With Microsoft moving away from formal PTO tracking to DTO (discretionary time off), so I was wondering what others have experienced and think of working at a company without formal time off tracking.
I have someone on my team who took 12 weeks PTO last year, yet still created outsized value for the company.
I have someone who we lured to the team by offering 4 weeks off in the first 2 months of his employment so he could do a pre-planned trip. Didn't require any special approvals because it's just an SOP.
I have someone who regularly takes 2-3 days off every month, because he works in concentrated bursts of energy, then needs to decompress.
And of course, I have one person who NEVER takes time off, because they always have so much to do and are afraid to let a ball drop. This leads to overwhelm, and a ball drops anyhow. So I need to force them to take time off.
As with all things, it's not just the mechanism, but the environment that mechanism exists within. It needs to be deployed alongside strong accountability mechanisms - planning, goaling, 1:1s, team health assessments, and performance reviews - otherwise it can be abused, or it can be hard to say 'no' to a request, or it can be hard to know when people aren't taking time they need.
> I have someone on my team who took 12 weeks PTO last year, yet still created outsized value for the company.
Hypothetically, what if this individual was taking 12 weeks PTO and were underperforming? Would your business encourage them to take less leave next year to perform better? How much leave would be 'too much' for them to get back on track?
The thing is all of that requires a lot of trust in both directions, as you pretty much said. If I am a candidate for your company, how do I know that trust is there?
Recently I interviewed for a company which had unlimited PTO. They marketted this to me as some fantastic perk, and then when I got the contract they had a clause which said that they ask people to only take 'reasonable' amounts of time off. I asked them to define what is 'reasonable' and they could not. At that point, all of my red flags were waving and I walked away.
> When you leave a company with PTO where you worked your ass off and never took any vacation, you're cut a check for that unused PTO.
This is objectively false for most of the United States. Plenty of states do not require this, and plenty more have loopholes that allow employers to avoid paying out PTO if specified in the employment agreement.
It's also the case that PTO is always capped. So you are forced to use it, meaning the maximum amount you could be paid out is a fairly small fixed amount. Unused PTO above the cap is literally wasted, and used PTO is already part of your salary.
Where I work, if I don't use a certain percentage of my earned PTO by Dec 31, it just goes away. They don't cut me a check for it.
I think I'd get paid for unused PTO if I quit or was fired, but I couldn't accumulate more than something like 5 weeks worth.
I'd love to work for a company that had both unlimited and required PTO. If you don't take enough days off for say six months, they force you to take a week or two off.
If you use all your PTO there really is no difference though, so I guess if you're the kind of person who burns through all their available PTO, I would not consider a Unlimited PTO employer a bad deal. Some of the agencies I work with at my job, they have unlimited PTO, we only found out because one of my managers noticed one particular person had a lot of PTO they ran through last year.
Unlimited PTO, is in my opinion a scam to make sure the unused PTO does not accrue as a liability on the books and has dubious value to employees. At least in states that require payout of unused PTO when you leave.
In most cases it is dependent on the managers approval as well so it rarely ever (again, anecdotally based on my experiences) results in more PTO that you would have had and often results in less.
It also creates a bit of a situation internally where people feel guilty or are shamed (sometimes even by other peers not managers) for using too much.
On the flip side, at least you don't have that "I don't want to use my PTO incase there is an emergency" and "I'll go in sick to avoid using a sick day" effect.
On this note though...
> of working at a company without formal time off tracking.
No company doesn't have formal tracking. They are most certainly tracking it closely. There just isn't a defined ceiling in the system.
Disclaimer: I'm a bit biased since it bit me. My employer switched to unlimited PTO without warning and previously had all the vacation days accrue on Jan 1st (and no carry-over) so literally if I left Dec 31st I would have gotten paid out 4 weeks (since I barely took any time off this year) but I left after the policy took effect so I didn't get paid anything. So I'm a bit bitter.
I once worked at a place that transitioned from formal PTO to "unlimited" PTO. Many of us had accrued a good chunk of time on the old system, and the rules of the old system was that it carried year after year. When "unlimited" PTO was implemented, management decided not to reimburse us for our accrued time, since "it was all now covered by 'unlimited'" and so we didn't technically "lose" any time. Didn't feel right, but I didn't know how to voice it at the time.
See [1]. If you lived in a state that pays out money for unused PTO, then that transition didn't feel right to you because the company failed to pay compensation you earned.
I once worked at a place that went the opposite way -- "unlimited" PTO often translated to "nobody was taking time off and everyone was burning out", so there was a move to a "soft" (eg: you could take up to 2x your annual allotment without penalty and without requiring any extra approvals) limited PTO.
