less vacation than they used to (before the policy went into effect), then they would take a negative PR hit for it. If they used more than before, then it might encourage other employees to do the same.
I don't get all the backlash in these comments around the "unlimited" policies. Do any of the people opposing the unlimited policies have them in place at their own company?
I've had unlimited vacation at my last two companies. I've seen it abused as my previous employer but it's worked out great at my current job. I'm not "peer pressured" by my other coworkers like everyone here seems to think I would be. As long as I get my work done on time my manager let's me take a day off here and there for a long weekend. I tend to take friday's every once in a while for a weekend vacation. I'm leaving for 2.5 weeks pretty soon for an international vacation.
It's just easier on everyone. HR doesn't have to track how many days people are taking off and my manager and I don't spend time coordinating time off either. I simply put it in my calendar with enough notice and everyone is happy.
Why does everyone seem to think unlimited vacation forces people to "conform to peer pressure" and to work harder than they normally would?
I'm not "peer pressured" by my other coworkers like everyone here seems to think I would be. As long as I get my work done on time my manager let's me take a day off here and there for a long weekend.
The peer pressure is usually not explicit, it's implied by the ambiguity of the policy and the (unknown to you) true expectations from management. How do you know that your vacation time isn't secretly being counted against you? What if other people aren't comfortable taking it because they want a good performance review? This was definitely happening at the mid-size enterprise shop I used to work at where they couldn't wait to jump on the Unlimited PTO fad because they knew people would end up taking less. It's definitely anti-employee unless the company aggressively demonstrates that it's ok to take as much PTO as you like. With a more definite PTO policy, you don't have this issue as much.
Plus, it's just dumb and kind of insulting. It's not "unlimited," everyone knows that. Just set a reasonable policy so people don't have to guess.
I currently have unlimited PTO and the experience is great, and have family working somewhere that their boss pressures them to not take it.
My $.02 is that it is totally dependent on company culture as a whole. In my case, the company treats employees like responsible adults and pays them to get a job done, not fill a seat. It is an incredibly family-friendly company overall, and they really get the notion that "life happens" and that "family comes first."
As a result, I take time off when I need it, or work from home, or take a half day, or whatever. As such, I've found that I'm overall more productive, and when I'm just not feeling productive, I don't try to force myself to do work. I haven't had pressure, but that's also because I'm responsible with coverage, and effective in the outcomes of what I do.
I wouldn't be surprised if it came up as a discussion point if I was letting things fall through the cracks left and right. And that is the trade-off to this kind of policy. Basically, when there is a minimum, people take the days (especially if they don't roll-over). That is a healthy forcing mechanism. If things aren't going well, and you don't take the days, or are a workaholic (guilty), you might end up taking net fewer days.
By contrast, the relative I referenced has a manager that holds a double standard. It is fine if the manager takes whatever time they want, but if my relative wants to take time off, they get push back, despite being exceptionally good at their job and getting shit done.
That's broken IMHO, and speaks to larger cultural issues I've heard about that company.
Bottom line, I think these policies can work, but they are intrinsically tied to how a company treats their employees in general, and it can also be specific down to individual team culture.
I know a case of a manager who came into a situation like this from a much more "traditional" big company, and had trouble adjusting to their team working from home or taking frequent days off on short notice. It was alien to them. For the most part they let it slide, but they definitely pushed back some times which didn't go over well with the employees who expected the culture to be upheld.
> I'm glad to see paternity leave included and given equal weight to maternity. So many employers don't offer this important benefit.
Really? What employer doesn't offer family leave on equal terms? Certainly, this used to be quite common, but every place I've seen for many years has explicitly been equal.
This is dumb. As others have pointed out, all it does is use peer pressure to decide what the "proper amount" of Paternity Leave is. Netflix is probably such a pressure cooker that when people need to and want to take Paternity Leave, they won't take it for fear of upsetting the group and losing their jobs. Managers will abuse it just to keep productivity up.
Want to be a progressive company? Clearly define how long Paternity Leave is, make it generous, tell employees to take it and order managers not to harass employees that do. Don't do nebulous HR policies that just end up confusing people. Make it so that people can take a couple of 2 week vacations a year without worrying about their jobs, that would help too.