It worked, more people took time off and there was less burnout+turnover.
My first "real" job in software was at a startup with unlimited PTO. In my experience what this meant was that the rank-and-file engineers took no time off while management would be out of the office for months at a time.
same experience. the only person who used it in earnest was the head of HR. For lower tier employees it was much worse than a given X number of days - they had to request the time off from their manager and could (and were) denied taking time off.
Unlimited PTO is a negative signal to me honestly, and would put me off a job.
The open-ended nature of “unlimited” makes me think it really means “guilt-based” time off, skewing to less time than I might take if it was included in a contract.
Have only recently started considering employed work again after many years of freelance and contract work and it’s made me really cold on the idea simply because it smells of more of the bullquick I wanted to get away from in the first place.
> Unlimited PTO is a negative signal to me honestly, and would put me off a job.
This is exactly my experience. The last company I worked for with unlimited PTO did everything to prevent folks from using it.
It's one of many negative signals I look for. I interviewed at a firm once that was proud that their cafeteria offered "free breakfast, lunch, and dinner", which sounded great until you realized they expected all employees would be working there through breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
Others have noted the risks involved with unlimited PTO, but FWIW, I have been able to enjoy this perk at my current job. This is just to say that there exists at least one place that does it "right", and it's a rather great thing. I took 6 weeks off last summer, in addition to a week off for Christmas and another for Easter. I work remotely for a SV startup.
I should note that I'm definitely right-of-the-bell-curve on this. I very intentionally decided to enjoy the perk. My employer was cool about it, but I suspect it's because my productivity is also above average.
I should also mention that I think this long vacation time does wonders for my productivity on the job, and that most Americans I've encountered under-estimate both the extent to which disconnecting from work is important, and how long it takes to truly disconnect.
In sum, I think unlimited PTO can be an incredible perk, but you have to pay very careful attention to the company culture, and be prepared to leave if it's not what you expected.
It's a money-thing more than it's a wellness-thing. Overall, it's good for employers and bad for employees.
With traditional PTO accrual, employees get a payout of all unused PTO when they leave the company. It's expensive for the employer, and they also have to carry all of that PTO on their balance-sheet as a liability.
Under unlimited PTO, most employees take the same amount of vacation as they do under traditional PTO. So no difference there. But when the employee leaves, the employer doesn't have to pay out the remaining PTO balance.
Also: it's only unlimited until it isn't. You can hit invisible/unofficial limits without knowing it.
Seems like a bad idea to me. There are many people (myself included) who forget to take vacation time or never feel like it's a good time to take it. Short term, that's probably good for the company, but it can lead to burnout. Good managers insist that people use their PTO if only to keep highly valued people from suddenly snapping under their workload. There are, on the other hand, people who jealously guard their time off. Giving them unlimited time just sets them up for conflicts with management because there is no pre-agreed upon notion of what is fair.
* your team is doing the same/is not resentful, and
* your signifiant other is also ok with it
then it's pretty great.
Kids ill? Day off. Have a big trip planned to far away? You can now stay longer, and don't need to sacrifice e.g. Thanksgiving or Christmas. Moving house? Days off. Etc.
Anecdotally, productivity is up on teams I've been on with DTO. Everyone is just more rested, relaxed, and ready.
Or live in a country that by law paid leave for sickness (yours or your kids) and vacations (I have 35 days off a year… and I am obliged to take them all)!
As others have said, unlimited PTO ultimately means that it's up to the manager to determine if you can take days off. This places 100% of the burden on the manager to be the 'bad guy' who has to say no to a request, thus building in an unnecessary opportunity for conflict into that relationship. There's also a burden on the employee making the request to somehow know if they've taken the right amount of vacation.
PTO is one of those things where, to misuse the quote, 'good fences make good neighbors.' A reasonable set of requirements and limits can reduce the guesswork, preserve relationships, and make it so people actually use their PTO.
At first glance it makes sense financially to a business. Reduced liability on the books.
It puts the discussion of time off between a person and their manager. This can be good for those that have a good working professional relationship with their good professional manager. This can be contentious for people that barely get along with their manager and some people may end up never taking time off leading to a build up of stress, burn-out, risk of people snapping and potentially ending up in the news. I believe that could be a financial liability as well.
It always seemed that you take less vacation with unlimited PTO. With set PTO there is an incentive to take it as at least where I have worked in the past, it's use it or lose it, no roll over. With unlimited there is always a fire that you have to put out and no time for PTO. This could also just be me not putting my foot down in the past and taking it. In my current job I have 5 weeks of vacation and I take 5 weeks off. Plus 2 weeks of sick time but I really only use a couple days a year of that which is fine.