I don't think you know what you're talking about. As one who works for a company with an unlimited policy, I'm enjoying it, taking full advantage, and am getting things done.
This is a laudable policy and I truly respect Netflix for doing it. But the sad truth is that the people who need this most are those on minimum wage or less, or those treated as "contract workers" so their employer can keep an even bigger cut of profits (e.g. Uber).
In other words the Mathew Effect in our economy and society is further reinforced. The Mathew Effect is "the other invisible hand", except that it is insidious rather than virtuous. And unlike Adam Smith's invisible hand, it is most often ignored or trivialized, if not outright denied, by pure free-market adherents.
"The United States remains the only member of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, or OECD, that does not guarantee mothers any paid time off from work after the birth of a new child. (see Figure 1) In fact, the United States is one of only four countries in the world—along with Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Papua New Guinea—where workers do not have the right to paid maternity leave."
http://cdn.americanprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/I...
For the same reason it makes sense for everyone to collectively to pay for public schools, including those who do not have kids.
In places where population growth is not a concern, such as in the U.S. where birth and deaths are at equilibrium, those who have and raise children and do it at least reasonably well are producing positive externalities[1]. And the better the children are raised and educated, the more the positive[2]. Policies like Netflix's thus benefit society as a whole.
[2] The flip side is that when children are raised poorly, be it the fault of the parent or the society that sets the parent up for failure, it turns negative.
Basically this. Why not just be open about it - those who don't end up working for the 'top' companies are at a considerable disadvantage.
This gives the power to these big corporations to bully their way around in all sorts of ways. The ridiculous Google hiring process is just one example of this.
Because in a down economy where jobs are hard to come by and corporations take advantage of employees any which way they can, this results in people being forced to choose between having a kid or keeping their job.
Some see that as a form of slavery or extreme control, and they want the government to step in to prevent that.
Further, if companies didn't have to pay for that, that disproportionately means that lower-income workers may not be able to have kids while higher earners can because they can afford day care, only having one working parent, etc. That goes down a whole discrimination rabbit hole.
That said, while I am on the side of enforced maternity/paternity minimums, I respect that it is a complicated issue. For example, I wouldn't be surprised if this impacts the hiring of young women by startups. It wouldn't be entirely illogical to assume that a young woman has a higher likelihood of taking extended time off due to maternity leave. For an early-stage startup, that can be their death if a key employee leaves for several months.
In most countries (that you'd want to raise a family in), it is the job of the government to ensure employers make allowances for child rearing - an activity some consider indispensable.
This is what I think of Unlimited vacation or otherwise: There should first be a mandatory vacation time, then an unlimited option beyond this mandatory time. Plain and simple.
I would find a mandatory vacation to be intrusively big-brotherish and -- while I can't guarantee I wouldn't work at a place that required it -- it'd be an overall negative in my retention. I'm a fully-formed adult. How about letting me manage my time off?
> With this in mind, today we’re introducing an unlimited leave policy for new moms and dads that allows them to take off as much time as they want during the first year after a child’s birth or adoption.
(emphasis mine)
"Unlimited", as in "unlimited data until 1GB". Fascinating. What Netflix calls "unlimited" just means "normal" in a lot of Europe.
That seems great. Is there any protection from abuse? It seems that one could say "See you next year" with this and get a year-long vacation.
Is that accurate. Would that actually work? Is there any contract saying you won't take your year off and quit on your last day? OR is this all hinging on you getting a continued workload complete, and not just a year vacation.
Having a newborn is not a year long vacation. While it's possible that some employees could abuse a year of maternity/paternity leave by quitting after the one year term, I imagine this move will greatly increase company loyalty amongst new, potential and existing parents.
I have ten-month-old twins, and I took six weeks of paternity leave when they were born (I don't work for Netflix). And I love my kids to bits, but by that point, getting to come to work every day felt more like a vacation than being at home did.
Several people I know have taken care of newborns, and the idea that they were taking a "vacation" is ridiculous. It's a 24-hour-a-day sleep-deprivation-heavy job.
A year of maternity or paternity leave would be pretty reasonable, I think. Taking the full year would not be abuse, it would be following the letter of the policy.
In practice it's unlikely to be a problem. Step 1 is that you just avoid hiring people who aren't intrinsically motivated anyway. The rest pretty much takes care of itself.
just to reinforce the point: "United States is one of only four countries in the world—along with Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Papua New Guinea—where workers do not have the right to paid maternity leave."
How is this possible great USA?
The way this is going to pan out, is that the House Slaves and Tools who love to crab bucket and compete with others will not take any maternity/paternity leave, and politically push out those who would take a reasonable amount of leave.
To be fair, of course the others would still be paid during this, but they will have to move to another company and take a hit in reputation.
So in the end, this is either great news for people with crab bucket mentalities, or for everyone else, a great way to get a year-long severance while finding a better place to work.
ghughes|10 years ago
"Experience shows people perform better at work when they’re not worrying about home." People also perform better at work when they're not worrying about repercussions for being seen to abuse their "unlimited" leave.
haswell|10 years ago
This is probably an indication of other issues, but half of the team didn't realize there was a new policy, one team lead thought the guidance was "generally, this means about 3 weeks", the manager thought "generally, this means about 2 weeks", the actual policy states "generally, this means about 4 weeks".
It apparently simplifies things from a financial standpoint - not having PTO on the books, etc. but I'm of the opinion that it's a very anti-employee policy.
Edit: I very much agree with the "unlimited with a minimum" concept mentioned in the sibling comment. Without something like this, it's hard to see the policy as a real perk.
rezistik|10 years ago
Without a minimum people are reluctant to take time off from what I've seen and read.
userbinator|10 years ago
knicholes|10 years ago
macspoofing|10 years ago
pbreit|10 years ago
patmcguire|10 years ago
You can look at a vacation cap as the same thing, where having a cap really can cause people to use more than they would if it were just whatever they could negotiate.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price_ceiling#Price_ceilings_t...
epsylon|10 years ago
Your manager will give you yearly (or quarterly) objectives with 10 or 20 days of vacations in mind, so if you use your right to unlimited vacations to take more than that, you will most likely be off your target, and that will be reflected upon your pay raise at yearly review time.
A fixed (and high) number of holidays is the only way to go.
norea-armozel|10 years ago
InclinedPlane|10 years ago
jsprogrammer|10 years ago
Just take it at face value:
Why must words always have a hidden, contradictory meaning?caoilte|10 years ago
A better gimmick would be if Netflix picked one of the Nordics and announced that they were going to adopt all of the social policies provided by that country's government.
danudey|10 years ago
The industry average in the US is abysmal though. Yahoo 'doubled' theirs to 16 weeks, which is 1/3 of Canada's (and many other countries') legally mandated minimum. Taking double the industry average would still be abysmal by global standards.
Osmium|10 years ago
I'm sympathetic to your concerns, but this is still a good thing and–importantly–a very good step in the right direction.
Playing devil's advocate a little, but this "peer pressure" idea seems to come with paid vacation too. I think, to an extent, it's peoples own responsibility to resist this peer pressure, rather than the company's. I would always take paid vacation on principle, for example. If you don't want me to take it, don't offer it to me–and if you don't offer it to me, I'll take a job somewhere else, thank you. I'm quite happy for the quality of my work to be judged on its own merits. Which is not to say it's easy to do if you're working at a company with an entrenched culture of abusive expectations. But we only become complicit in it if we give into peer pressure rather than asserting our rights, no?
That said, I say this from the privileged position of living in a country where taking paid vacation is expected, so perhaps it's easy for me to say...
kelukelugames|10 years ago
mattbee|10 years ago
So, the conversation could be just "Hey manager as per the new policy, I would like to be a full-time mum / dad for the next 12 months; will you arrange cover for me?" Is that right, no questions asked?
If Netflix's "unlimited vacation" policy actually meant that, they surely wouldn't need to publish a _second_ "unlimited" parental leave policy as well?