Last year was my first year having unlimited PTO. The number of PTO days I used was a whopping 6.
The year before the last, I had 15 working days of vacation per year and I could use any unused days up until the end of June the next year. So, I could take a 4-5 week vacation time every other year. This was useful as my home is across the Atlantic and visiting for 10 days doesn't really make much sense.
This year, my second unlimited PTO year, I want to go back and visit friends. But I am afraid, if I tell them I am gonna be off for 5 weeks, it is not gonna sit well. So I will end up taking 2 weeks off and will work my ass off from half a planet away, for the rest of my visit.
In my opinion. unlimited PTO is a ploy for the employers to prevent employees from accruing too much PTO time, which will end up making them either pay for those days or force the employee to take time off, sacrificing productivity.
If your HR seems to establish a new policy which looms like it is employee centric, look closely and you will find the hidden agenda, benefitting the company, not the employee. Kust like this unlimited PTO bullcrap.
Call me a cynic if you will...
I always felt uncertain how much PTO was "okay" to take.
My manager kept saying I could take time off whenever I wanted to, but the hurried pace of the team left me feeling like that wasn't really true.
And it's obvious there are limits in there somewhere. I probably couldn't take off every Friday, or take off a week every month. Where's the line? The uncertainty is what killed me.
Leveraging unlimited PTO confidently requires being adept at understanding the social situation around you - how will your team and manager feel if you keep requesting more and more time off?
I wound up taking as little time as I could because I couldn't tell what I was entitled to. I took my cue of what I could do from the people around me, and they weren't taking PTO very often.
I felt better in workplaces where the PTO rules are clear. It makes me feel entitled to take a given amount of time off, and gives me the confidence to request what I need without worrying about whether it's within the unspecified bounds of appropriateness.
There are some places that really do mean it when they say unlimited, but evidence suggests that is rare. Most often when people have "unlimited" PTO what they actually have is anxiety about how much PTO they can get away with. Companies that have unlimited PTO policies see employees using less overall PTO than companies that have a guaranteed set amount.
There's also the scam of not having to pay people who leave the company for their unused PTO.
Personally, I refuse to take jobs without a set amount of PTO, unless there is some other huge benefit to make up for that. During negotiations I press hard for as much guaranteed PTO as I can. Currently working 4-days a week. That's a lot better than some vague promise of no limits.
Defined PTO is easy to turn into "use it or lose it" which effectively forces people to take time off, which is a major issue in the US - people need to take their allotted time! The best system would be one where once you hit "lose it" you start getting cash instead, but that would cause other weird incentives.
You then have managers that are flexible with your defined PTO, and let you "go negative" a certain amount. As long as people don't abuse it, it works well. Some companies "dump" your year's allotment of PTO on Jan 1 so you can work it down instead, same idea.
Usually when a company is moving from PTO to DTO they are just trying to get the liability off the books. Management knows that most employees, especially new hires, don't take all of their days. It does nothing to help employees but that is how it is pitched.
If employees were actually utilizing unlimited DTO the company would switch back to accrued PTO. I've seen this happen with an explicit claim that employees were "abusing" the generosity of the company. Said company later switched back to DTO to force employees a few years later to burn down their accrued PTO balances.
Unlimited PTO is great when the culture supports it. In the past few jobs I have worked at it has been great, but it is biased because I have worked as an executive at these companies.
What it means to me:
- Teams and expectations are oriented such that randomly needing to do things during the day is fine
- You don't ask to take PTO. You inform people when you will be unavailable. With some notice. But there's no approval process.
I haven't seen people abuse this; it's not like people take 8 weeks off randomly in the middle of a release. I guess they could.
[+] [-] mgdev|3 years ago|reply
I have someone who we lured to the team by offering 4 weeks off in the first 2 months of his employment so he could do a pre-planned trip. Didn't require any special approvals because it's just an SOP.
I have someone who regularly takes 2-3 days off every month, because he works in concentrated bursts of energy, then needs to decompress.
And of course, I have one person who NEVER takes time off, because they always have so much to do and are afraid to let a ball drop. This leads to overwhelm, and a ball drops anyhow. So I need to force them to take time off.
As with all things, it's not just the mechanism, but the environment that mechanism exists within. It needs to be deployed alongside strong accountability mechanisms - planning, goaling, 1:1s, team health assessments, and performance reviews - otherwise it can be abused, or it can be hard to say 'no' to a request, or it can be hard to know when people aren't taking time they need.
But if you've done that, it's an incredible tool.
[+] [-] andrewljohnson|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] morbia|3 years ago|reply
Hypothetically, what if this individual was taking 12 weeks PTO and were underperforming? Would your business encourage them to take less leave next year to perform better? How much leave would be 'too much' for them to get back on track?
The thing is all of that requires a lot of trust in both directions, as you pretty much said. If I am a candidate for your company, how do I know that trust is there?
Recently I interviewed for a company which had unlimited PTO. They marketted this to me as some fantastic perk, and then when I got the contract they had a clause which said that they ask people to only take 'reasonable' amounts of time off. I asked them to define what is 'reasonable' and they could not. At that point, all of my red flags were waving and I walked away.
[+] [-] bb88|3 years ago|reply
1. How to actually manage people.
Snarky I admit, but in 2023 this is a true statement for a lot of people.
The point is that good tools in the hand of bad managers can be used for oppressive behavior and not as a means of reward. This is one of them.
[+] [-] Jugurtha|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] pengaru|3 years ago|reply
"Unlimited PTO" is PR-style spin on the loss of that compensation; you're being fleeced by your employer.
When you leave a company with PTO where you worked your ass off and never took any vacation, you're cut a check for that unused PTO.
When you leave a company with "unlimited PTO" after doing the same, you get nothing.
Edit: according to some comments, this is state-specific. The above applies to CA.
[+] [-] bastawhiz|3 years ago|reply
This is objectively false for most of the United States. Plenty of states do not require this, and plenty more have loopholes that allow employers to avoid paying out PTO if specified in the employment agreement.
It's also the case that PTO is always capped. So you are forced to use it, meaning the maximum amount you could be paid out is a fairly small fixed amount. Unused PTO above the cap is literally wasted, and used PTO is already part of your salary.
[+] [-] lucky_cloud|3 years ago|reply
I think I'd get paid for unused PTO if I quit or was fired, but I couldn't accumulate more than something like 5 weeks worth.
I'd love to work for a company that had both unlimited and required PTO. If you don't take enough days off for say six months, they force you to take a week or two off.
[+] [-] silisili|3 years ago|reply
About 2 years later, they decided to flip us to 'unlimited PTO' and put that typical HR BS spin on it.
That was the last straw for me, after a couple other little 'f u' changes (once a year 401k match, for example). Cashed out my PTO and went elsewhere.
[+] [-] david38|3 years ago|reply
It also prevents everyone taking off at the end of the year. They didn’t stockpile vacation because they didn’t need to acrue it.
[+] [-] kube-system|3 years ago|reply
Only 5 states require this. Most states allow companies to choose what to do with unused PTO, and many, (surprise!) choose not to pay it out.
[+] [-] giancarlostoro|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rednerrus|3 years ago|reply
The benefit of unlimited PTO (FTO) is only a benefit if you take it.
I've had FTO for the last five years and I will never go back to 15/20 days of PTO.
[+] [-] price456987|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] throwaway2016a|3 years ago|reply
In most cases it is dependent on the managers approval as well so it rarely ever (again, anecdotally based on my experiences) results in more PTO that you would have had and often results in less.
It also creates a bit of a situation internally where people feel guilty or are shamed (sometimes even by other peers not managers) for using too much.
On the flip side, at least you don't have that "I don't want to use my PTO incase there is an emergency" and "I'll go in sick to avoid using a sick day" effect.
On this note though...
> of working at a company without formal time off tracking.
No company doesn't have formal tracking. They are most certainly tracking it closely. There just isn't a defined ceiling in the system.
Disclaimer: I'm a bit biased since it bit me. My employer switched to unlimited PTO without warning and previously had all the vacation days accrue on Jan 1st (and no carry-over) so literally if I left Dec 31st I would have gotten paid out 4 weeks (since I barely took any time off this year) but I left after the policy took effect so I didn't get paid anything. So I'm a bit bitter.
[+] [-] mshake2|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ryandrake|3 years ago|reply
1: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34340973
[+] [-] ascagnel_|3 years ago|reply
It worked, more people took time off and there was less burnout+turnover.
[+] [-] faefox|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tekstar|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] highwaylights|3 years ago|reply
The open-ended nature of “unlimited” makes me think it really means “guilt-based” time off, skewing to less time than I might take if it was included in a contract.
Have only recently started considering employed work again after many years of freelance and contract work and it’s made me really cold on the idea simply because it smells of more of the bullquick I wanted to get away from in the first place.
[+] [-] null0ranje|3 years ago|reply
This is exactly my experience. The last company I worked for with unlimited PTO did everything to prevent folks from using it.