CrankyFool|10 years ago
And then I'd backfill them. And when they got back, I'd have an extra engineer. Chances are by that point I'll be looking to expand the team anyway.
foldor|10 years ago
omarforgotpwd|10 years ago
Ah, unlimited for a year. So no taking 30 years off after your child is born then.
ars|10 years ago
That's simple - just keep having children. Time it right and you can take off permanently for decades.
izend|10 years ago
Retric|10 years ago
I suspect many of these simply end up as less formal polices. However, there are large benefits to allowing for extended leave which few Americans actually use. It’s bad enough that some companies require people to take at least 2 weeks off every year.
kethinov|10 years ago
adrice727|10 years ago
Osmium|10 years ago
[1] I say "some countries" but really it's only the United States and Papua New Guinea that haven't made it a legal requirement to have some form of paid maternity leave, among countries where data is available (e.g. North Korea isn't listed). Oman used to be in that list, but they left in 2011. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parental_leave and http://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---dgreports/---dcom...
icebraining|10 years ago
relix42|10 years ago
* "I'm suspicious of this."
* "No one takes any vacation at Netflix because of this."
* "Unlimited == None"
* "Peer pressure means that everyone works 52 weeks a year."
* "Without a PTO policy you can't cash out unused vacation. This is a rip off."
The thing I haven't seen in these statements are "I work at Netflix and this is what it is really like"...
Here we go - I work at Netflix (as an engineer) and this is what is really like:
* I'm pressured to take vacations.
* Managers are taught that they are examples to the teams therefore they must take regular vacations.
* I take more vacation now than I did when I had 2/3/4/5 weeks a year of stated, paid, vacation.
Questions I've answered about this: * Does my team fall apart when someone leaves for 4 weeks? No. They're adults and they know how to prepare to be away for a while.
* People must raise their eyebrows at you when you leave! No.
* You get called all the time right so you keep your laptop with you on vacation? No. They're adults and they know how to get along without me for a while.
* You must do tons of extra work when people go on vacation! No. People don't just drop stuff and run. They prepare, get stuff ready, postpone things until they're back, etc.
* Managers must "encourage" you not to take vacations. Nope, opposite.
* You feel irresponsible taking time off then. No I don't.
* People must leave for months a time right? The policy gets really abused! No, stop it. Assuming the extreme case must be the common case is silly. You're smarter than that.
* This can't possibly be true. You're a liar/shill/idiot! Next.
* This doesn't/can't work at my company. Therefore, it can't work at yours! Netflix corporate culture is likely very different than your company. Take a look at the culture deck presentation.
This type of policy likely can't work everywhere.
It may not work everywhere in the valley.
It does work here.
[edit] formatting fail
jms703|10 years ago
shostack|10 years ago
Would you mind clarifying on:
>"I'm pressured to take vacations."
Is that as a result of the following bullet around managers being taught to be a good example? Or is it because the day-to-day is stressful and the average hours are not even close to 9-5 so the pressure to take vacation is to combat burnout? (Not saying that is actually the case at Netflix, but I've heard of other places where the day-to-day was miserable, so they forced vacation to prevent burnout vs. solving the root issue of reducing overall workload, promoting true work/life balance throughout a given week, etc.)
mikeash|10 years ago
epsylon|10 years ago
And how much is that?
When I worked at a BigCo (in Europe), our holidays amounted to around 10 weeks per year. Senior employees (with more than 10 years) would get even more (around 12). Which means you can take a week off every month. Now that is a lot of holidays. And these were enforced, you had to take all of these (for legal reasons, the company has to either pay the holidays to you, or force you to take them, and most of the time financial reasons dictate that it's better if they don't pay you).
Does unlimited vacation cover that?
mrep|10 years ago
abalone|10 years ago
So, does that mean you take more than 5 weeks per year?
cscurmudgeon|10 years ago
Any Netflix-level stats?
cldellow|10 years ago
Does Netflix publish any stats about vacation usage?
svachalek|10 years ago
In that light I'm reading this as essentially setting the expectations bar very low, potentially to nothing, for a year.
Basically this policy and pretty much all of Netflix's policies come down to behaving like a professional and treating other people with the same expectations. If you lose that culture and either side starts to misbehave of course things could go very badly. But that culture is very important to Netflix and they are always working consciously to preserve it.