It's one of many negative signals I look for. I interviewed at a firm once that was proud that their cafeteria offered "free breakfast, lunch, and dinner", which sounded great until you realized they expected all employees would be working there through breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
[+] [-] omginternets|3 years ago|reply
I should note that I'm definitely right-of-the-bell-curve on this. I very intentionally decided to enjoy the perk. My employer was cool about it, but I suspect it's because my productivity is also above average.
I should also mention that I think this long vacation time does wonders for my productivity on the job, and that most Americans I've encountered under-estimate both the extent to which disconnecting from work is important, and how long it takes to truly disconnect.
In sum, I think unlimited PTO can be an incredible perk, but you have to pay very careful attention to the company culture, and be prepared to leave if it's not what you expected.
[+] [-] pjc50|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nrclark|3 years ago|reply
With traditional PTO accrual, employees get a payout of all unused PTO when they leave the company. It's expensive for the employer, and they also have to carry all of that PTO on their balance-sheet as a liability.
Under unlimited PTO, most employees take the same amount of vacation as they do under traditional PTO. So no difference there. But when the employee leaves, the employer doesn't have to pay out the remaining PTO balance.
Also: it's only unlimited until it isn't. You can hit invisible/unofficial limits without knowing it.
[+] [-] seti0Cha|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] guitarbill|3 years ago|reply
* you can take enough time off by yourself, and
* your team is doing the same/is not resentful, and
* your signifiant other is also ok with it
then it's pretty great.
Kids ill? Day off. Have a big trip planned to far away? You can now stay longer, and don't need to sacrifice e.g. Thanksgiving or Christmas. Moving house? Days off. Etc.
Anecdotally, productivity is up on teams I've been on with DTO. Everyone is just more rested, relaxed, and ready.
[+] [-] freedom2099|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gumptionary|3 years ago|reply
PTO is one of those things where, to misuse the quote, 'good fences make good neighbors.' A reasonable set of requirements and limits can reduce the guesswork, preserve relationships, and make it so people actually use their PTO.
[+] [-] LinuxBender|3 years ago|reply
It puts the discussion of time off between a person and their manager. This can be good for those that have a good working professional relationship with their good professional manager. This can be contentious for people that barely get along with their manager and some people may end up never taking time off leading to a build up of stress, burn-out, risk of people snapping and potentially ending up in the news. I believe that could be a financial liability as well.
[+] [-] wonderwonder|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] SecurityMinded|3 years ago|reply
[+] [-] spiffytech|3 years ago|reply
My manager kept saying I could take time off whenever I wanted to, but the hurried pace of the team left me feeling like that wasn't really true.
And it's obvious there are limits in there somewhere. I probably couldn't take off every Friday, or take off a week every month. Where's the line? The uncertainty is what killed me.
Leveraging unlimited PTO confidently requires being adept at understanding the social situation around you - how will your team and manager feel if you keep requesting more and more time off?
I wound up taking as little time as I could because I couldn't tell what I was entitled to. I took my cue of what I could do from the people around me, and they weren't taking PTO very often.
I felt better in workplaces where the PTO rules are clear. It makes me feel entitled to take a given amount of time off, and gives me the confidence to request what I need without worrying about whether it's within the unspecified bounds of appropriateness.
[+] [-] Apreche|3 years ago|reply
There's also the scam of not having to pay people who leave the company for their unused PTO.
Personally, I refuse to take jobs without a set amount of PTO, unless there is some other huge benefit to make up for that. During negotiations I press hard for as much guaranteed PTO as I can. Currently working 4-days a week. That's a lot better than some vague promise of no limits.
[+] [-] bombcar|3 years ago|reply
Defined PTO is easy to turn into "use it or lose it" which effectively forces people to take time off, which is a major issue in the US - people need to take their allotted time! The best system would be one where once you hit "lose it" you start getting cash instead, but that would cause other weird incentives.
You then have managers that are flexible with your defined PTO, and let you "go negative" a certain amount. As long as people don't abuse it, it works well. Some companies "dump" your year's allotment of PTO on Jan 1 so you can work it down instead, same idea.
[+] [-] starlust2|3 years ago|reply
If employees were actually utilizing unlimited DTO the company would switch back to accrued PTO. I've seen this happen with an explicit claim that employees were "abusing" the generosity of the company. Said company later switched back to DTO to force employees a few years later to burn down their accrued PTO balances.
[+] [-] nickstinemates|3 years ago|reply
What it means to me: - Teams and expectations are oriented such that randomly needing to do things during the day is fine
- You don't ask to take PTO. You inform people when you will be unavailable. With some notice. But there's no approval process.
I haven't seen people abuse this; it's not like people take 8 weeks off randomly in the middle of a release. I guess they could.