I haven't seen any official stats about vacation (as someone else pointed out, in order to do that they'd have to track it) but I've never known anyone to have a problem with it. I've seen quite a few people take 3 weeks or so at a time because they're going overseas, and in Silicon Valley that's pretty unheard of.
Disclaimer: I'm not a lawyer, I don't speak for the company, yada, yada. I'm just a rank and file employee interpreting what I know.
CrankyFool|10 years ago
We can't publish stats about vacation usage.
That's because I don't know of a single manager here who tracks vacation usage. There's a general allergy to doing that, because that can lead to trying to manage that number and then the 'unmetered vacation' is no longer so unmetered.
I suppose I could, for my people, try to find all the out of office notifications, but that'd be a silly level of effort.
(There's no consistent process across the board for dealing with vacations, but to the best of my knowledge the typical way this works -- and the way it works in my own group -- is that an engineer will at some point probably mention to me that they're taking days off casually. I try to make sure it's clear to them that they're not asking for permission, and then move on).
e40|10 years ago
I would love to see stats. I doubt they'll publish them. If people use less vacation than they used to (before the policy went into effect), then they would take a negative PR hit for it. If they used more than before, then it might encourage other employees to do the same.
giaour|10 years ago
dglass|10 years ago
I've had unlimited vacation at my last two companies. I've seen it abused as my previous employer but it's worked out great at my current job. I'm not "peer pressured" by my other coworkers like everyone here seems to think I would be. As long as I get my work done on time my manager let's me take a day off here and there for a long weekend. I tend to take friday's every once in a while for a weekend vacation. I'm leaving for 2.5 weeks pretty soon for an international vacation.
It's just easier on everyone. HR doesn't have to track how many days people are taking off and my manager and I don't spend time coordinating time off either. I simply put it in my calendar with enough notice and everyone is happy.
Why does everyone seem to think unlimited vacation forces people to "conform to peer pressure" and to work harder than they normally would?
resu_nimda|10 years ago
The peer pressure is usually not explicit, it's implied by the ambiguity of the policy and the (unknown to you) true expectations from management. How do you know that your vacation time isn't secretly being counted against you? What if other people aren't comfortable taking it because they want a good performance review? This was definitely happening at the mid-size enterprise shop I used to work at where they couldn't wait to jump on the Unlimited PTO fad because they knew people would end up taking less. It's definitely anti-employee unless the company aggressively demonstrates that it's ok to take as much PTO as you like. With a more definite PTO policy, you don't have this issue as much.
Plus, it's just dumb and kind of insulting. It's not "unlimited," everyone knows that. Just set a reasonable policy so people don't have to guess.
s0uthPaw88|10 years ago
1. http://www.paperplanes.de/2014/12/10/from-open-to-minimum-va...
2. http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2015/07/14/unlimited_vac...
shostack|10 years ago
My $.02 is that it is totally dependent on company culture as a whole. In my case, the company treats employees like responsible adults and pays them to get a job done, not fill a seat. It is an incredibly family-friendly company overall, and they really get the notion that "life happens" and that "family comes first."
As a result, I take time off when I need it, or work from home, or take a half day, or whatever. As such, I've found that I'm overall more productive, and when I'm just not feeling productive, I don't try to force myself to do work. I haven't had pressure, but that's also because I'm responsible with coverage, and effective in the outcomes of what I do.
I wouldn't be surprised if it came up as a discussion point if I was letting things fall through the cracks left and right. And that is the trade-off to this kind of policy. Basically, when there is a minimum, people take the days (especially if they don't roll-over). That is a healthy forcing mechanism. If things aren't going well, and you don't take the days, or are a workaholic (guilty), you might end up taking net fewer days.
By contrast, the relative I referenced has a manager that holds a double standard. It is fine if the manager takes whatever time they want, but if my relative wants to take time off, they get push back, despite being exceptionally good at their job and getting shit done.
That's broken IMHO, and speaks to larger cultural issues I've heard about that company.
Bottom line, I think these policies can work, but they are intrinsically tied to how a company treats their employees in general, and it can also be specific down to individual team culture.
I know a case of a manager who came into a situation like this from a much more "traditional" big company, and had trouble adjusting to their team working from home or taking frequent days off on short notice. It was alien to them. For the most part they let it slide, but they definitely pushed back some times which didn't go over well with the employees who expected the culture to be upheld.
hughes|10 years ago
dragonwriter|10 years ago
Really? What employer doesn't offer family leave on equal terms? Certainly, this used to be quite common, but every place I've seen for many years has explicitly been equal.
mullen|10 years ago
Want to be a progressive company? Clearly define how long Paternity Leave is, make it generous, tell employees to take it and order managers not to harass employees that do. Don't do nebulous HR policies that just end up confusing people. Make it so that people can take a couple of 2 week vacations a year without worrying about their jobs, that would help too.
dglass|10 years ago
All you're doing is speculating. If people don't like these policies then they have the power to leave.
jms703|10 years ago
eevilspock|10 years ago
In other words the Mathew Effect in our economy and society is further reinforced. The Mathew Effect is "the other invisible hand", except that it is insidious rather than virtuous. And unlike Adam Smith's invisible hand, it is most often ignored or trivialized, if not outright denied, by pure free-market adherents.
SweetPotato|10 years ago
"The United States remains the only member of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, or OECD, that does not guarantee mothers any paid time off from work after the birth of a new child. (see Figure 1) In fact, the United States is one of only four countries in the world—along with Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Papua New Guinea—where workers do not have the right to paid maternity leave." http://cdn.americanprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/I...
aianus|10 years ago
Why not just pay everyone more and those who want children can use the extra to save up to take a year off work?
eevilspock|10 years ago
In places where population growth is not a concern, such as in the U.S. where birth and deaths are at equilibrium, those who have and raise children and do it at least reasonably well are producing positive externalities[1]. And the better the children are raised and educated, the more the positive[2]. Policies like Netflix's thus benefit society as a whole.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Externality#Positive
[2] The flip side is that when children are raised poorly, be it the fault of the parent or the society that sets the parent up for failure, it turns negative.
alexashka|10 years ago
Basically this. Why not just be open about it - those who don't end up working for the 'top' companies are at a considerable disadvantage.
This gives the power to these big corporations to bully their way around in all sorts of ways. The ridiculous Google hiring process is just one example of this.
shostack|10 years ago
Some see that as a form of slavery or extreme control, and they want the government to step in to prevent that.
Further, if companies didn't have to pay for that, that disproportionately means that lower-income workers may not be able to have kids while higher earners can because they can afford day care, only having one working parent, etc. That goes down a whole discrimination rabbit hole.
That said, while I am on the side of enforced maternity/paternity minimums, I respect that it is a complicated issue. For example, I wouldn't be surprised if this impacts the hiring of young women by startups. It wouldn't be entirely illogical to assume that a young woman has a higher likelihood of taking extended time off due to maternity leave. For an early-stage startup, that can be their death if a key employee leaves for several months.
phil248|10 years ago
ambicapter|10 years ago
lowglow|10 years ago
CrankyFool|10 years ago
tomp|10 years ago
(emphasis mine)
"Unlimited", as in "unlimited data until 1GB". Fascinating. What Netflix calls "unlimited" just means "normal" in a lot of Europe.
ejcx|10 years ago
Is that accurate. Would that actually work? Is there any contract saying you won't take your year off and quit on your last day? OR is this all hinging on you getting a continued workload complete, and not just a year vacation.
ryoshu|10 years ago
rayiner|10 years ago
LOL. Going to work is a vacation compared to taking care of an infant.
endtime|10 years ago
JoshTriplett|10 years ago
rquantz|10 years ago
InclinedPlane|10 years ago
SweetPotato|10 years ago
unknown|10 years ago
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exacube|10 years ago
swuecho|10 years ago
quietplatypus|10 years ago
To be fair, of course the others would still be paid during this, but they will have to move to another company and take a hit in reputation.
So in the end, this is either great news for people with crab bucket mentalities, or for everyone else, a great way to get a year-long severance while finding a better place to work.